Customer Reviews

Nightmare House

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4 star:		(6)
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2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

The novel Nightmare House succeeded for me (and I hope for you too) on many levels. I would like to share with you two of them.
First, Setting: The reader is immediately and constantly aware of time and place. Ethan's travels to Harrow through the villages and along the road. The grand tour of Harrow, through its many levels, seen and unseen. The reminders that this was a more simple time - gas lights, unpaved roads, a constable that arrived on bike.
Second, Realism: Now, that may sound funny when reviewing a horror novel, but I'll have to say that when I read this novel, I did not once say to myself, "No way - that makes no sense at all." The story flowed well and made sense. I felt as though I could put myself in Ethan's place and experience it this in the "real" world and not be surprised. Life is full of mysteries and the answers to what happens in the infinite have been faith-based and if you believe in good, you must also believe in evil. The afterlife has never been defined, only interpreted. Ethan's experiences in the Nightmare House kept me glued to the story and my fingers turning the pages.

This is one of those novels that I just didn't want to put down and wished would never end. Douglas Clegg is truly a master of horror fiction. He knows how to strike the chords of terror within the human mind without the crutches of butchery and gore. His eloquent writing style captivates the senses in such a way you can almost feel, see, hear and taste his every word. Whether this makes any sense at all, I can best describe this novel as terrifyingly beautiful and that I was beautifully terrified.

The year is 1926, and Ethan Gravesend has just inherited Harrow House -- the Watch Point, New York, home of his grandfather Justin Gravesend (who tells the story of his own early years in The Necromancer). Called Nightmare House by the local newspapers because of the events that have taken place under its roof, it is also said that every stone, every piece of glass, of this English-style manor castle was chosen specifically by Justin with full knowledge of its history and possible black-magical effects.

"Harrow, you belong to me," Ethan proclaims upon his arrival. "But I was to learn," the elder Ethan notes in the telling of this story from the present day, "that this house belonged to no man." However, Ethan feels as if he has come home at last. He used to visit Harrow in his youth, but his parents kept him away except for those rare visits, though he would dream of it at night.

Newly single, Ethan is prepared to settle in to his newly acquired wealth and status -- until the dead woman is discovered in the secret walled-off room. Accompanied by chief of police Pocket and local boy Alf, other frightening events are to come (during what the elder Ethan calls a "night of mystery") that will cause him to wonder what exactly his grandfather has let loose in Harrow. But these events will pale in comparison to the new information he discovers about his family.

Author Douglas Clegg has said that Nightmare House is his version of the "quiet ghost story" -- in fact, each Harrow novel reflects a favored literary style of his. Clegg leaps around from first-person to third-person, past to present, with confidence, and he never misses a step. Reader Michael Taylor (from Books in Motion, the audio publisher who produced this edition) follows along gamely. Taylor's friendly baritone eases the listener into the strange happenings like a kindly uncle telling a spooky story before the fire. He also shows a surprising facility with voices that I would have thought out of his range. I especially enjoyed Taylor's characterization of Pocket; Clegg gives Pocket a lot of space to maneuver as a supporting character, even allowing him to tell his own side of the story, and Taylor gives him a dose of extra personality.

My first Harrow novel was through 2005's The Abandoned, which I did not enjoy for various reasons, but one of those may have been my lack of knowledge regarding the house and its background. (Clegg says you can read the series in any order, but that one may be the exception.) Nightmare House filled me in wonderfully, and I may have to give the other another try. This first novel of Harrow House and its surrounding history and happenings was wholly satisfying, and it has made me look forward to reading the other entries in the series. In fact, as soon as I finished listening to it, I picked up The Necromancer and read it in two sittings. These have reaffirmed my confidence both in Clegg and in Harrow, and now I am eager to acquire a copies of the other Harrow stories. And if they are also released on audio of this quality, that will be even better.

Nightmare House takes you back to the days of horror before "blood and gore" were necessary to scare the pants off you. A very simple haunted house story that grips you from the first page and leaves you breathless at the end. Clegg takes the simple story and adds twists along the way to make it hard to put this book down. The best thing about Nightmare House though is that is it not done, the story of Harrow House is further explored in Mischief and The Infinite.

It has been a long time since I have read horror like this. Clegg has returned to the true roots of horror and maybe he will never return.

I love horror fiction, especially haunted house horror fiction. Until recently, my favorite of these was Richard Matheson's Legend of Hell House. But with the publication of Nightmare House, Douglas Clegg's Harrow has replaced my previous fave. Nightmare House ties together pieces of his previous novels Mischief and The Infinite by describing some of the background of this fiendishly designed house. I loved his straightforward writing style so much, that once I had finished Nightmare House I purchased six more Douglas Clegg paperbacks to read over the summer. He has an imagination to rival Clive Barker at his most hellish. I'd still like to see another book on Harrow from the standpoint of the builder, the grandfather of Nightmare House's narrator. I want to really understand the design of the house, and also try to explore the evil/innocent dichotomy of the narrator's sister. I want to crawl around in Harrow and explore until all of my questions are answered. Nightmare House does answer a lot, though. I highly recommend this book, and basically anything by Douglas Clegg.

Douglas Clegg never ceases to amaze me. With each book he writes, he explores either suspense or supernatural horror in a way that both reaffirms its traditions and goes a step further.

Nightmare House is a direct hit on the old-fashioned stories of hauntings and ghostly visitations from the late 19th and early 20th century, but with some major twists. Set in the mid-1920s, Nightmare House begins as a tale of inheritance: a man at the ledge of youth and middle-age inherits his grandfather's sprawling mansion called Harrow.

But when he enters the house, he isn't prepared for its puzzle-box of mysteries and secrets, and its occult past, which determined the terrors within.

The real brilliance of this novel is that Clegg manages to explore the psyche of a man turned bad, who once believed himself good. For horror lovers, this book has exorcisms, living burial, hidden rooms of arcana and artifact. There's a tale of a man who so wanted to hide a scandal of his life that he destroyed someone else's life to keep the secret, and in doing so he creates a hidden world.

It never goes over-the-top. Clegg manages to rein in the elements, to keep it to the one consciousness of Ethan/Esteban, the unreliable but fascinating narrator of this tale.

An extra novella is included after Nightmare House. It's called Purity. In a little more than a 100 pages, Clegg manages to write about a boy with no soul who wants everything and will stop at very little to get it. Until he meets his match in another boy, who is a confusion of wants.

Purity is told as a love triangle, a story of classes on a moneyed summer island from the viewpoint (primarily) of the teenager who has no money, and it builds to a powerful, unexpected, blunt climax. While it has a slight Lovecraftian reference (to Dagon), it's really about a boy who wants so much that he can't have, that he is driven to do things that he does not want to do, including murder.

While this is not a major novel, in the way that Clegg's novel of 2003 (The Hour Before Dark) is, this book contains two great in-between short novels to tide me over until Afterlife, a book of Clegg's I found on Amazon that's coming out this coming December in paperback.

If you haven't picked up a Clegg book yet, pick this one up, and then go for The Hour Before Dark, and Naomi. I can't think of another writer who writes supernatural horror and suspense who matches the depth and variety of his fiction.

I loved Nightmare House.

This was a really creepy tale that begins with just omens and hints of what's to come. The house itself is disturbing enough, but once the haunting begins, I got goosebumps.

This is an atmospheric, quietly chilling tale of a haunting with everything from exorcism to burial alive within it. I loved it, and it ended on a really chilly note too.

The bonus novel, Purity, was also pretty creepy. It was more of a suspense story about a really evil boy on an island. It had a little Lovecraft overtone to it, but not much. Very dark and then explosive.

Nightmare House is an unusual book. It's a historical, set in the mid-1920s. It reminded me somewhat of old-fashioned ghost stories to a point. Then, when it jumped into hyperdrive, it really got twisted. Both novels play with viewpoint and sometimes the horror in your mind is worse than what's on the page.

For those looking for more of a gorey-kind of horror story, you might look elsewhere. Nightmare House is quite a read, but not for anyone looking for blood and guts.

I just order Clegg's The Infinite and Mischief, both books about the same house but at different time periods. Harrow is a place I would not want to spend the night but I would love to read more about it.

I loved Nightmare House!

This is the first "Harrow" book I have read and I enjoyed it very much. This is a quietly creepy novel which is somewhat different from Douglas Clegg's other more scary novels. I liked how it slowly built up the menacing atmosphere of the house and the ghosts within it.

Horror lately is known for its gore and violence which I do enjoy but it is nice to read a story which harkens back to the old time ghost story.

As usual Clegg's writing style pulled me into this interesting world and I flew right through this story. As others have mentioned it is a short novel which left me wishing it went on longer. I am excited to read The Infinite, Mischief and The Necromancer and continue to explore this interesting world.

As an added treat the book also contains a novela, "Purity", which previously was only available as an out of print hardback. This story has a similar style to Nightmare House and fits well in this book. This story has very little violence or gore. The scariness of this story is the actions which result from a scorned lover trying to win back his love no matter the cost. This is a great little sinister story!

Overall both stories have a quieter aura than most horror novels I have read and are spellbinding! Enjoy!!!

I just wanted to write and thank Douglas Clegg. He has written a novel, Nightmare House, that revives a bygone era of storytelling. He shows that atmosphere and anticipated horrors are just as scary as in your face blood and guts.
Do ghosts exist? Of course they do. Ghosts, the likes of Shirley Jackson and Henry James, are alive and kicking in Nightmare House. Bravo!

I enjoyed both of these stories. I ended up wishing that both were longer, as I hated for them to come to a close. PURITY was somehwat disturbing, which made it an excellent horror tale. Kudos to Douglas Clegg for two fine efforts!