The Other [Import] [Hardcover]

Thomas Tryon (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: Lightyear Pr (September 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0899684432
• ISBN-13: 978-0899684437
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (29 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #8,865,201 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

65 of 69 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Other & Harvest Home/The Best Horror Novel 's 70's, October 26, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: The Other (Mass Market Paperback)

I've read hundreds of horror books in my lifetime, 39 yrs. to be exact, but very few have fascinated me or stayed with me like this book, called The Other. This is the most realistic horror novel ever written (I have read it 5 times) and I absolutely love it. There are no devils, aliens, or monsters of any kind, just two psychologicaly messed up kids(which one is the evil one? or is it both?) who play an imagination game that goes horribly out of control, awesome twist ending, this book will keep you riveted for hours on end. Mr. Tryon creates characters that are so true to life you swear you met them before or they really existed at some time. This book is intelligent horror written by a late great author who doesn't suffer from verbal diarrhea like some of the popular present day writers. Harvest Home is another novel written in the early seventies that is just as creepy with a stunning ending, I loved it! If you enjoy The Other here are a few books you might want to look up : Harvest Home-Thomas Tryon, Conjure Wife-Fritz Leiber, The Nightwalker-Thomas Tessier, The Manitou-Graham Masterson, The Godsend-Bernard Taylor, After Sundown-Randall Boyll, The Homing-Jeffrey Campbell, For Fear of the Night-Charles L. Grant, The Dogs-Robert Calder, Dead White-Alan Ryan they are all fantastic scary reads!.

63 of 71 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A truly great horror story, March 10, 2001

By 

JLind555 - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Other (Hardcover)

Once upon a time there was a somewhat forgettable actor named Thomas Tryon who starred in a series of very forgettable movies ("The Cardinal" and a few others). Mr. Tryon wisely decided to forget about the forgettable and sat down and wrote a spooky novel called "The Other". The result is an absolutely superb, un-put-downable, unforgettable horror story.

"The Other" tells us the story of the Perry twins, Niles and Holland, 13 years old, identical twins born on either side of midnight and thus have not only different birthdays, but, in a true stroke of fictional genius, different astrological signs. They are thus as different as day from night, one friendly and sunny and outgoing, and the other deep, dark and diabolically evil. Their father is dead, their mother imprisoned inside her own creeping madness, and their grandmother, blessed or cursed with the Sight, is unable to stop the horror that is about to engulf the whole family.

The story takes place mostly during a long, lazy Connecticut summer in the 1930's, and as the temperature cools down, the plot heats up. Two-thirds of the way through the book, Tryon divulges the twins' secret that will literally rock the reader in his tracks. You would think the rest of the book would be an anti-climax after this; fasten your seatbelts, because now you're in for a real ride. And hang on tight: Tryon piles one horror on top of another until you wonder if he has anything left in his bag of tricks, and then he pulls it out: a climax that will knock you over. And as if all this wasn't enough, the last page of the book will leave the reader wondering if Tryon was pulling the wool over everyone's eyes and have you guessing for days.

Tryon may have been a mediocre actor, but he proved to be an excellent writer as well as a great storyteller. Plot, characters, and writing are just about perfect in this book. Like Stephen King in his earliest and best books, Tryon has the gift of understatement, and he knows how to let the horror build up ever so slowly and insidiously until the reader is totally wrapped up and can't escape. He also has a delightful touch with small but telling period descriptions that set the novel firmly in its time frame (do any older readers recall Mr. Coffee Nerves and Belle Sharmeers?). "The Other" has been out of print for some time now, but it's finally being re-printed and it's about time. I've treasured mine since the year it was published. It is, quite simply, one of the best suspense/horror stories ever written.

Judy Lind

30 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Brilliant Depiction of the Darkness of the Mind, January 28, 2005

By 

Gary F. Taylor "GFT" (Biloxi, MS USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Other (Hardcover)

In prose as easy as a floating dream with a story as frightening as a pre-dawn nightmare, Thomas Tryon's 1971 novel THE OTHER is one of the three finest horror novels of 20th Century America, easily ranking alongside Shirley Jackson's THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE and Stephen King's 'SALEM'S LOT.

Holland and Niles Perry are twins on the brink of adolescence, residing with their large extended family on a comfortably ramshackle farm in 1930s New England. But their lives have been touched with tragedy: their father, killed in an accident; their mother, unable to recover from the shock. Grandmother Ada, Russian-born, has become the backbone of the family. And Grandmother Ada has a game for them to play together, a solace for them in a time of grief. But it is no ordinary game, this. It is one passed down through the blood from generation to generation. And it is through this game of the mind that Ada unwittingly unleashes a psychological horror that consumes everything it touches.

THE OTHER is the first of the several novels Tryon wrote before his premature death and, although the novel HARVEST HOME is perhaps more widely remembered, to my mind it is his finest. The plot has been extremely influential, and some readers may recognize various turns from having encountered them at the less talented hands of later writers who shamelessly borrowed Tyron's ideas. But it hardly matters: the prose is absolutely flawless, dreamy, languid, and seductive even as it begins to unravel into a psychological void from which there is no return. It is a rare reader who will not unravel right along with it--and immediately re-read the novel to see how Tyron has so unerringly cast his spell. Strongly recommended.

GFT, Amazon Reviewer