Return to the House of Usher [Paperback]

Robert Poe (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 15, 1997

John Charles Poe, a small-town reporter in Crowley, Virginia, drinks a lot of bourbon and works because he doesn't have to. The heir to the family fortune, he has just received the most unusual part of the Poe legacy-the casket. The three-foot-long wooden box contains the notes and personal papers of the Poe men dating back to the eerie and mysterious Edgar Allen. It is passed on to every male Poe on his thirtieth birthday. John Charles has sworn not to divulge its secrets, but a call from his oldest friend, Roderick Usher, on the verge of a breakdown, may justify a broken oath.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Robert Poe's slight purported sequel to Edgar Allan Poe's classic short story "The Fall of the House of Usher" neither illuminates the original tale nor engages the reader in a new vision. This contemporary update finds bourbon-swilling, 30-year-old John Charles Poe a struggling roving town reporter in Crowley Creek, Va. It's late November when college chum Dr. Roderick Usher contacts Poe to help investigate strange happenings at the Usher Sanatorium, which he and his psychiatrist sister, Madeleine, run on the grounds of the first House of Usher. Poe and his newly hired research assistant, a recent divorcee, set forth to battle the forces of good and evil, which apparently haunt the modern counterparts of the original characters. What this Poe adds is a subplot involving a series of bland secondary characters in a standard land-deal scheme. A termagant boss, a philandering mayor and a self-serving family lawyer try to outmaneuver a stereotypical money-laundering Mafia representative from New York. An attempt is made to create a gothic atmosphere with a group of wandering ghost patients, a routine slow poisoning, the obligatory mad doctor and the festering family secret that threatens the Usher household. Even the approach of a late-season hurricane does little to add any frightening suspense or to dispel a melodramatic and obvious ending.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

After Usher House sank into the tarn in Edgar Allan Poe's gloomy tale, Usher heirs rebuilt on the same tainted ground. When 160 years later descendants Rod and Madeleine Usher (doctors who operate the Usher House Sanatorium) start a downward spiral, history appears to be repeating itself, especially to John Charles Poe of Crowley Creek, Virginia, who attended college with Rod Usher and lives only a few miles from the sanatorium, where questionable medical practices are setting the stage for disaster. On his thirtieth birthday, John Charles receives a small casket filled with documents, some of which reveal secrets behind the famous Poe stories. When an approaching hurricane finally blows inland, it wreaks havoc on the community, heavily damaging the Usher property, which now most probably will not be developed into a Confederate-theme gambling resort being hustled by a smarmy character from up north. Robert Poe, a distant relative of E. A., has fashioned a far-fetched yet thought-provoking yarn. Jennifer Henderson --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Tor Books (October 15, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0812549317
• ISBN-13: 978-0812549317
• Product Dimensions: 6.6 x 4.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,022,081 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A great Read!, February 8, 2001

By 

J. Peterson "jenpeterson" (United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Return to the House of Usher (Paperback)

This book had me captivated from page 1. The author did more than just "update" Poe's original tale--he made it his own. Although you may have an inkling half-way through of the final conclusion, if you are reading it during a big windstorm at night, you don't really notice. I would recommend this book for any Poe lover & I look forward to reading other books of Robert Poe.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Up: A well paced dark tale. Down: Not the Master., August 26, 1998

By 

C. Patton (Alabama) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Return to the House of Usher (Paperback)

Robert Poe pens a credible modern tale with enough supernatural undertones to tingle your spine but balanced with modern detective novel explanations whenever reason becomes over-taut. The allusions to Edgar Allan Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher are manifold and a pre-re-reading of that classic is recommended. Characters in "Return..." are well rounded, with one or two minor exceptions (the mob lawyer from up North) and the details of the plot ahead are never easily guessed although I saw some of the underpinnings well ahead of the central character, Charles Poe, but we readers aren't blinded by his fateful ancestry. What I missed in this story was the archaic (even in the 1800's) diction of E.A.Poe and his semantic mastery. Rarely in "Return..." is there a well turned run-on sentence or a sequence of multisyllabic verbage to cause a mental tongue twister causing the reader to pause, and consider.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Captivating, October 13, 2010

By 

Kelly Beason - See all my reviews

This review is from: Return to the House of Usher (Paperback)

This book had me hooked from the first paragraph. The fact that Robert Poe took a classic story and made it his own in such a unique way held me until the end. I like to re-read certain "scary" books during the month of October, and I plan on including this book on my re-read list. I love his descriptions of the impending hurricane and how it is incorporated in the overall theme. Great read!