Shadows on the Wall (York Trilogy) [Hardcover]

Phyllis Reynolds Naylor (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1980 | Series: York Trilogy

While visiting York, England, a young American, already troubled by family problems, is assailed by strange feelings of dread whenever he approaches some of the ancient landmarks of the city.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 165 pages
• Publisher: Atheneum (August 1980)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0689307853
• ISBN-13: 978-0689307850
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,779,413 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I guess I've been writing for about as long as I can remember. Telling stories, anyway, if not writing them down. I had my first short story published when I was sixteen, and wrote stories to help put myself through college, planning to become a clinical psychologist. By the time I graduated with a BA degree, however, I decided that writing was really my first love, so I gave up plans for graduate school and began writing full time.

I'm not happy unless I spend some time writing every day. It's as though pressure builds up inside me, and writing even a little helps to release it. On a hard-writing day, I write about six hours. Tending to other writing business, answering mail, and just thinking about a book takes another four hours. I spend from three months to a year on a children's book, depending on how well I know the characters before I begin and how much research I need to do. A novel for adults, because it's longer, takes a year or more. When my work is going well, I wake early in the mornings, hoping it's time to get up. When the writing is hard and the words are flat, I'm not very pleasant to be around.

Getting an idea for a book is the easy part. Keeping other ideas away while I'm working on one story is what's difficult. My books are based on things that have happened to me, things I have heard or read about, all mixed up with imaginings. The best part about writing is the moment a character comes alive on paper, or when a place that existed only in my head becomes real. There are no bands playing at this moment, no audience applauding--a very solitary time, actually--but it's what I like most. I've now had more than 120 books published, and about 2000 short stories, articles and poems.

I live in Bethesda, Maryland, with my husband, Rex, a speech pathologist, who's the first person to read my manuscripts when they're finished. Our sons, Jeff and Michael, are grown now, but along with their wives and children, we often enjoy vacations together in the mountains or at the ocean. When I'm not writing, I like to hike, swim, play the piano and attend the theater.

I'm lucky to have my family, because they have contributed a great deal to my books. But I'm also lucky to have the troop of noisy, chattering characters who travel with me inside my head. As long as they are poking, prodding, demanding a place in a book, I have things to do and stories to tell.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Haunting, June 18, 2002

By 

E. A Solinas "ea_solinas" (MD USA) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Shadows on the Wall (York Trilogy) (Hardcover)

Fans of ghosts, fantasy, history and haunting writing will find a gem in Phyllis Reynolds Naylor's "Shadows on the Wall," the first book of the York trilogy.

Dan Roberts is unexpectedly plucked from his everyday life for a vacation in York, with his parents. He's delighted by the vacation, but puzzled by how his parents are acting. One minute they are gushing and effusive, the next cold and silent. He soon discovers why: His father has found that their familiy has a hereditary nerve disease called Huntington's Disease, which his father might have -- and might have passed on to him.

As Dan struggles with the knowledge that he might have a terrible disease, that might affect whether he can marry and have kids, he encounters a friendly cab driver named Joe Stanton, and a group of mysterious gypsies led by Ambrose Faw. The strange ways of the gypsies are intermingled with visions of Roman soldiers, and a mysterious feeling of dread that Dan gets every now and then. He is inclined to think the visions and dread are hallucinations -- but Joe sees them too...

Haunting writing abounds in this novel. Without a single word of dialogue, Naylor can provoke feelings of dread, mystery, sadness, fear, and surreality. Her dialogue is unpretentious and thoroughly ordinar, as you would expect a teenage boy and his friends and parents to talk; yet the reader can detect the undercurrents of emotion underneath them. Atmosphere is expertly done, especially in scenes with the gypsies. Their differences are noted but not judged, and she does a good job with Dan's reactions to such things as the casual planning of a funeral before the person is dead.

It's also interesting that she wove together two different kinds of "haunting." Dan is haunted by his fear of having Huntington's Disease, a very realistic fear. At the same time, we view Joe and Dan both seeing visions of the past, such as a mute gypsy boy momentarily transforming into a lime-covered primitive tribesman, or the face of a Roman appearing in a pond.

This book is the first of a trilogy, and it shows. Though it can be considered a standalone story in its own right, it nevertheless has a feeling of "to be continued" on the last pages. And there are threads left dangling that undoubtedly are picked up in the second and third book.

Fans of ghost stories will undoubtedly enjoy this book, and race to read "Faces in the Water" and "Footprints at the Window."

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A book for people who like books about ghosts, December 28, 2000

By 

[e-mail] (Lake ann, Mi) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Shadows on the Wall (Paperback)

The back of the book:

fifteen-year old Dan Roberts is confused about alot of things. Why did his parents decide they must suddenly take a juoney to York, England and why have they been acting so stangely since they arrived?

Beyond that, what is the sense of doom and draed Dan gets that Dan himself feels as he approches certain ancheint ruins in the City? Are the moving shadows he sees on the walls real, or just is he beginning to lose his mind?

And what of his new friend, the cab driver Joe Stanton, And their enconters with the gypsies? When they're together a stange sensation takes hold of Dan as the distant past melds with the present and dreams become reality.

If that doesnt intrige you what will?

4.0 out of 5 stars Ghosts, time travel, old Roman England - tied together nicely, October 24, 2011

By 

Pop Bop (Denver, Colorado United States) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Shadows on the Wall (Haunting York Trilogy) (Paperback)

The York Trilogy, of which this is the first book, is probably for slightly older readers than the 9 years set out in the description. That's not because of language or violence, (or scariness), but because the plot involves a fair amount of time travel and multiple characters who appear and reappear in slightly different guises during the course of the travel. It's not simple time travel, where the hero touches something or goes through a doorway and clearly ends up somewhere else. Rather, time periods and locations overlap, so that our hero may be in the here and now, but ghostly roman legions march by him, while the girl from then in her form as the girl from now is talking to him. You get the idea.

That said, if your reader is good at reading carefully, this is a very rewarding trilogy. The hero kid is neither ridiculously heroic nor annoyingly lame, but solid, average and identifiable. The trilogy is not about magic, in the witch and wizard sense, but about something more subtle and ambiguous - there is much more of a mythical feel to the story, which is sustained by the solid, suggestive and not overdone writing.

While it's not essential, it is a lot easier to follow the trilogy if the books are read in the right order, since each book is sort of a standalone, but themes, characters and plot points are developed over the course of the three books, and for the conclusion to be really satisfying I think you'd have to be familiar with the earlier books.

So, not your usual middle grade fantasy/ghost fare, but worth a look.