The Stormwatcher [Hardcover]

Graham Joyce (Author), John Picacio (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 2003

"Of those writers who stoically refuse to trudge along horror fiction's well-worn path, Joyce, with British Fantasy Awards to his credit for Requiem and The Tooth Fairy, has perhaps had the most success. And now we can add to that list The Stormwatcher... For this remarkable, fine and almost unclassifiable book is a complete breath of fresh air, even considering his past achievements. The story is simply (!) the interaction of a group of somewhat dysfunctional friends during a two-week holiday in a lonely cottage in the Dordogne region of France. The group comprises James and his French wife, Sabine, and their two young daughters - Beth and the confused Jessie -plus James's one-time colleague Matt and his wife, Chrissie ... and, just to make things interesting, the sultry Rachel, another work-chum of James and one with whom he has shared considerably more than the occasional business meeting. As the story progresses we discover that one of the party - an unnamed instructor whose identity is kept hidden until the end of the book - is engaged in secret lessons with the impressionable Jessie, for reasons not immediately clear. Meanwhile, courtesy of a nicely-realized series of tense-changed flashbacks, we learn more of the instructor's background and an almost symbiotic relationship in which both she and her lover speak only lies to each other. All the time, Jessie grows more intense and confused while, around her, other members of the party grow, by turn, increasingly belligerent or subservient, manipulative or malleable, paranoid or confident. And underpinning the sequence of events is an intense feeling of primal sensuality evoked both by the environment and an approaching storm (its progress cleverly interjected into the proceedings by a series of half-page chapters explaining meteorological behaviour) and by the behaviour of the adults as their feelings for each other - and their protectiveness and confusion at the antics of and comments from young Jessie - swirl and eddy." Signed by the author. This is the only US edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Stormy emotions and turbulent revelations charge the tense atmosphere of this cunning exercise in magic realism, first published in the U.K. as a paperback original in 1998. Set in the French countryside, it presents the daily interactions of a group of British travelers who discover that vacationing together is no holiday. James, the outing organizer, is an arrogant prat who spends most of the trip demeaning his easygoing friend Matt; Matt's wife, Chrissie; and Rachel, an ex-mistress whom James has asked along to help his wife, Sabine, supervise their two girls. As friction among them intensifies, the lies and self-deceptions that have kept them civil give way to truths that emerge as a shadowy alternate reality. The novel's building emotional tempest is catalyzed by Jessie, James and Sabine's precocious preteen daughter, who secretly converses with a mysterious, seemingly invisible adult instructor. The identity of this instructor is the key to unlocking the narrative's occasional sidesteps into fantasy. Though his characters sometimes seem too self-aware to behave so meanly, Joyce (The Facts of Life) gives them solid psychological grounding and uses every detail of the external environment-from primitive paintings in a nearby cave to the increasingly ominous weather-as a carefully crafted corollary to their states of mind. Readers who have savored his recent excursions into mainstream fantasy will find this early tale a piquant foretaste.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 271 pages
• Publisher: Night Shade Books; Limited edition (September 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1892389363
• ISBN-13: 978-1892389367
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #698,417 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The lying game, June 20, 2005

By 

bonsai chicken (United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Stormwatcher (Hardcover)

This novel, originally published in the U.K. in 1998, concerns a group of friends vacationing at a remote house in the French countryside. High-powered executive James, who suffers from an unknown chronic illness, his French wife Sabine, their two children Beth and Jessie, James' secretary Rachel, with whom he has had an affair sometime in the past, James' longtime friend Matt, who was employed by James until he was ostensibly made redundant, and Matt's wife Chrissie, whose open sexuality tends to make people uncomfortable. The story centers around Jessie, the precocious, disturbed eleven year-old who is being secretly tutored in forbidden knowledge by a mysterious instructor. Jessie becomes the catalyst for increased tensions and rapidly fraying relationships among the adults, all of whom have secrets from one another. The approaching storm in the title takes on more than one meaning...

It's hard to put a label on this book. Though there are a couple very frightening sequences and a lot of suspense, it's not horror. Nor does dark fantasy seem appropriate. Magical realism? Perhaps. There are some events of questionable reality, but whether they are literal or psychological aberrations is open to debate. What it most certainly is is a fascinating relationship drama involving some extraordinarily well-realized characters, and a dark-edged mystery. The story itself is brilliantly constructed almost in a puzzle-like fashion. The background of Jessie's instructor is told in a parallel narrative to the main story, until it all comes full circle at the end, evoking a kind of symmetry. Novels rarely come as perfect as this. I can't say enough about Graham Joyce. This is the third consecutive novel I've read of his and they just get better.

This Night Shade Books edition is signed and limited to 1000 copies.