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Summary
Summary
The master of terror and psychological suspense, John Saul taps into our darkest, most deeply guarded fears in his most gripping novel yet, the terrifying story of an innocent teenager who must confront the cursed sins of the past -- and an evil so corrupting that it threatens to consume his entire world ....Nightmares become reality... and from the fire emerges a malevolent presence.Fifteen-year-old Matt Moore has a loving mother and a caring stepfather, a host of friends, and a growing relationship with the most beautiful girl at school. All signs point to a bright future, until fate intervenes. A sudden fire leaves Matt's senile and troubled grandmother homeless. When she moves in with the family, her ceaseless demands cause unrelieved tension -- and with her comes a shameful secret between her daughters that traps young Matt between a dead aunt who haunts him and his own mother, who seeks redemption for her sister's sins -- and her own.A horrific shadow from the past... and a shocking tragedy in the present.To save himself and those he loves, Matt must eventually face the forces of evil and destruction -- alone.
Author Notes
Saul has several major themes in his horror fiction; children as victims, and sometimes perpetrators, of evil; technology used for horrific ends; and occult occurrences (is it something external or internal that causes the horrible things to happen to his characters?). While Saul's earlier work has been noted for its extremely gruesome quality, in his later writing Saul is trying to restrain that aspect of his fiction. Often his plots revolve around hidden, secret evil that is discovered by an innocent person, who must then battle against seemingly impossible odds to defeat the demon.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (3)
Kirkus Review
Author Saul rewrites Psycho in his own image. Saul (The Right Hand of Evil, 1999) issues his 19th suspenser, one of his better: Not wonderful, just more carefully styled than usual. We can't spell out the Psycho tie without giving away the heart of the story, so we must fall into the Vague Hints Department. Let's start with the Hapgood house, which has been in New Hampshire's Hapgood family for four generations and is very large and rambling with an iron gate at the drive and a root cellar just dandy for storing . . . stuff. Living in this big rambler are Bill Hapgood, stepfather to Matt Moore (and he has another tie as well), and Bill's wife Joan, who has a dead older sister, the ravishing Cynthia, and a vastly demented mother, Emily. Mother has Alzheimer's, has forgetfully started a fire in her own kitchen, and has now been moved by Joan to the Hapgood house. Emily fears being shipped off to a home, but even more she detests Joan, Matt, and Bill. Why? Well, the disease makes her no longer herself. On the other hand, years ago she enjoyed stuffing a child into a cedar chest and going off to do other things. Now, that can grow terrible warts on your adult personality. And then poor mid-teen Matt has horrible erotic dreams, with his dead aunt Cynthia crawling into his bed and satisfying herself on him. Or are these dreams? They're so real! Hmm. Then Bill can't stand to live with Emily, moves out--and is killed while deer hunting with Matt. Did Matt shoot his father? Even Matt doesn't know. But when Matt's young girlfriends start to vanish, as does wild and weird old Emily, the suspense rises, attention turning to dead sister Cynthia. The stronger themes here can't even be hinted at. But the story grips for a solid three- or four-hour read, which makes it a success. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Old Emily Moore always was mean as a snake, but Alzheimer's just makes her meaner. It also makes her forget about the pan full of butter she leaves on the range. It ignites, and the fire spreads to the rest of the kitchen and beyond, putting her out of the house she has increasingly hidden in since the onset of symptoms and in which she has kept her elder daughter Cindy's room as it was ever since Cindy died. Emily thinks Cindy's coming back, and she thinks it all the stronger after she moves to her other daughter Jane's home and gets Jane to reassemble Cindy's room there. Then things get spooky, which is what is expected of a John Saul yarn. Jane's husband, Bill, splits, in extreme discomfort with Emily and her effect on Jane, who jumps to Emily's every call despite getting nothing but abuse for her pains. Jane's illegitimate teenage son, Matt, gets way moodier and surlier than a normal 16-year-old ought to and then becomes weirdly forgetful and starts imagining or dreaming or something that a woman is coming to his bed at night. Before Matt comes to his senses in the last pages, he drops out of his beloved high-school football team and seemingly murders Bill--and that's not even halfway through the book. Saul is good with teen characters, but this rather threadbare spirit-possession yarn comes to seem too much like history--one damn thing after another--well before it ends. Who's the spirit, you ask? Well, who's dead to begin with? Figure it out. --Ray Olson
Library Journal Review
The life of high school student Matt Hapgood turns into the stuff of nightmares when his grandmother moves in with his family. She brings with her the terrifying spirit of her dead daughter, Cynthia, the beautiful, beloved, older sister of Matt's mother, Joan, who had been the tormented, abused younger child. All the suffering of those early years is brought into Matt's household from the moment his stepfather is shot to death while they are hunting together. Soon Matt, his mother, and his grandmother have horrifying visions of Cynthia in all her malevolent beauty, and they watch helplessly as she instigates brutal killings. But is it really Cynthia? There are hints that perhaps Joan has taken on her sister's persona, and the answer is left until the last page. It is unfortunate that Saul's leaden prose has turned a provocative theme into a boring novel. This book has little to offer, but the author is popular (e.g., Second Child), and librarians should expect large reader demand. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 2/1/00.]--Patricia Altner, Information Seekers, Bowie, MD (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.