36. Harvest Home by Thomas Tryon

For some reason, this book blew up on my twitter feed a few years ago.  Maybe it was re-released?  I'm not a horror guy, but according to the generally pretty savvy book nerds I follow, Harvest  Home is a horror classic.  Not sure if they also added "unsung" which seems not totally accurate as it was a big bestseller at the time.  I was happy to stumble across it in paperback in a free library in Toronto.  [This is what I had written on a slip of paper I put in it when I came back from that trip last summer, but my memory says I actually found it at The Monkey's Paw (a great curated bookstore where I never find anything I actually want to read but love going into and talking to the owner).]

It is a great premise.  A young family leaves the rat race after stumbling upon an idyllic town that seems almost out of time in the New England countryside. Though very old-fashioned and while not unfriendly not necessarily welcoming either, the family eventually starts to make a home for themselves in the community.  The economy is based around corn and they are way into it, including having a big harvest festival and all kinds of other weird old traditions.  There are, of course, hints of darkness underneath the pastoral simplicity.

Now, having grown up in a small town, I do have a great fear of the countryside.  Not because of some weird, potentially murderous rituals, but rather because of the ignorant, angry redneck shitbirds that these places seem to grow.  This book comes from a more innocent time and perspective, where we don't have facebook-fuelled conspiracy tards in the countryside but just really old school, hard-working types who don't want to change their ways but really aren't hating unless you actually try to change their ways.  And all things considered, except for a few minor sacrifices, their ways aren't all that bad.

It's what makes this book interesting.  The protagonist is the husband, who starts to uncover what's actually going on.  The mystery is fun to follow, but he is also kind of a dunderhead and also kind of a dick.  Near the end, it's hard to sympathize with him.  He is way too righteous and thinks that his discovery of one crimes entitles him to completely fuck everything up.  

It's a well-written book, with a thoroughly thought out town and history that Tryon slowly unravels for you in a way that keeps the pages turning.  I didn't ever find it that scary, though there are a couple of pretty freaky scenes with Missy the girl with the vision.  The aesthetics of the magic and the ritual are really cool as well.

MAJOR SPOILER ALERT!

<spoiler select to see>What's hilarious about this book is that the final climactic horror in the end is basically a classic Penthouse fantasy:  the husband is forced to watch while his wife gets plowed (pun intended) by the super well-endowed Harvest Lord.</spoiler>