For a person like me who has a tendency to get nightmares from supernatural and gory slasher type horror, psychological horror along the lines of Shirley Jackson is more than sufficiently creepy and delicious. So when I learned about Thomas Tryon’s The Other and saw it noted as a worthy descendent of Jackson I suspected I was in for a treat. Boy, was I! In fact, I put it in the top five best books I’ve read for the RIP Challenge ever.
The book begins with an unnamed narrator who is clearly in some sort of institution. It isn’t long before we figure out it is a mental institution. But who is this person? He is forty-eight-years old and has one of those smooth and slippery voices that ask you to trust him but you can’t quite because there is something not right that you just can’t put your finger on. Very soon he addresses us directly as he begins to tell the story of the Perry family. And not long after that we know this is one of the Perry twins, but is it Niles or Holland?
Then we move back in time to when Niles and Holland were twelve and thirteen, living on the family farm in the small Connecticut town of Pequot Landing. Their father was killed in the fall of the previous year in a tragic accident. When he was carrying a bushel of apples down into the apple cellar, the heavy trapdoor in the floor of the barn smashed down on his head, sending him to his death on the concrete floor below. Now the boys’ mother is in such deep grief she hardly leaves her room. The boys are looked after by their grandmother, their aunt and uncle who also have a boy a few years older than Niles and Holland, and the housekeeper. The twins’ pregnant older sister and her husband are also living at the farm.
While the perspective shifts around, much of the story is told from the viewpoint of Niles. He is the younger twin, born on the other side of midnight. He is also the angelic good twin while Holland has a mean streak. Just how mean? Right away we are treated to the story of Holland hanging his grandmother’s cat in the well. And not long after that story we see him kill his cousin’s pet rat by feeding it poison. Good twin, bad twin.
Yet Niles idealizes Holland. Holland inherited the family ring with the peregrine falcon on it from his father but he gave it to Niles who carries it around in an old tobacco tin because no one is supposed to know he has it. Also in the tin is The Thing, wrapped in blue tissue paper.
And then people start dropping like flies, all of them meeting their end in a freak accident of one kind or another. Niles suspects Holland is behind everything but Niles will keep his brother’s secrets.
The story keeps unfurling with things getting worse and worse and now and then we return to the present with the twin in the asylum but still don’t know which twin. It must be Holland, right? But no, maybe not. And the dead pile up and something is not right, something about what we are being told in the story isn’t meshing, but what is it?
And then, about two-thirds of the way through the book you find out and it’s a surprise but not a surprise because, like the adults in the story, you knew but you just couldn’t believe it because the truth is too horrible. But after the revelation you can’t ignore the truth any longer. And the rest of the book carries you along unrelentingly in this horrible thing right to the very end. I found myself muttering as I read, “oh no, oh no, oh no.” And once in awhile I noticed my hands shaking and my heart beating just a little faster. When I read the last page my “oh no” changed to “oh wow” and the hairs on the back of my neck were standing up. It’s that kind of book.
I was reading your synopsis and I got chills! I am the mother of twin boys and raised them on a farm in Connecticut! They are in the fourth generation of a farming family that grows vegetables and bedding plants. No apple trees on their farm! Still, it was eerie to read. On another topic: there is no Pequot Landing in Connecticut, but the Pequot Indians have a huge casino and museum in Ledyard. Readers may find this useful if they want to have some sense of geographical reference when imagining this fictional town.
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Karenne, oh my this book would really give you the chills then! I suspected Pequot Landing was made up but I thought there were Native Americans of that name in the area. Thanks for the info!
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I read this so many years ago, and have forgotten everything about it, except remembering it was good. So I read your review with curiousity, would I remember anything about the book? I think I remember what the secret is, but I’m not sure, and now I’m going to have to read it again! LOL I would anyway, your review reminds me of how good it was. Not Stephen King quality, but creepy all in its own way. I love your reaction to it too, Stefanie, the beating heart and saying no out loud!
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I haven’t heard of this book at all and I like scary fiction so I must look it out. You are right about Shirley Jackson – one of the best ever genre writers. Stephen King has been in UK promoting his new book and he says that it is much harder to scare modern readers – I wonder if he is right?
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Ian, Jackson is a master of the genre. I need to get my hands on more of her work. But The Other is a satisfying read, that’s for sure. I suspected King was touring in the UK since I saw a few articles about him popping up at the Guardian. I suspect it is more difficult to scare modern readers, we’ve become inured to a lot of the things that shocked the Victorians and early 20th c folk in their ghost stories and horror movies become more and more graphic. We still want to be scared but it takes more work I imagine!
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Susan, well if you have to reread the book I promise you will enjoy it all over again. Stephen King scares me too much, his books tend to fall into the nightmare inducing category for me! I have much too vivid an imagination when it comes to these things!
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Never heard of it but like the sound of it with your review!
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mesetageresenfranglais, thanks! There was a movie made from the book in the 70s and my husband has seen it and still remembers it because it was so creepy. I’m interested in seeing the movie but I bet the book is better!
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yes it is generally the case but always interesting to see what they have done with it!
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Ooh this sounds good, if scary! I’m just like you and can’t handle the gore, but a bit of psychological suspense is fine (in daylight). I’ve never heard of the author before so I will have to go and look him up.
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Litlove, it’s really good and I bet you would love the psychological suspense with a Freudian passion.
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Must. Find. My. Copy. I picked it up at the annual library sale a few years ago, and it’s buried somewhere deep in the TBR pile. There’s a movie version I saw that scared me to death as a kid, but that’s all I remember about it.
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Emily, oh I think you will like the book quite a lot. Bookman saw the movie version when he was a kid too and was creeped out by it so much he still remembers whole scenes.
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You sold this one! Sounds like a great, suspenseful read.
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bookgirl, oh it is! If you read it I hope you enjoy it!
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I think I will
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It’s been a long time since I’ve found my heart racing thanks to a book I was reading! I am with you–I will take subtle psychological fiction any day of the week over gore. This sounds good and I will have to go look it up–if nothing else as a potential RIP read next fall (though that sounds so far away now….).
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Danielle, it is really good and the edition I read was a NYRB 🙂 Saw the movie last weekend and it was good too, well done though nowhere near as scary as the book.
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