Reviews

Harvest Home by Thomas Tryon

cranberry__sauce's review against another edition

4.0

LOVED this book. loved it loved it loved it

Basically this book is about a man, Ned, and his family moving to a town, Cornwall Coombe. The book focuses on Ned solving a horrifying mystery and how it will affect his family (spoiler alert: it's not good). It's a pagan folk-horror classic, and the book has amazing plot and tone.

Many of the reviews for this book say it was poorly paced and the action took too long to get started—I didn't experience these problems, but if you're not a fan of slow burn or detailed descriptions you'll probably not like this.

ramblinred77's review

dark mysterious tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

smthuriot's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

See my full review here:
https://sarahoverbooked.wordpress.com/2024/05/11/harvest-home/

corsanglais's review against another edition

dark tense medium-paced

4.0

Thoroughly enjoyed it, don't know if I can recommend it due to subject matter, don't know if I will ever read it again.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape and Misogyny

badseedgirl's review against another edition

3.0

This book did not age well, but if you can get past this, it was a wonderful read.

libraryofzoe's review against another edition

3.0

Small town people obsessed with corn end up murdering all corn naysayers.

Very slow burn horror. Found it difficult to get into and only became fast paced in the last few chapters. Did have elements I liked but overall it was an okay book.

billymac1962's review against another edition

3.0

More fine writing from Thomas Tryon. Had I read Harvest Home in 1973 I'm sure the impact would have been greater than in 2003 as this story line has since been rehashed and copied countless times: A man decides to move his wife and daughter out of the big city and begin a simpler life in an isolated rural farming community. The community is almost Amish in their keeping with the "old ways". This is a horror novel so of course things are not as wonderful as they seem and sinister turns are inevitable. Today, this story is predictable but it's really unfair to diss a 30 year-old novel for this. Regardless of its predictability it is still worth picking up. It gave me the creeps

mgouker's review against another edition

4.0

Let’s take a successful, but troubled couple (Ned & Beth Constantine) with a daughter (Kate) who has emotional issues that manifest in physical illness out of the city and put them in the country where all their problems will be solved. Give them a rainbow to point the way. Now, let’s see what happens.

Is there a more frightening horror archetype than the fertility cult? Belief in Earth Mother, representing both the bounty of the earth and motherhood, is thousands of years old. We see figures that some archeologists believe represent mother goddesses dating back to Paleolithic times. The Venus of Dolni Věstonice (Brno, Czech Republic) dates from 29000 BCE to 25000 BCE. In Neolithic time both in Europe and the New World, there are mother goddess symbols associated with fertility. Later there are Isis & Hathor of the Egyptians and Demeter for the Greeks. There is Venus for the Romans, and Mary who was worshiped as a mother goddess by the Collyridianists.

Fertile Earth, female, provider of all that nurtures, was indeed a ubiquitous fixture in early agricultural civilizations. Neopaganism is also popular today. People from the city might think it’s quaint like Ned does or might immediately feel estranged like Burt & Vicky do in King’s Children of the Corn. Other stories that explore this theme are Robert Graves’s “The White Goddess”, David Pinner’s “Ritual”, and (my favorite!) Brenda Gates Smith’s short series “Secrets of the Ancient Goddess”/“Goddess of the Mountain Harvest”. In many ways, the monotheistic god male-dominant god of Jews, Christians, and Muslims is opposed to the worship of the Earth Mother. In pleasantly pastoral Cornwall Coombe, however, the two work in tandem.

I’m not going to discuss the plot, except to say it is everything you could hope for in a story designed to scare you. Tryon cheats a little bit by making his protagonist, Ned, into *that* character. You know him. He’s the one that goes down into the spooky basement holding a candle because he hears a window opening, just after he finds out a murderer is on the prowl. Ned’s combination of recklessness, over-inquisitiveness, and bad choices makes this story work incredibly well.

So, the lesson here is to watch out for women, because though they are beautiful, nurturing, and so much fun, they have their own needs and Mother Earth most of all must be satisfied. Failure has a very high price, so keep her happy (or else). Also, watch out for where the rainbow ends, especially if you are a city mouse.

tl/dr: A lot of good scary fun...

zaisgraph's review

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

Hallucinagens ✅️
Sex ritual ✅️
Vague nature gods ✅️
Human sacrifice ✅️
Isolated rural community ✅️
Allergic to modern tech ✅️
Small town intrigue ✅️
Withcraft and wizardry ✅️

Honestly if this were a wild excuse/expanation of a cheating husband to his buddies I wouldn't be mad at all lol. 

skycrasher's review against another edition

dark mysterious slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.75