I waited for six months to read another book by Tryon. At times I found it mildly shocking and horrifying. I thought this was a very effective horror novel. The pacing and all of the mysterious little clues that are offered throughout the book all come together at the end. I can imagine some readers getting halfway through this book and not bothering to finish it. I guess this makes it easier to accept the potentially supernatural goings on, but it was also a bit weird and unnecessary.
I didn’t really like the part where the boys’ grandmother, a crazy old Russian woman, teaches them a trick where they can enter the bodies of other creatures. I would be very surprised if Brenda Brown Canary’s choice of setting and violence in The Voice of the Clown were not influenced by Tryon’s book. It was that particularly nasty bit that made me realise how influential this book is. I will mention that I was surprised at how unpleasant that part near the end is. I’m sure lots of people who haven’t read this book already know how it ends, but I won’t give anything away. The pacing got on my nerves a little bit during the first half of the novel, but when the twist was revealed and things clicked into place, it all felt worthwhile. I suspected there was going to be some big plot twist, and I was trying to figure out what it was, but the story takes its time and Tryon holds on to his details, only ever giving just enough to keep his readers engaged. My suspicions ran wild as I was reading it. Their dad died a few months before the story begins, and from the beginning it seems pretty obvious that Holland had something to do with this. Niles is quiet and easily led, and Holland is… well, Holland is a real bad kid. Niles and Holland are twin 13 year old boys who live on a farm in New England. It was only as I read it that I realised how influential a novel it has been on modern horror. The only thing I knew about Thomas Tryon’s The Other before I read it was that it was a bestseller in 1971. Fawcett Crest – 1972 (Originally published 1971)
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