“A woman always thinks it takes two to keep a secret, but I’m here to say I think it takes one.”

I wanted to love this one. For at least the first 200 pages, I was completely wrapped in the story: small town, a whole family relocated there, the eerie setting and the obsession with the corn. The writing was good, the family believable and I loved the slow build up of the mystery of what was going on. As Ned was confused, I was confused and completely focused on what he was.

But once the mystery started to unravel, I just wasn't as pulled in. Some of the situations near the end were awful - hard to read and I didn't think added to the story. The turn it took was not where I thought and it was a let down. I wish I'd loved it more. ( )

Some books have such compelling action that I get completely sucked in, reading to find out what’s next, what’s going to happen on that next page. This is not that kind of book. Instead, it is a slow burning, wonderfully atmospheric story that sucked me into the mysterious events and curious characters, so that I kept reading because I wanted to know more, to mine the hints and subtleties to find out *why* people were doing and saying and events and stories were not matching up. I am not a fast reader, and with baseball games having started, I’m slower than ever, which is why it’s significant that I finished a 400 page hardcover in only four days. And that’s literally all I can think of to say without spoiling the whole plot.

This novel is not without its problems. It is certainly dated, but I wouldn’t say that it hasn’t aged well. More that it is an excellent snapshot of the cultural issues and fascinations of early 1970’s mainstream America. Although I have never studied the history of feminism, I am willing to bet that a modern feminist scholar would find a lot to dissect here.

One last thought. I first read this book when I was not quite a preteen, because it was all the rage at the time and my parents never noticed when I snuck their adult fiction off the shelf after they were done with it. They never would have let me read the novel equivalent of an R rated movie. So I didn’t have the maturity or the base knowledge to understand a lot of it (no internet in the 70’s and children were much more naïve then), and I’d forgotten most of the plot, so in some ways I was coming to this book unspoiled. And I’m glad of it. This book had been left on my parents’ bookshelves for 40 years, until I found it mixed into a box of my grandmother’s books, when my mother chose to give them to me as keepsakes rather than throwing them out. I was delighted to find it, and now I’m even more delighted after having reread it as an adult.

Previous Updates:
Pg 50: http://sheric.booklikes.com/post/1540577/harvest-home-progress-50-401-pg
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This is another vintage classic I found from Grady Hendrix paperbacks from hell book. A true horror classic! Small town oddities and twisted religious ideals galore. A truly scary setting and vibe. This is a definite must read......and will definitely be a reread for me! ( )

I think this is going up there as an all time favorite. The writing is brilliant with an eye for artistic details and the story will sit you back down in your seat and make you wonder where the he’ll you’ve been for the last 379 pages.

I watched this film 45 years ago and it terrified me. For nearly 50 years it has stuck with me and planted dark slithering things in my mind. I was only five years old and worked the fields with my family and that association with those evil people has never left. The book is an incredibly well measured and put together story. A slow...very slow build up of something that you know is going to come not out of the dark, but out of the very souls of those surrounding you. I do not want to give away the plot by any means, but if someone tells you to mind your own business...guess what? DO IT. The characters are real and well written, The main character Ned, really seems like a good guy but he has not he common sense to just shut his mouth. The story will draw you in and the inhabitants of the village will make sure you stay there. ( )

This is an exceptional good horror - very cerebral. It's not until the final 100 pages it picks up speed and gallops to the end. Give this a good try! It's a very good story. ( )

A really strange book: shades of Rosemary's Baby. A New England village with only white people is the setting for this story where the villagers believe pagan sacrifice rituals are the only way to keep the corn growing. The characters are shallowly drawn, though they're hateful enough. I had to finish it, though I'm miffed that it took so long.

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First read this in high school many (many) years ago in a Creative Writing class, as well as saw the movie. I don't often re-read books on purpose, but this one is the exception! Somewhat scary and freaky, but I love the unexpected. Characters are well-developed and the storyline is somewhat believable if you have an open (and suspicious) mind; it will definitely make you question 'small-town living.' Thank you, Mr. Yates, for having this book in your curriculum, all those years ago!

Merged review:

Many, many years ago, not long after this book came out, my Creative Writing English teacher (here's to you Mr. Yates!) had us watch this movie when it came out, during class. I fell in love with it, hard and fast. I've loved reading as long as I can remember, but life gets in the way sometimes...I'd always wanted to read the book because everyone knows the book is always better, but I never seemed to find the time. Thankfully, I'm retired now and able to catch up on all the literary goodies I've longed to read over the years. I am so happy to have been able to finally read this--and of course, all of the Widow Fortune's lines sounded like Bette Davis...
The story was a great one, just as I'd remembered, and though I've seen the movie again since school, there's something to be said for being transported to a different place and time through the written word. The imagery that jumps off the pages puts me there, in Cornwall Coombe. Interesting story, some twists and turns, and a bit of a surprise ending if you don't already know the story.
I don't keep many books after reading them, but this is one that I will, even if it's only the Kindle version. One day I may hunt down a copy of the actual book. ( )

Well.....I tried with this book, but it is too much of a slow burn for me. There were a couple of freaky things that happened around the 21%/23% mark of the book, but when a book drags along and I am falling asleep which I did some last night when trying to get through it, I know it is time to put it down.

Lots of characters too within the story, but not enough suspense and tension to keep me invested in it. Maybe it is the mood I am in too - for now it is just not for me. Maybe down the road I will pick it back up. Also just because I wasn't into it doesn't mean that other people won't be. Different strokes for different folks. As with books I give a "dnf" on there will be no rating as I don't rate books I don't finish.

A good tale well told. Nothing profound just good clean fun in old school King/McCammon mystery thriller horror style. Everyone is in on the joke except the narrator kind of thing. The ending is telegraphed early on so there are really no surprises but it becomes a page turner nonetheless.

Tryon throws us one red herring in the Soakes but you see through it pretty early and then half way through he just hands it to you.

The key to a novel like this is characterization. We need to invest in certain characters for the payoff to stick. We need to care. Tryon does this well here.

It isn't really necessary to invoke the supernatural for this to work but clearly Tryon wants us to believe in at least Missy's clairvoyance. On no other level does it really require any stretching of belief. The harvest's rise and fall could just be coincidence. People have actually believed this rubbish for centuries.

The murders and rapes aside, is the Mother Earth worship any more silly than other fictions we fool ourselves into believing will make the universe make sense? ( )

A slow, long, descriptive mystery into a small town that hasn’t changed since its founding. ( )

This book and I really did an interesting back and forth dance at first. This book was extremely difficult for me to read and get into up until about chapter 13 of 30. However, once it picked up, it really picked up and climaxed very quickly and well. Being a horror fan I was able to figure out the "twist" at the end however I'm sure the leisure reader would be thrown for a loop by it. The detail in the book went way overboard at times and by the end of the book the author's tendency to over-explain settings and/or situations became rather monotonous. But again, the story's core was well thought out and worth the read in the end. And I definitely love the story. I would definitely recommend this book. ( )

Tyron has been likened to Stephen King. I'm not sure I would concur with that comparison. This book of 400 pages has absolutely no action or plot movement until page 300. I was just about to give it a DNF and then something happened! The author did a good job of describing the life and inhabitants of sleepy Cornwall Coombe. All of this town's energy is given over to farming and the 5 day celebration in the fall known as Harvest Home, which is celebrated every seven years. The ritual is bazaar, as one would expect from this horror "classic." I'm glad I read it, but it was too much of a slow burn for me. ( )

Took me awhile to get into the story but got hooked. ( )

After reading the book, my only regret is that Cornwall Coombe is not a real place and I cannot go live there. Too bad, because I would fit right in.....I'd totally give that Tamar Penrose a run for her money in succeeding the Widow Fortune as the village matriarch. ( )

This was for my bookclub and outside my usual reading interests and I found it seriously demented. It was both creepy and strangely unbelievable. A New York City family moves to a Connecticut village that is so bizarrely out of time that I kept checking when it was written. As much as I got the creepy horror vibe successfully done, there was just so much that plain old made no sense. How does this village with it's bizarre rituals and female fertility cult exist where people can drive to NYC for the day? Why has no one else figured out what is going on? But it does hit the creepy vibes, I will give it that.

Definitely the grandpa inspiration to Stephen King horror...read in my junior high days. Stayed with me a long time, and for some reason I can't remember now, actually made me cry. Probably because of the extremely creepy disintegration of the family who moves to this creepy New England town. ( )

Please note that I gave this book 4.5 stars and rounded it up to 5 stars on Goodreads.

I read this for Halloween Bingo 2016 and for September's group read for the Horror Aficionados on Goodreads as well as for the Fall Fear Challenge.

Taking place in the early 1970s, a couple (Ned and Beth Constantine) and their young daughter (Kate) move to the small village of Cornwall Coombe in New England.

Told in the first person by Ned, we have him at first charmed and then dismayed by the village of Cornwall Coombe. Ned starts to ask questions about people who have come before, what in the world happened to a young girl that made her kill herself, and why is Harvest Home (a celebration that occurs) so essential to the village.

Ned is an aspiring painter, and his artistic bent is seen as setting him apart and a little above from the village full of farmers and farmers wives. However, after a while, Ned is seen as being a busy body who wants to meddle in things best left alone.

I did love the character of Ned, though after a while even I was like, dude, come on, stop. He kept pushing and pushing and digging into things because in his mind, even though he was a new comer, he saw the village and inhabitants as backwards except for a few friends he made (the Widow, his next door neighbors, and a young man who helps him out around his new home) and I think in his mind, if he could pry the mystery off of the village, then things would be better. That he could make the village more align with what he wanted for it. Ned gets spooked early on in the book by a young girl that the village claims can see into the future and from then on he seems to be running from a fate that he ends up bringing about.

What made me laugh, and ultimately what made the ending so satisfying, is that Ned really didn't think things through. He seemed to think that people didn't know what was going on and why. And though he was a man and was used to being in charge and decisive, it made him uncomfortable to see his wife and daughter growing apart from him, and women being in charge of this village.

I was fascinated by so many characters, and could have read about this village for hours. To see how Tyron tied a village in America, back to England, and even then back to something else I thought was pretty smart.

The writing was top notch throughout. The main reason why I didn't give this five stars though is that the book starts off slow (I mean really slow) and it takes a good long while before things start going. I think most readers would not even see this as a horror book at first because you start to feel after a while you are just reading about the day to day happenings in a small New England village and that's for a good 80 percent of the book before things take a turn.

The setting of Cornwall Coombe was perfectly done. I like how Tyron showed a town that was content to stay in the past and not change and how he throughout the story showed that change was going to come one way or another (he brings up a nearby commune, more and more young people wanting to move to New York and get away, one of the younger people in the village buying a tractor) to the village, and now my mind wonders about this fictional town and did it survive after the conclusion to the story. Could they go on with what they were doing or would they eventually have to move on from the old ways.

The ending answered so many questions and you know realize why one man in the town was reluctant to do much to help Ned. It would have been great to read a sequel and see how the town had gone on 7 years from the ending of this novel.

I can definitely see why it is a horror classic, and I really did enjoy this one a lot. ( )

Ribbed for her pleasure
corn drives all the ladies wild
it's sex on a stalk. ( )

This book was incredible! It was beautifully written and paced. The story successfully blends mankind's (or perhaps womankind's ) oldest themes with small town New England life- in the most creepy atmosphere possible. A slow burning tale involving a move from the city to a simple country life ruled by the land. These characters, the locals, were multi-layered and fascinating.

This is an example of why horror literature (that's right, I called it literature!), became so popular in America in the 80's. Authors like Thomas Tryon sparked the imagination of those horror writers that became the mainstream later on, like King or McCammon. Here, you can find the seeds of all that came later. Children of the Corn? It's here. Evil in a small town? It's here.

Some may find the subject to be dated or the denouement disappointing, but that wasn't the case with me. It was refreshingly, (mostly), gore free, while maintaining a humming level of tension throughout. I sat down and read the last hour and a half straight through. It was a wild ride and I highly recommend it! ( )

New England village practices ancient rites and newcomers are slow to understand

The book was probably hot stuff when it came out in the early �Û÷70‰Ûªs, and it clearly influenced many better stories that came after it. It didn‰Ûªt age well.

I‰Ûªm annoyed that I kept reading it based on several reviews that mentioned a surprise twist - I‰Ûªm a sucker for surprise twists - despite my strong and almost immediate desire to DNF. But the only surprise was that anyone didn‰Ûªt see it coming.

In all fairness, the author of ‰ÛÏHarvest Home‰Û does create some memorable images; he paints a picture, but it just takes SO. DAMN. LONG.

I really didn't enjoy this book. And I‰Ûªm off corn, possibly forever. ( )

I thought this was a great book. The pacing is a little slow, but I didn't mind because I was so caught up in the descriptions of adapting to life in a small town. Cornwall Coombe seemed like a perfect place to live. I thought there was a little too much foreshadowing throughout the book. Often the narrator, Ned, would say things like this was the last day we were happy, or something similar.

Since I am reading this in 2014, it was pretty easy to see where the story was going and what the "big secret" was. But I still enjoyed the journey. Truthfully, as the story progressed, I felt Ned's character became more and more annoying. Just because people like to keep old customs, doesn't mean they should be looked upon with scorn. I thought the ending was satisfying and a good conclusion to the story. ( )

Incredible book. A very very slow burn. probably too slow for many. But once you settle in and let the richness of the atmosphere sweep over you, the hook catches deeply. With so much time spent languidly lolling in the warm summer evenings of Cornwall Coombe, you almost forget that you're reading a horror novel at all.

But when the breeze blows and leaves rattle with the casual advancement of the seasons, reminders begin to crop up here and there. First a tingle at the back of the neck. Then a barely-suppressed shiver. Then a sinking pit of doomed foreboding in deepest recesses of your gut.

And when at long last you remember or, as it may be, fully realize exactly what it is you're reading...it's too late to turn back or put the novel down. Chilling, terrifying, creepy, and bleak as hell, this is one book in recent memory that actually gave me a fright. And I read an awful lot of horror without feeling anything more than a periodic twitch. ( )

Extremely slow and boring book, this plods on and on and Nick is quite the idiot. It is obvious what the ending will be, and I was disappointed in this one. I liked the movie the Wicker Man, but this book doesn't really remind me of the movie. The "mystery" of the dead woman, and the blind man was VERY obvious. The ending was interesting, though. Plow that field!

This was a library book. ( )