I never really got into this book; I read about one third of it and then stopped because I did not connect to the characters not to what happened to them.
Although it is very well written - some scenes are very frightening and enthralling - the storyline was obscured by the slow pace of the book and many side stories. ( )

In 1929, five young men idealize a mysterious and terribly attractive woman that just moved into their small upstate New York town. Her name is Eva Galli. One night the worst thing, that could happen between the five young men and Eva Galli did happen. Their actions and the secret the five friends keep between themselves causes a chain of agonizing events that will haunt them individually for life.

Forty years later The Chowder Society is born after one of the friends dies at a party hosted by an actress named Ann-Veronica Moore. The Chowder Society meets twice a month and they take turns telling each other ghost stories, but not the story about Eva Galli.

The nephew of the dead friend is brought into the Chowder Society to help investigate his uncle’s death. His connection is that he was obsessed with a woman that looked just like Ann-Veronica Moore, the actress connected to his uncle's death. Her name was Alma Mobley.

Each of them are plagued with nightmares, the townsfolk start acting strange, farm animals are brutally killed with no explanation as to what did it, and slowly something is taking revenge on the remaining Chowder Society members.

Ghost Story is a tale of a gothic haunting. Spirits, shape shifters, images of things that scare you the most are all part of this story. The only problem for me was that I had to get past at least 200 pages to get to them. The descriptions of the brutal winter at times was scarier then the actual storyline. The concept was good it just took so darn long to get to it. I would recommend this book for those looking for a different kind of horror story.

Just average for me. ( )

I read this book in August 1981 while in hospital: my friend Lester Potter brought it for me from the library and I lay alone in my ward in the Cape Town winter reading it. As a horror afficianado, I did not expect to be scared yet I quivered in the bed in that empty wing, subject not so much to shocks as to creeping terror.

The old men, the winter, the cold and then the heavy snow [acting like sympathetic nature] interact in a frighteningly bleak atmosphere with frequent flashbacks to their golden youth when they all fell someowhat in love with an exotic and mysterious woman. The five friends share a secret, an accident which binds them together, but now the first of them has died - seemingly of fright - and the fortnightly meetings of the Chowder Society take on an edge.

The group are being haunted by nightmares, and something malign has come to their small town... Ancient evil and demonic archetypes, shapeshifters, wierd music: a horror story writer, nephew of the dead man, arrives to help the oldsters and investigate the death of his brother, who was in love with an exotic and mysterious woman - who happens to be the spitting image of the e. and m. w. loved and lost so long ago in that golden autmn of 1929.

Nightwatchers, hauntings, death, ghosts - real and imagined - and the undead are offset by enduring and endearing friendships, love, forgiveness and nobility of spirit to create a truelly classic horror story. ( )

Interesting story, very much in the style of Stephen King - I can see why they collaborated. A bit hard to follow at times, but I liked how it all wrapped back around to the beginning. ( )

I read this some time ago and wonder of wonders, I remember it. Right there, I know how good it is as a big fat read. Engrossing and satisfying right to the end. ( )