Norman Partridge

Fall is here, and with it, that greatest of holidays, Halloween. There's a chill in the air (metaphorically, if not actually), and the times call for a matching chill in reading material. What could be better than a good scary story on a chilly Halloween night?

I came to Norm Partridge's Dark Harvest with high hopes: I'm a big fan of his collection The Man With the Barbed-Wire Fists, so I already knew he could write. But even having read him before, I wasn't prepared for how quickly this book show more sucked me in.

I'm normally not a fan of second person narrative; it tends to pull me out of the story. But for this one, it works, granting an immediacy and an intimacy necessary for the story's impact.

And what an impact. This story moves, man, and all you can do is hang on for the ride.

It's October, 1963, in Anytown, USA, and the teenage boys 16 and up are getting ready for the Halloween ritual: the Gauntlet, wherein Sawtooth Jack, a pumpkin-headed horror, attempts to make it from the field outside of town where he was born to the church in the middle of the town. It's the job of the boys to stop him (permanently), and the one who does gets a one-way ticket out of town.

We spend most of the book with 2 characters. Pete is 16 and running his first gauntlet. His family life has collapsed with the death of his mother and his father's descent into unemployment and alcoholism. He's had to grow up fast, and he wants more than this backwards little town can offer. He has to win tonight, so he can get out.

Bu things are never quite what they seem. The other character we get to know is the October Boy, and what we learn about him lifts the lid on the dark undercurrents running beneath this small, placid town.

On the one hand, Dark Harvest is a fast-moving Halloween chiller, with action that's fast and furious and genuinely scary. But on the other hand, It's also a coming of age story, and the journey of Pete and the October Boy as they discover the truth of the ritual will both chill your blood and touch your heart.

Dark Harvest is a marvel, and the perfect treat for your Halloween bag. show less

Wow. I think maybe other than one short story, my first Norman Partridge. And it was absolutely great. Its been likened to the lottery, which I suppose in some ways its similar thematically, but I would argue both more readable and with a lot more layers to it. There's some interesting things happening with point of view and the narrator, moving between following several townsfolk and a conversation between the narrator and the reader wherein the reader is part of past events. I think there show more are other layers of meta-narrative involving film and the theater that could be dug into as well. The whole thing taking place in a liminal nowhere town reminiscent of a hybrid of King and Bradbury styles of Americana. All of it grounded firmly in the 90s/00s splatterpunk style. show less

“He’s the October Boy...the reaper that grows in the field, the merciless trick with a heart made of treats, the butchering nightmare with the hacksaw face...and he’s gonna getcha!”

I really liked the setup for this story! The October Boy, the Run, the Line, all of it! And the crazy, creepy town that supports it! But, it began to drag for me about page 100, and the excitement and novelty wore off. And the ending was sort of a whimper after the whiz-bang of the beginning. But, it's a show more good read and I would be interested in a prequel type story, if one ever was written! show less

I had no idea who Norman Partridge was when I picked up Dark Harvest. It was the cover that caught my eye (as so happens with books!). That image of a Jack o' Lantern-headed scarecrow, eyes and mouth glowing with an inner fire, making his way through a cornfield completely caught my imagination and I had to know what this story was about.

Reading Norman Partridge's Dark Harvest was a pleasant surprise. Well, not a pleasant surprise, since a story about a living scarecrow who is trying to make show more his way to the small town church before midnight on Halloween, while all the boys in the town, who have been locked up for five days with no food, are set loose to try and kill him... well, that story really can't be all that pleasant, now can it? However, what surprised me so much was how strongly I was pulled into this story.

Every Halloween in this small town in the middle of nowhere, the October Boy is raised from the cornfields and makes his way towards town. For the previous five days, all the boys from sixteen to nineteen have been locked up, with no food, awaiting their release out into the Run, hunting the October Boy before he can make his way to the church. Whoever kills the October Boy gets a free ride out of town, and his family are showered with gifts, a new house, no bills, for that entire following year, until the next Halloween comes around and the cycle starts all over again. Part of why I loved this book is that there is no explanation as to why things are this way in this unnamed town. Why is the October Boy raised every year? Why can't the residents leave, or why are they not allowed to leave town? What will happen if the October Boy actually reaches the church? What are the consequences of this? None of these questions are truly answered, simply hinted at, yet you don't doubt the importance of any of the actions of the townsfolk, or the October Boy. You simply accept that this is the way things are, and this is how the story has to unfold, and you carry on with the story. And not having to answer these questions is, at least to me, what makes Partridge such an impressive, new-to-me author.

The characters are sympathetic; they could be anyone that you know in any small town. The small town could be like any other small town in America. Yet, there is something evil and unsettling just under the surface, something that these people have come to understand and respect in their own way. You as the reader accept these things too, however unpleasant that they may be, and will keep reading to find out more. As the secrets of this small town start to unravel, you will feel even more sympathy for them, and yet find revulsion at the same time. And you'll still want more. This is a quick read, but one that will leave you wishing there were more to the story, wanting to know what happens next, what the ultimate fate of the October Boy and this small town will be.

I will definitely be on the look out for more by Norman Partridge. Recommended. show less