The Other

Wow. This is about the most truly horrific thing I have read in a long time. Perhaps ever. But it isn't Lovecraftian horror; the clear antecedent is Shirley Jackson. But she was never so visceral. I'm writing this before I read the afterword to the NYRB edition, because I want to capture my thoughts fresh. This book has one horrific shock after another, although after the first two or three, you realize more are coming, so you are a bit prepared. No spoilers, but the foreshadowing is pretty clear in hindsight or even as you are reading. You just don't know exactly how or when the shock will come, but when it does, it still makes you want to put down the book and refresh your drink. The other thing that makes this story about twins very show more different is the way in which it is told. The narrative voice is certainly unusual in how it shapes the story and resets our expectations. This is a book that you can really spend a long time thinking about afterwards. Horror like this, frankly, has much more impact on me as a reader than Lovecraftian horror, even as much as I love some of Lovecraft's work (particularly The Shadow Over Innsmouth). I recently reviewed the Penguin collection of Thomas Ligotti's first two story collections. They are well written and some are quite clever, but the world they describe isn't real and no amount of nice wordsmithing can make it so. But the events in The Other, no matter how terrible they are, have the aura of truth about them. Again...wow. show less

This is one of my all-time favorite creepy-crawly reading experiences. Seldom does an author catch me up so completely in the story as Tryon did with this one. I remember reading it alone when my husband was working at night, and finding it necessary to turn on lights in every room. Over and over I would come to a realization of what was really going on just a paragraph or two before the author made it really obvious---I must have said "Oh, my God" a half dozen times, and I couldn't wait for my husband to read it so I could watch his reactions and see whether he figured things out in all the same places. If you've missed this, you have a treat in store. Stephen King has nothing on Tryon at his best.

EDIT: 10-7-12 I discovered this back show more in the mid-70's, not too long after it was published, and it really kept me flipping the pages, as noted in my original review above. Tryon beat Stephen King to the punch (Carrie wasn't published until two years after The Other), but nothing else he wrote had quite the same impact on me. In The Other, Tryon masterfully weaves the tale of a family beset by tragedy, from the perspective of 13-year-old twins, Niles and Holland. With their father dead, and their mother psychically wounded, their Russian Grandmother Ada teaches them "the game" by which through concentration they can feel what it's like to be a rooster, or a dragonfly, or a sunflower. And of course, it all goes terribly wrong, with consequences Ada never imagined, and cannot bring herself to acknowledge until it is much much too late. It held up very well to a re-read after all this time, even though I remembered every twist and turn of the plot. I rated it 5 stars from memory when I entered the book in my catalog in 2006, and I haven't changed my mind after reading it again. show less

"Can you remember what we used to say about secrets?"

Niles and Holland are thirteen-year-old identical twins; born on opposite sides of midnight just as Pisces turns into Aries, the two boys couldn't be more different despite the fact that they are each other's spitting image.

Actor-turned-author Thomas Tryon has a frightening way with words—pun intended. The Other is his first novel, and yet it reads as if it's written by a writer at the height of his powers. Technically, it's a powerhouse of a novel: cleverly paced, skillfully plotted, and with the right measure of psychological insight and uncanny terror.

What is also intriguing about The Other is that it is very obviously a recasting of Henry James's The Turn of the Screw, that show more eerie forerunner of the genre of psychological trauma/horror that insists that children are hardly as innocent as they seem. Tryon recasts James's Miles here as Niles, and the reader is at Niles's side for the duration of the novel apart from a very clever reworking of James's frame narrative, as well as a haunting revision of James's final scene, that Tryon uses to increase the more American gothic feeling of his text as opposed to James's (yes, I suppose I'm calling James a British writer—at the very least, The Turn of the Screw is a British novel).

I finished The Other just as the New York City area is readying itself for the onslaught of Hurricane Sandy, several days prior to Halloween. The sense of panic, hysteria, and Tryon's sense of the macabre—while still emphasizing the psychologic over the fantastic—are still very immediate; it does make one lament, however, the fact that Tryon's novel might sadly lack the power to shock in our day and age as much as it did when it was first published in 1971. show less

This is one of my all-time favorite creepy-crawly reading experiences. Seldom does an author catch me up so completely in the story as Tryon did with this one. I remember reading it alone when my husband was working at night, and finding it necessary to turn on lights in every room. Over and over I would come to a realization of what was really going on just a paragraph or two before the author made it really obvious---I must have said "Oh, my God" a half dozen times, and I couldn't wait for my husband to read it so I could watch his reactions and see whether he figured things out in all the same places. If you've missed this, you have a treat in store. Stephen King has nothing on Tryon at his best.

EDIT: 10-7-12 I discovered this back show more in the mid-70's, not too long after it was published, and it really kept me flipping the pages, as noted in my original review above. Tryon beat Stephen King to the punch (Carrie wasn't published until two years after The Other), but nothing else he wrote had quite the same impact on me. In The Other, Tryon masterfully weaves the tale of a family beset by tragedy, from the perspective of 13-year-old twins, Niles and Holland. With their father dead, and their mother psychically wounded, their Russian Grandmother Ada teaches them "the game" by which through concentration they can feel what it's like to be a rooster, or a dragonfly, or a sunflower. And of course, it all goes terribly wrong, with consequences Ada never imagined, and cannot bring herself to acknowledge until it is much much too late. It held up very well to a re-read after all this time, even though I remembered every twist and turn of the plot. I rated it 5 stars from memory when I entered the book in my catalog in 2006, and I haven't changed my mind after reading it again. show less

Thomas Tryon’s “The Other” Where to begin? Within the scope of a week I read Harvest Home and The Other. This review will be primarily for The Other. Fifty years and some change ago The Actor/Writer Thomas Tryon released this book. Tryon was a literary Assassin. Who knows where he would have went had he stayed in the field long enough to compete with the likes of King, Koontz, Barker or John Saul. But one thing is for sure. Based off the strength of his debut novel, things may have been a little different. The Agony Tryon puts the reader through in this book is like being nailed to wall. He is able to tell a story that crawls onto your back and slowly inches its way beneath your skin. The Other without a doubt uses James’s Turn show more of the Screw for a blue print, but easily manages to stand on its own two feet. I can say I had the story figured out after a while, but that fact being known did not diminish the eerie feeling that something was terribly wrong with the child Niles and the Grandmother. The events that take place in this book seem so real and when we look at the time frame, 1935, we can understand that something like this more than likely happened in small places with minimal access to health care and attention to mental disorders. The Other is eerie, haunting and oddly enough cheerful and melancholy. The writing is tight, and all the elements of what is actually going on are right in the readers face from the start of the story. But it is up to the reader to pick up on them. It is a shame the film is so obscure because it is very faithful to the novel. This is a style the author would develop over the course of a short but powerful writing career. show less

I heard about this book through Tor.com's "Summer of Sleaze" series of reviews of older horror novels, and I have to say, my expectations were set unfairly low. This was pretty great, excellent pacing and buildup to horrific events, any number of reversals of expectation, and most importantly, plenty of interesting and believable characters. I wouldn't call it horror, though: "psychological thriller" is much closer.

Being an identical twin can be murder. Just ask Niles Perry, a well-mannered thirteen-year-old whose twin brother Holland possesses a sadistic streak and a penchant for causing deadly ‘accidents.’ Niles both loves, fears, and is in intense awe of his enigmatic brother, but all is not what it seems in Thomas Tryon’s Gothic psychological horror novel.

I had a rocky start with this novel, because I kept on wondering how Niles could not suspect his brother of wrongdoing. I was relieved to find, however, that the (cleverly wrought) twist midway through the book rendered these concerns obsolete. If Niles seems outrageously naïve, that just makes the revelation all the more effective.

Novelist Thomas Tryon evokes the homey mystique of a show more 30’s Connecticut farming town. Pequot Landing, as it so happens, is an idyllic place to grow up for children who are independent and reasonably well-adjusted, because of the freedom such a locale offers (kids can go wherever they want and do whatever they want, within reason,) but the stifling gossip of the town ladies also makes it important to tread carefully while within earshot of anyone who might decide they want your family problems as fodder for discussion.

For the Perry’s, for which insanity seems to run in the family, the continual stream of hearsay is never-ending. If you can get by Tryon’s penchant for long, elaborate, needlessly wordy sentences, ‘The Other’ might prove to be your new favorite creepy-cool summer read. You might be surprised that despite the fact that it was published in 1971, it’s aged quite well and doesn’t seem watered-down in terms of horror by jaded modern standards.

There are deaths a-plenty in “The Other,” and the one that bothered me most (even more than the particularly taboo murder at the end) was the demise of elderly widow Mrs. Rowe. Damn it she just wanted to have some tea and lemonade with the local children! Why must the lonely old bird be treated so? :_(

“The Other” makes you think about what people do to keep their loved ones out of the mental health system, and how that initial act of mercy can prove to be destructive later on. Doesn’t the boys’ Russian grandmother, Ada, know her grandson is a raving lunatic? Of course she does. But she refuses to anticipate the consequences of keeping such a boy at home with her, and her naiveté is punished tenfold.

I’ve heard of people whose family members continually lashed out at them; people who’s loved ones had to be locked in their room at night. In the end, the decision lies with the caregiver, but sometimes it’s not only easier, but kinder just to let go. This is an extreme version of a situation many people deal with- the seemingly impossible challenge of loving and caring for a severely emotionally disturbed child.

Ultimately, I think Tryon is too hard on old Ada. Yes, it was her ‘game’ that led to much of the insanity in the first place. But she is only human. And If the game had never came to be? What? Tragedy may have been avoided, but sociopathy and madness still ran thick in the Perry’s blood. While Ada’s final act seemed somewhat out of character, it was a decision born of extreme desperation, not evil or cruelty.

Although I found Niles annoying throughout (though he seemed surprisingly less so after I found out the twist,) I thought ‘The Other’ was a chillingly rendered, deliciously Gothic read. I love those kind of Gothic stories involving family secrets and sequestered craziness, so this was right up my alley. Now I want to rent the movie. show less