Book Review: Readings

Dark Harvest

by Norman Partridge

Cemetery Dance, 172 pp., $40

In the mid-Nineties, Norman Partridge produced some of the finest horror fiction of the decade. But it was a bleak period for the genre, and, by the end of the decade, he veered off into crime fiction. Eventually the quantity of his output declined. This season, Partridge returns to his roots with a new horror novel, Dark Harvest.

In an unnamed Midwestern town, teenage boys participate in the Run every Halloween, essentially a hunt for a mysterious being dubbed the October Boy, an undead creature made of vines and candy with a blazing pumpkin head. The Run of 1963 will prove to be different, as this short work chronicles it from multiple viewpoints, starting with the mandatory five-day fast for all participants, the hows and whys, and ultimately its explosive climax.

Dark Harvest thrills with staccato scenes of action, ideal for a horror novel. Using a quick, lean prose reminiscent of the finest Gold Medal-era fiction and, at the same time, as fresh as a Quentin Tarantino film, Partridge packs more into this slim volume than most authors do in a bloated 600-page epic. He focuses on the important and offers little more. Nary a slow moment emerges from the book. While the style could be labeled Men's Adventure, Partridge's story advances no sexism and the very absence of women involved in the Run delivers a major turning point in the plot. The only weakness is Partridge's insistence at times to intentionally use a distracting second-person narrative. That is but a small complaint.