Norman Partridge’s Dark Harvest has all the familiar trappings of a Halloween horror story. Each year, an unnamed American town has a visit from a pumpkin-headed monster with a butcher’s knife on Halloween. In this novel, it’s 1963. If the kids stop the creature, they will receive their fill of candy. But Dark Harvest wants to turn all the traditions of Halloween inside out.
The October Boy (aka Sawtooth Jack and many other names) is a pumpkin-headed creature that rises on Halloween night and makes his way to the church to ring the bells. If he does, terrible things will happen to the town. To prevent it, the townspeople send out their teenage boys to confront and stop the monster. If a boy kills him, he’s regarded as the hero for that year, given a load of money, and sent forth from this dark corner of the world to live a successful life. This is the story on the surface, but far more sinister motives are at play.
The novel employs second-person point of view for some of the narrative—a rarity and often misused. Here, it works as it draws the reader in and helps them take on the persona of the children. The idea of Dark Harvest is also a unique twist on the entire “town held hostage by a creature” theme. Wrapping it around Halloween is inspired.
The novel is short but the pacing is well done. It draws the reader in using “you” as a character in the town, and then it shifts to people within the town. The seamless transition from second to third POV is masterful. The suspense early on, the slow unraveling of the plot, and the ambience of the night are all strong points.
I had approached the novel hoping it would be a Halloween classic to be read every year. While I enjoyed it, I likely won’t reread it again. First, I think this would’ve worked better as a novella. The amount of truly significant scenes could be compressed. Second, certain fundamental questions remain unanswered. A little mystery in a horror novel is acceptable; a lot of mystery feels like plot holes. Motivations went unanswered, and I didn’t quite understand how and why the town was trapped. Finally, the villain was uninspired. While despicable, the villain never really made me want to see their comeuppance.
This sounds like I didn’t enjoy Dark Harvest. I did, as much as any other horror novel I’ve read. But with the sentient scarecrow and Halloween night, I was hoping for more than what the novel had to offer. A good horror novel? Yes. A Halloween classic? A near miss.
Note: I also watched the movie on Amazon Prime. Movie people changed it significantly, and I’m not sure why. The changes made the movie far worse.