A Winter Haunting
by Dan Simmons
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Book Summary Information
Author: Dan SimmonsEdition: Mass Market Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2002-12-31
ISBN: 0380817160
Number of pages: 384
Publisher: HarperTorch
Book Reviews of A Winter Haunting
Book Review: A Haunted Story
Summary: 5 Stars
A dead boy speaks to us from the page, calmly and professionally. He is not a ghost, more of a tenacious memory. His name is Duane McBride, and he will be our Greek chorus, occasionally interrupting the narrative to comment on the history and mental state of the main character. His presence will make much more sense as the book progresses.
Anyone who picks up Dan Simmons's "A Winter Haunting" expecting to find a direct sequel to his earlier "Summer of Night" will be disappointed. Yes, both are horror novels. Yes, the protagonist of this book was one of the young boys who battled an evil force in the earlier novel. But "A Winter Haunting" goes deeper and is not content with straightforward scares. Simmons has taken his original horror creation, examined it from new angles, and created something new and interesting that makes for a very intriguing read.
Dale Stewart is a man with so few options that even his suicide attempt failed. He has abandoned his family and his professorial career for a love affair with a student that inevitably ended. Now, needing to clear his mind and soul, he returns to his childhood home of Elm Haven, now a bleak, depressing wreck of a town. He will spend the winter working on a novel in the farmhouse of his childhood friend, Duane McBride, who was killed in a gruesome accident(?) during the forgotten summer of 1960. The horrific events of that summer were well-chronicled in "Summer of Night," but I won't bother mentioning them because they aren't important. Simmons himself barely mentions them. Although you can better appreciate this book if you've read "Summer of Night," it is not at all necessary. What matters isn't what happened, or what Dale thinks happened, but the broken man he has become as an indirect result. Now, Elm Haven seems dead and hostile; there is a gang of skinheads on the prowl, and Dale remembers the repulsive local sheriff from when he was a schoolyard bully. With an early snow beginning to fall, Dale settles in to write, and the hauntings begin.
It goes without saying that Duane's old home is haunted, but by what? There are strange sounds and lights, ghostly black dogs, cryptic messages on Dale's laptop (in several languages, including Old English and ancient Hittite). The second floor has been unused for decades but is clearly inhabited by...something. All of this is actually quite tongue-in-cheek at times. Simmons has fun setting up our expectations for horror cliches, then overturning them. When Dale sees a mysterious light in the farmhouse, he turns his car around and finds a hotel. Later, after certain events that directly contradict reality, Dale is a guest of the police. However, the cops are not smirking, disbelieving hicks, but honest and dependable men, and Dale, rather than insisting he's not crazy, admits that he might be. Is he? Just like in any good psychological thriller, we are not sure what is real, and even things that can be proven may be real in different ways for different people. Hanging over everything are the events of 1960, which are still affecting Dale in ways he cannot begin to guess at. Duane's old home is haunted, but there are several possiblities as to the nature of the "ghosts." Any one may be true, or all of them, or none. But they are catalysts for Dale's descent, or perhaps his redemption.
Most of the negative reviews I've read of this book seem to be from people who were expecting "Summer of Night II: The Evil Returns." But Simmons is not merely returning to his old story; he is remixing it, redefining it in surprising ways. There is a gripping climax in which things are explained (or, should I say, gain possible explanations), and then comes the end, which is very sly and very subversive in what it suggests. I won't reveal it, of course, but let me just say that Simmons does a lovely job of reminding us that fiction itself is as subjective as the stories it tells, and the difference between truth and falsehood depends entirely on who is reading the book, or writing it. "A Winter Haunting" is, in the end, one of those delightful tales in which each layer of truth hides an extra layer or two underneath. It is not so much a horror story as a story about horror stories, and who or what they leave behind.
Summary of A Winter Haunting
A once-respected college professor and novelist, Dale Stewart has sabotaged his career and his marriage -- and now darkness is closing in on him. In the last hours of Halloween he has returned to the dying town of Elm Haven, his boyhood home, where he hopes to find peace in isolation. But moving into a long-deserted farmhouse on the far outskirts of town -- the one-time residence of a strange and brilliant friend who lost his young life in a grisly "accident" back in the terrible summer of 1960 -- is only the latest in his long succession of recent mistakes. Because Dale is not alone here. He has been followed to this house of shadows by private demons who are now twisting his reality into horrifying new forms. And a thick, blanketing early snow is starting to fall ...
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