This book has been orbiting around my book lists for a few years now and I’d never really pulled it down and gotten into this “classic” within folk horror literature. I’m not really sure why, but I think part of it may be how many times it was pushed on me as a “must read” in the genre, and my general distaste for being demanded upon about such things. The fact of the matter is, I was looking forward to this read and ready to wander into the corn rows to see what the small village of Cornwall Coombe was up to.
Written by Thomas Tryon (also author of The Other, Night Magic, Crowned Heads, and many other books), Harvest Home was first published in 1973. I point this out because I think that informs a lot of what we’ll talk about around this book. As with my other reviews, I’ll do my best to provide my general thoughts on the book first, and then provide a more detailed opinion in the “Spoiler Section” below for those that have read it.
Let’s start by saying I really enjoyed reading this book. That is, however, different from saying “I like this book.” There are some aspects of this book that I just don’t care for, and I’ll share some of those later. The book as a whole, however, is well-written and does a good job of slowly capturing the reader in the relationships, history, and perspectives of this small village in rural New England. Having known that this was a touchpoint book within the folk horror genre, I was already expecting a lot of the early beats within this story. That being said, I do think Tryon does a great job of world-building within the first half of the book. His characters are all well-crafted, and the conversations seemed believable if not a bit old-fashioned in 2022 (again, this was written in 1973 so some of this is to be expected).
We experience this story through the first-person perspective of the main character, Ned Constantine, who has moved to Cornwall Coombe with his wife (Beth) and their adolescent daughter (Kate). Ned was a seemingly successful advertising executive in New York, but he and Beth were ready to move out of the city for some respite and so Ned could make a real effort at becoming an independent artist. The pastoral setting of Cornwall Coombe is as idyllic as any Norman Rockwell painting in the beginning–as it should be in any good folk horror story.
The people are welcoming, generous, and helpful to the new family. As they integrate into their new community, the Constantines begin to learn more about the proud history of the Coombe and how the lives of every member of the village are sincerely and deeply interlocked with one another. Ned enjoys interacting with the people and learning more about how their beliefs, traditions, and their farming habits are woven together.
By the time the darker elements of the plot begin to unfold, the reader can really feel the influence of the community on the main characters. There’s a real sense of dread that the family unit has already broken down before Ned even realizes how his position within it has been dramatically changed. The matriarchy in the story is so well crafted and compelling that it becomes hard not to find yourself, as the reader, being led to empathize and support the powerful influence of the Widow Fortune and her cadre of female leaders. She is at the same time lovable as a grandmother figure to the entire village and also a powerful and mysterious force with obvious ulterior motives at play. There is also the problem of the evolution of Ned as a less sympathetic character as the story moves forward–but we’ll talk more about that in the spoiler section.
My biggest issue with the book is that I don’t think it really sticks the landing through the climax and denouement. By the time the horror kicks in, there’s not really anyone for the reader to really want to relate to. The turn becomes less emotionally compelling, at least for me, because the characters have already clearly been put on a prescribed path to behave and experience the events in a manner that doesn’t really shock or terrify the reader. The climactic drama plays out as the reader would likely expect, and the details are forecasted to the point to leave them feeling more mundane than fantastical.
Overall, I get why this book comes up so often when discussing folk horror. It follows the template very well, and the storying is well-crafted and a good example of the genre. I’ve seen many folk, and traditional, horror movies that I’m confident took many of the tropes from this book as reference material to tell their own tales. It’s certainly worth a read if this is your kind of thing. It’s age is showing a bit, and I have to say that some of the plot hits a little corny to a modern reader. Sorry, I’m not sorry.
SPOILER SECTION
So, let’s get into a couple of spoiler issues that give a little more detail on why I was cooler on the big horror twist in Harvest Home. It all comes down to Ned becoming a genuinely unlikable character at a critical point in this story. Through the first two-thirds of the story Ned is the generally likable outsider (a classic character in folk horror) who brings with him the moral and ethical perspective of the greater “world” outside of the community. This is the position the reader brings as well, and gives them the ability to immerse themselves into the events of the story. This is pretty critical to a piece of folk horror fiction if it’s going to be truly scary at all.
The problem is that, as things are beginning to be revealed to be darker and more dangerous than what the character initially believed, our main character does something that completely alienates them from the reader in a pretty irreconcilable way. The event I’m referencing, of course, is Ned’s violent rape of Tamar Penrose. The reader is forced to experience this horrible event through the perspective and mind of Ned. It may very well be to provide a revelation that the male character–and his self-professed moral superiority over the community–are terminally flawed. Which would lead the reader to begin to empathize more with other characters within the story. Unfortunately, however, the story is still told from a first-person narrative with this character that is no longer someone you want to relate to. So, by the time the events of the third act really get going, I hate my main character and don’t feel very involved in what’s going on in his life. In fact, I want more terrible things to happen to him by the end!
That leads me to my other big issue, how the Widow Fortune’s story arc concludes. I was really hoping for more from her as the inciting antagonist. I wanted her to be a much more horrific figure by the time she takes control of the story. I was just left feeling unsatisfied with how she uses her power to provoke, and ultimately entrap, Ned. She had so much potential, but even through the harvest home ceremony she acts as a much more passive character than I would have preferred. Sure there are some horrible things that happen to some of the characters, but they don’t seem to hit as hard as I felt like I was being led to experience.
The whole secondary plot around the relationship between Ned and Beth was also underwhelming to me as a reader. By the time it’s revealed that Beth is playing a much more pivotal role in what happens, I’m no longer engaged in the concern for Ned. I feel zero sympathy for him as a “victim” of the community’s superstitions, and I genuinely don’t care that he’s losing his relationship with his wife.
The big ending of the denouement that Ned lives, but has been blinded–just like Robert–is just not enough for me. As a reader, I felt like the story fizzled out by that point. Either the character retains their humanity wherein I can experience their loss and pain in a very personal way, or he becomes a hateful force of outside evil that needs to die within the structure of this village’s old-fashioned, and cult-like, religious tradition. Harvest Home seems to want to split the difference, and that just leads me to wanting to close this book and forget about it completely.
Like I said earlier, by the end I can still say I enjoyed reading this story. I just don’t like it once I’ve completed it. I’ve had several days to see if any subtle residue stuck with me, but it just hasn’t. It’s a well-written, but altogether forgettable, story from a time that seems to be less relevant some fifty years later.