The Other – Thomas Tryon, 1971 ★★★

Tranquility Meets Terror 

Back in 1971, The Other was destination fiction for scare aficionados, a macabre tale with a surprise or two to spring on the reader. A popular and critical success, it twisted many young minds.

Since then, the horror genre has changed a lot, thanks to a guy named King, sexy vampires, and hordes of undead. The Other stands apart with its fine-grain prose and prim avoidance of the supernatural. Reading it, you can’t help but feel time’s passage.

The Night Of The Moonbow – Thomas Tryon, 1989 ★★★★

The Other Side of Summer

Adolescent summertimes frequently are the stuff for gentle nostalgia. Thomas Tryon’s The Night Of The Moonbow goes for a different effect. 

In this tale about a 14-year-old orphan who struggles to make a good impression at a Connecticut sleepaway camp in 1938, Tryon presents a chilling suspense story in the guise of a rustic coming-of-age experience at a lakeside paradise.

Lady – Thomas Tryon, 1974 ★★★

Soft-Lit Nostalgia Bath Packs Punch

It’s not a Thomas Tryon novel unless someone is looking back with a mixture of sadness and nostalgia upon life-changing mistakes.

Lady is the ultimate backwards glance from an author whose oeuvre suggests chronic neck pains from same. Tryon’s intentions are so noble here, and his attention to detail so exact, you want him to pull off a masterpiece. At least I did, considering that he made my home state the setting; there’s not enough prize fiction celebrating the Nutmeg State.

Crowned Heads – Thomas Tryon, 1976 ½★

Tinseltown on the Fade

The work of Thomas Tryon commands respect for its highly literate tone and the author's way of drawing out a good mystery.

But his often hard-to-comprehend protagonists and thinnish plots make reading him a chore at times, and that aspect of his work becomes especially problematic when inspiration is not working.

Such was the issue I had with Crowned Heads.

Harvest Home – Thomas Tryon, 1973 ★★★

Hawthorny Horror Tale

It's the Season of the Witch, the month of Halloween, and I was in the mood for some seasonal fiction. Rather than try something new, I opted for something I knew already, or thought I knew, Thomas Tryon's Harvest Home.

It turned out less than I hoped, specifically in the story and scares departments, but impressed me nevertheless as the work of a solid literary craftsman.