
The Night Country
Stewart O'Nan
A ghost story that begins in everyday tragedy, from a distinctly American master of both forms. At Midnight on Halloween in a cloistered New England suburb, a car carrying five teenagers leaves a winding road and slams into a tree, killing three of them. One escapes unharmed, another suffers severe brain damage. A year later, summoned by the memories of those closest to them, the three that died come back on a last chilling mission among the living. A strange and unsettling ghost story, The Night Country creeps through the leaf-strewn streets and quiet cul-de-sacs of one bedroom community, reaching into the desperately connected yet isolated lives of three people changed forever by the accident: Tim, who survived yet lost everything; Brooks, the cop whose guilty secret has destroyed his life; and Kyle's mom, trying to love the new son the doctors returned to her. As the day wanes and darkness falls, one of them puts a terrible plan into effect, and they find themselves caught in a collision of need and desire, watched over by the knowing ghosts. Macabre and moving, The Night Country elevates every small town's bad high school crash into myth, finding the deeper human truth beneath a shared and very American tragedy.
Buy this book at Amazon- Publisher
- Farrar, Straus and Giroux
- Year
- 2004
- ISBN-13
- 9781429977203
- Genre
- HorrorFiction
- Topics
- Grief and lossGhosts and the afterlifeSmall-town tragedy
Awards
- Locus Award for Best Fantasy NovelShortlisted(2004)
- Bram Stoker Award for Best NovelShortlisted(2003)
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