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A Winter Haunting, the sequel to Summer of Night, is one of the best ghost stories I have ever read. This was something I began to realize around the halfway point in the novel, and something I knew for a fact by the time I had finished it. And this is something that keeps happening with my recently discovering Simmons and his genre-bending mastery of novel-writing: it's almost exhausting reading his books and being so blown away by the brilliance of each and every one. I have only have so much room in my favorite books of all time list, damn it!
The story, summarized in brief, is this: Having essentially ruined his own life, and becoming isolated from his chances at happiness, Dale Stewart, emotionally crippled by depression and anxiety as well as insomnia, has returned to the small town of Elm Haven, the place he grew up, where he and his childhood friends once confronted a dark and incomprehensible evil over the course of a summer--a summer he no longer remembers, but has lived in the shadow of for the forty years of his life since then. But there is darkness waiting for Dale in Elm Haven, and there is also darkness inside him, and it is growing and becoming impossible to deny.
The themes that this book deals with are heavy and smothered with harsh realities. There is an aching sense of nostalgia rooted in the setup and setting of this novel--After all, who doesn't miss the golden days of childhood? who wouldn't be profoundly affected by returning to the sceneries of that childhood as a lonely, depressed adult, for whom the magic of life has fled and keeps fleeing?--but at the same time, the book is never lost in that nostalgia. It touches on it in a subtle and profound way, such as it is with Dan Simmons' ability to be so concise yet brilliant and even poetic at the same time. And while Summer of Night is a very dark and powerful horror novel, it still has the light of childhood to fill its tone, but A Winter Haunting lives up to its name in the same way that Summer of Night does. In Summer of Night, the entire novel, even the darkness, is painted by the colors of childhood and summer--which is a part of what makes it so real and terrifying. A Winter Haunting, meanwhile, has the chilled, quiet tone of winter strewn about it. There is no solace here, no whimsy or escape. Hence it being a true sequel: one is summer, the other is winter. But I digress.
A Winter Haunting is a ghost story in a unique way. What I mean by that is that the concept of "ghost" is used differently in this novel than in any novel I have ever encountered. The use of the concept of "ghosts" here is, in a way, deeper than the types of ghosts which haunt 99% of other paranormal fiction. Dale is more haunted as a person than is the home he stays in. The things he faces and which haunt him are more personal than universal. And then there are tie-in elements from Summer of Night, which find their roots in the historical and mythological in only the most brilliant of ways. This book is also something of a suspense and mystery story, in addition to being a powerful ghost story. The intensity of the mysteries in this story were so unbearable that I, at times, couldn't bear to stop reading, and thus finished this book very quickly. It never drags, not once; it plays upon a plethora of fears and mysteries; there is so much about A Winter Haunting that is pure mastery on the part of Dan Simmons. And Dan Simmons, you can tell, is incredibly well-read, not only in literature but mythology, and his intelligence shows up here in many ways, which sets this book apart from most other novels of its genre. It's smart, and it is never scary just to be scary. It has meaning and heart to it, despite being filled with circumstantial, personal, and emotional darkness and fear.
Lastly, two things: One, this book, more effectively than almost any I've ever read, truly put me inside the mind of its character, sometimes with use of the "unreliable narrator" technique in a mind-shattering way, and made me feel like I was losing my mind. Stephen King's "The Shining" did that; Marisha Pessl's "Night Film" did that; Edgar Allan Poe's "A Tell-Tale Heart" and "William Wilson" did that; and so on. It propelled me through the book, making me as desperate as the main character to find out what was happening, while at the same terrified to know what was happening. And secondly, this book did what many books try to do, but don't do nearly as well: it portrayed, in unrelenting reality, the longterm psychological and emotional effects of having lived through something severely traumatic and terrifying and, in this case, supernatural. While reading, I got the sense that all of Dale Stewart's life had been defined by what happened during that summer in 1960 when he was but 11 or 12 years old (the events in Summer of Night), and that his not knowing truly how to cope or comprehend all that had happened to him as a child was the root behind every problem he had faced ever sense, whether it was his depression, his anxiety, or the many ghosts and darknesses he faces in returning to Elm Haven.
Not only does A Winter Haunting stand on its own as one of the greatest horror/ghost stories I have ever read, but it also seems to serve as a legacy for its predecessor, Summer of Night. The characters here, now especially Dale Stewart and a few others, one in particular, who I will keep unnamed for the sake of spoilers, are the realest characters I think I have ever had the pleasure of meeting in fiction. From every angle: from childhood to adulthood. That might be one of the defining things about A Winter Haunting, the more I process the book, that make it truly a masterpiece. Whereas Summer of Night touched on childhood in its profound ways, A Winter Haunting bridged the gap into adulthood, with all the aftereffects of trauma and terror, and all the things that live and die within us in the time between--as well as those precious, sometimes terrifying aspects of ourselves and what we've lived through which, though possibly harmful and scary to our psyches, must be faced and dealt with, one way or another.
The story, summarized in brief, is this: Having essentially ruined his own life, and becoming isolated from his chances at happiness, Dale Stewart, emotionally crippled by depression and anxiety as well as insomnia, has returned to the small town of Elm Haven, the place he grew up, where he and his childhood friends once confronted a dark and incomprehensible evil over the course of a summer--a summer he no longer remembers, but has lived in the shadow of for the forty years of his life since then. But there is darkness waiting for Dale in Elm Haven, and there is also darkness inside him, and it is growing and becoming impossible to deny.
The themes that this book deals with are heavy and smothered with harsh realities. There is an aching sense of nostalgia rooted in the setup and setting of this novel--After all, who doesn't miss the golden days of childhood? who wouldn't be profoundly affected by returning to the sceneries of that childhood as a lonely, depressed adult, for whom the magic of life has fled and keeps fleeing?--but at the same time, the book is never lost in that nostalgia. It touches on it in a subtle and profound way, such as it is with Dan Simmons' ability to be so concise yet brilliant and even poetic at the same time. And while Summer of Night is a very dark and powerful horror novel, it still has the light of childhood to fill its tone, but A Winter Haunting lives up to its name in the same way that Summer of Night does. In Summer of Night, the entire novel, even the darkness, is painted by the colors of childhood and summer--which is a part of what makes it so real and terrifying. A Winter Haunting, meanwhile, has the chilled, quiet tone of winter strewn about it. There is no solace here, no whimsy or escape. Hence it being a true sequel: one is summer, the other is winter. But I digress.
A Winter Haunting is a ghost story in a unique way. What I mean by that is that the concept of "ghost" is used differently in this novel than in any novel I have ever encountered. The use of the concept of "ghosts" here is, in a way, deeper than the types of ghosts which haunt 99% of other paranormal fiction. Dale is more haunted as a person than is the home he stays in. The things he faces and which haunt him are more personal than universal. And then there are tie-in elements from Summer of Night, which find their roots in the historical and mythological in only the most brilliant of ways. This book is also something of a suspense and mystery story, in addition to being a powerful ghost story. The intensity of the mysteries in this story were so unbearable that I, at times, couldn't bear to stop reading, and thus finished this book very quickly. It never drags, not once; it plays upon a plethora of fears and mysteries; there is so much about A Winter Haunting that is pure mastery on the part of Dan Simmons. And Dan Simmons, you can tell, is incredibly well-read, not only in literature but mythology, and his intelligence shows up here in many ways, which sets this book apart from most other novels of its genre. It's smart, and it is never scary just to be scary. It has meaning and heart to it, despite being filled with circumstantial, personal, and emotional darkness and fear.
Lastly, two things: One, this book, more effectively than almost any I've ever read, truly put me inside the mind of its character, sometimes with use of the "unreliable narrator" technique in a mind-shattering way, and made me feel like I was losing my mind. Stephen King's "The Shining" did that; Marisha Pessl's "Night Film" did that; Edgar Allan Poe's "A Tell-Tale Heart" and "William Wilson" did that; and so on. It propelled me through the book, making me as desperate as the main character to find out what was happening, while at the same terrified to know what was happening. And secondly, this book did what many books try to do, but don't do nearly as well: it portrayed, in unrelenting reality, the longterm psychological and emotional effects of having lived through something severely traumatic and terrifying and, in this case, supernatural. While reading, I got the sense that all of Dale Stewart's life had been defined by what happened during that summer in 1960 when he was but 11 or 12 years old (the events in Summer of Night), and that his not knowing truly how to cope or comprehend all that had happened to him as a child was the root behind every problem he had faced ever sense, whether it was his depression, his anxiety, or the many ghosts and darknesses he faces in returning to Elm Haven.
Not only does A Winter Haunting stand on its own as one of the greatest horror/ghost stories I have ever read, but it also seems to serve as a legacy for its predecessor, Summer of Night. The characters here, now especially Dale Stewart and a few others, one in particular, who I will keep unnamed for the sake of spoilers, are the realest characters I think I have ever had the pleasure of meeting in fiction. From every angle: from childhood to adulthood. That might be one of the defining things about A Winter Haunting, the more I process the book, that make it truly a masterpiece. Whereas Summer of Night touched on childhood in its profound ways, A Winter Haunting bridged the gap into adulthood, with all the aftereffects of trauma and terror, and all the things that live and die within us in the time between--as well as those precious, sometimes terrifying aspects of ourselves and what we've lived through which, though possibly harmful and scary to our psyches, must be faced and dealt with, one way or another.
