Almost set this to two stars for the rotten, predictable ending but I don't think that's fair because everything about this book is predictable. In fact, the most shocking thing about this book is exactly how predictable it is.

The story is that a patriarch takes his family to meet his old mother and sister in the south for the first time after 20 years of being away. Grandma is an invalid (a valetudinarian, perhaps) who's one angry fit away from a terminal heart attack, and she's always angry, whether she's berating her crippled spinster daughter or her longtime Jim Crow-era black maid.

Grandma's dying and her plot is to trap the son on the old family manse "Sea Oaks," which resides on its own little island in...I've already forgotten...one of the Carolinas, I think. Grandma immediately hates Mrs. Patriarch and Patriarch, Jr., but takes a shine to Miss Patriarch, who is the spitting image of Spinster Aunt, and also a dancer like Spinster Aunt used to be Before The Accident, and then slowly the whole family decides they like the Southern Life except Mrs. Patriarch.

Well, the bodies start dropping and everything, I mean, every. little. thing. plays out exactly as you would expect it to. It was so obvious from the get-go who was going to die and who the murderer was, my mind began to imagine crazy twists (that would've been awful because they were utterly unsupported, but would've at least been more surprising than no twist at all) and also refuting those crazy twists because everything in the prose was designed to play out exactly so.

Still, it must be comfort food for somebody and I feel like you can't really rag on an author who tells you exactly what he's going to do up front and then does it, even if it's in the most prosaic way possible. But wow, for something that was super easy to read, it felt almost like watching a movie I had seen 40 times without particularly liking it any of those times. Not exactly a struggle but sorta like drinking olive oil, I guess? (pace Dan Brown)

I'm going to do some spoilers below:


OK, so old lady is going to die while the family is visiting, obviously, or you don't have a story. And some effort is made to convince the reader that there's something supernatural going on. But the writing is so prosaic that while it competently describes scenes for the most part, it can't sell supernatural at all.

And, oh, the aunt had an "accident" and can't really dance any more? OBVIOUSLY the mother arranged the accident. I assumed from pushing down stairs (I was right) and because the daughter was pregnant (I was right) and OBVIOUSLY the young daughter was going to have to go through the same thing by the end of the book (right again) and OBVIOUSLY the aunt has to be the murderer because who the hell else could it be? (My mind was almost hoping it was the patriarch. It would've been crazy stupid but it would've at least been less than obvious.)

A book that draws on '80s slasher films is not going to offer a lot of surprises. As the Ten Little Indians-style plot played out, I realized that no human on earth, no matter how young or fit or strong, was going to be able to survive the incredibly awkward assaults of the crippled 50-year-old woman*. What's more, I knew that somehow this old woman—and 50 was old in 1988!—was going to have to lug bodies around and prop them up in funky ways, at one point driving a butcher's knife through a perfectly healthy young male HARD ENOUGH TO MAKE THE POINT STICK IN THE BANNISTER BEHIND HIM AND KEEP HIM UPRIGHT.

Mostly the book is not that bad, but good lord, by it's so obvious that the final 100 pages of the book are going to be just the kids versus crazy auntie, you can't believe the author is going to drag it out. When the kids finally realize they haven't seen an actual g-g-g-ghost, you just want to smack them over the head. Fortunately, Crazy Auntie will do that, when she's not rigging up body-pulling ropes in a way that would make Wile E. Coyote proud.

And then, you know there has to be a stinger, a little twist at the end, and the ONLY possible twist is that the daughter, having been traumatized by auntie, ends up being just like her. I had gotten to the last page of the book thinking that maybe we avoided that awful, awful cliché and there it was, like your crazy undead mom slapping you in the face.

Here's the thing, though: Crazy auntie was berated and physically abused for 17 years, pushed down the stairs to induce a miscarriage (talk about clichés), then went crazy, and then was locked in a dark cellar for years, followed by 33 more years of incessant berating.

Niece had 17 years of loving attention, a really bad week, followed by ten years more of loving attention.

IDK, it was a real thing in the '80s, at least: You can say your characters went cuckoo without the slightest backdrop. Anyone can go crazy at any moment. It's awful, though.

*This is known as Pamela Voorhees syndrome. I want to defend the author a little bit by pointing out that the crippled-ness of Crazy Auntie is all in her head, apparently, but that whole thing was poorly played out. Like, the pain seemed to be just something for the author to write about, to fill pages.


And, in short, I have three more Saul books in my shelf that I'm not exactly jumping to read.

"Sé que cuando muere un Deveraux, siempre vuelve; por lo menos una vez"

Esta es la segunda novela que leo de John Saul, y es excelente. Este escritor si que sabe aterrar al lector con sus historias tan siniestras, donde sus protagonistas son inocentes niños que luchan para sobrevivir. John Saul vuelve a mostrar como se torturan y asesinan infantes.
Esta historia esta llena de suspenso, locura, muerte, una casa antigua en una isla, una anciana terrible, figuras fantasmales que deambulan en la noche por las criptas de un cementerio y el horror que sienten los niños antes de ser asesinados.
Realmente una muy buena historia que te la lees bastante rápido, poco a poco te vas adentrando en este mundo tenebroso que nos presenta este magnifico autor.
Una historia que me recordo a "Psycho" de Robert Bloch.
Excelente Libro con escenas tan siniestras y con descripciones que sin duda te aterrará.

"Algunas personas dicen que nunca abandonan esta isla y que ciertas noches de luna se los puede ver a todos ellos vagando por la isla"

Haunting and I would recommend. Nobody is safe in his books! My only issue is that he provided too much explanation, which is weird since another book I read by him left me wanting more. Still a good read and I’ll definitely read more.

Kevin Devereaux awakens from a recurrent nightmare that his cruel mother is about to kill him. At that, the phone rings calling him home to his dying mother. Kevin had not been to the majestic southern estate in years, and his mother has never even met his wife and children. Now he is faced with having to return.

Thus begins our story, and thus begins a wonderful tale filled with the usual Gothic horror images. The forces of nature combine with the human psyche to mirror and intensify the inner turmoil of the characters. Although the story is a little predictable, it is a wonderful experience, nonetheless. The images are crisp and clear, although horrific, and the characters are vivid and exact. This is one scary book!

I loved the murky, desolate island that was the Deverauxs. Was rapt the entire novel, frustrated and sad at times but wow, what a read! Loved it. The end was definitely not what I was hoping; poor Jeff and Julie. Loved the spooky vibes

A scary story that takes place on SC beaches.

Not my cup of tea

This was not at all as entertaining as I remembered it. I got to page 136 before I realized, with clarity and definition, that I had read this before. I was only 13 years old the first time, back in 1990 or 1991, and this was one of the first thriller/horror stories I ever read. I didn't have anything to compare with, my literary diet at the time consisted of children's classics and horse books.

Kevin Deveraux brings his wife Anne and his two children, Julie and Jeff, to the south for the first time to meet his dying mother. There is heat, a run-down house, a cruel dying mother and an aunt Maurgerite desperate to please. The atmosphere starts with being threatening and then eventually everything teeters over the edge, down to hell.

I found the story implausible, poorly conceived and the characters bareley believeable. The thrill I remember feeling from reading it the first time never entered the picture this time around. I will let John Saul stay as a "have-read don't-read anymore author". He belongs to my teens, together with Danielle Steel, Belva Plain and other authors who simply do not do anything for me anymore.

Should’ve been a novella

ato kniha se mi dlouho povalovala doma a knihu jsem získal tím způsobem, že jsem v minulosti provedl výměnu knih. Myslím si, že jsem výměnu provedl s Ivou Dudekovou. Knihu hodnotím na 100 %.

Kniha patří do žánru horor, takže jsem měl trochu obavy, aby mne kniha bavila. V minulosti se stalo, že pokud jsem se začetl do tohoto žánru, tak mne kniha neoslovila a jednoduše řečeno jsem se ztrácel v ději, neporozuměl jsem hororovým prvkům, které se v knize vyskytovaly. Tato kniha se četla dobře, všemu jsem porozuměl, v knize se vyskytovalo napětí a strašidelná atmosféra. Když se kniha blížila k závěru, odhadl jsem správně, jakým směrem se bude příběh vyvíjet, což není vždy u mně pravidlem v tomto žánru. V závěru bylo všechno srozumitelně vysvětleno. Knize by se daly vytknout nějaké drobnosti, ale celkově se dá říci, že se mi příběh líbil.

Oh, the drama!

10/10 for creepiness