I have not read any Saul in decades, but I read a lot of his stuff once and recall liking it. Nathaniel is 'typical' of his work, being set in a small town and the main characters are a family (single mom, young son). The story starts with said mom and child (the two main leads) arriving in a small Nebraska town. Her husband and father of the child had visited his home town and parents for the first time in decades and accidentally died there; newly widowed, she comes to her in laws house for the funeral.

I liked the set up, and with Saul, you know you are going to get something strange. You are never quite sure if you are dealing with something from beyond or simply an active imagination of a young boy. Something, however, is contacting the son about his father's death, and indeed, about a whole string of strange deaths that go back over a 100 years. I will not go into the details, as Saul has lots of fun twists and turns. Suffice it to say that Saul writes in an engaging style, and while he employs stereotypes, he at least gives them a good twist. I can see why he was best seller in the 80s. 3.5 stars.

An interesting premise marred by one-dimensional characters, half-baked ideas, a lack of horror/suspense, and an ending that falls flat.

In John Saul’s Nathaniel, Janet Hill and her son Michael move to her husband’s farm town following his death.

Everyone is friendly, but Janet and Michael soon learn things aren’t as they seem.
Michael begins hearing the voice of Nathaniel, a local boogeyman, and Janet learns the women in her husband’s family have a disturbing number of stillbirths that they blame Nathaniel for.
Nathaniel then tells Michael his grandfather and Doctor Potter have been killing the babies.

Whether this is true, and if Nathaniel is real, drives the story. However, Saul stretches out these mysteries way too long and the ending doesn’t give a clear answer to either.

If this weren’t bad enough, the story moves at a glacial pace, doesn’t pick up until two-thirds in and lacks any sense of horror or suspense. I kept waiting for it to get scary and it never did.

I’ve read and enjoyed other books by John Saul, but this isn’t his best work. Nathaniel reads like a first or second draft. He doesn’t develop any of the characters at all and they are instantly forgettable.

As for the plot, what little there is, isn’t fleshed out.

Saul introduces ideas and plot points without fully developing them, and then drops them. Was Shadow, the stray dog Michael adopted, just a regular mutt, or was he supernatural? Did Michael wish Ames Hill, his grandfather, dead, or was it an ordinary heart attack? Was Nathaniel real, a ghost/demon, or a figment of Michael’s troubled mind? Did Ames Hill kill Janet’s husband and try to kill Michael, or were they accidents? Is Michael the new Nathaniel?

Your guess is as good as mine as Saul never tells the reader one way or another, which I found infuriating.

Overall, I didn’t enjoy this book and don’t recommend it. I give Nathaniel 2.0 out of 5.0 stars.

Okay, este libro realmente me gustó. La atmósfera es inquietante, los secretos, la conducta de Michael, todo ayuda a crear una sensación de desasosiego que se incrementa a medida que vamos descubriendo más sobre el pasado de la familia.

No es un libro de grandes momentos de acción ni van a encontrar asesinatos grotescos, pero es tenso y logra engancharte con el misterio de Mark y su relación con su familia.

Solo una cosa me desconcentraba y era Shadow. No porque el pobre perro fuera problemático, sino porque ese es el nombre de MI perra. *dies laughing*

This is my first John Saul book. It starts out a little slow but once it gets going, it’s okay. And even though the story involves dead babies and killer children, it all felt so... tame. Almost like I was reading a YA book. Not sure I’ll be going back to the John Saul well anytime soon...

This was the second book by John Saul I read and it's one of my favorites. The atmosphere is so spooky and Amos Hall... brrr

I was living at Browngate, 8th grade so 1986 or so

Maybe stay away from the little house on the prairie in John Saul’s 1984 supernatural horror novel, Nathaniel. That’s right, I’m continuing my John Saul reading this year, and this one was another doozy.

In this book, Janet and her 11-year-old son Michael move to the Prairie Bend to be with her in-laws after her husband, Mark, died after previously returning home for the first time in 20 years in what’s spoke of as a “freak accident” involving a pitchfork. The prairie isn’t the idyllic setting one might imagine in Saul’s hands: instead, it’s teeming with a cult-like vibe with the citizens and allusions to “never being able to leave” the prairie once you’re there. And then there is the story of the titular character, Nathaniel, the lone child survivor after his mother killed all of her other children during a brutal winter on the prairie in the 1800s. Everyone chalks it up to a fun ghost story to tell the children, but it can’t be true, right?

Janet and Michael meet and board with the in-laws, Anna, who is inexplicably confined to a wheelchair (inexplicable in the sense of she nor anyone else are able to explain why) and Amos, the tyrannical patriarch who uses a razor strop on Michael when Michael talks back. They’re a bit … off, to say the least, and if Janet wasn’t shrouded in her grief over her husband, she would have noticed all the red flags. Amos, as you can imagine, also previously beat Mark and Anna. When a stray dog comes to Michael’s defense when he falls into a pit with pigs — the dog seems imbued with supernatural elements to some degree — and Michael wants to keep the dog he affectionately names Shadow, Amos, who doesn’t like dogs (a true sign of a sociopath!), threatens to shoot the dog dead. Luckily, Anna steps in to prevent it.

Even more bewildering than the fact that Mark basically disowned his family and didn’t talk about them through 13 years of marriage to Janet is that, Janet comes to find out, Mark not only had a sister named Laura, but an entire farm bequeathed to him by his father upon their marriage — Janet’s dream was to have a farm. Ouch. But the sinister, nefarious reason Mark never talked about it, and which comes bubbling up from Laura’s retelling, and later with Mark through a supernatural mental connection with Nathaniel, is that Amos has killed numerous infants born to Anna and Laura. The last child he killed of Anna’s is what precipitated Mark finally leaving and apparently what confined Anna to her wheelchair. Or by Amos’ telling, his family has a curse going back to the 1800s with Nathaniel to where a random assortment of children born in their lineage will be stillborn: born dead. His duty is to bury them in the nearby field.

We come to find out, Ben Findley, the curmudgeonly, reclusive neighbor, was the father of Anna’s last baby because Ben was everything Amos was minus the abusive part, and Anna spent the next 20 years thinking Amos had killed their baby. That’s why she, for lack of a better word, pretended to be in a wheelchair, to punish herself for her “sins.” But she learns, that baby, who is named Nathaniel, is quite alive and has been raised by Ben all this time, hence his cover of being a curmudgeonly recluse. Nathaniel is the one seeking revenge against Amos, Dr. Potter, and his father, Ben, for essentially “killing him,” for all intents and purposes, and keeping him captive for the past 20 years. He uses the mental connection with Michael and his dog to enact his revenge. When Amos is killed by Nathaniel at the end, Anna rises from her wheelchair, as if now freed from the shackles of the patriarchy. She’s fully alive for the first time in at least 20 years.

At the end of the novel, when Janet is in labor with her second child, Michael vicariously experiences the pain of childbirth for his sibling, but the curse seems to be true: The sibling is stillborn, and Michael runs out of the house threatening revenge the way Nathaniel once did. So, was Amos’ fear of a curse validated? It seem so.

Saul’s book is tightly written, with the looming tall grass of the prairie as an intimidating landscape (the idea that you can be swallowed up by it is talked about explicitly) and just as menacingly, the looming presence of all the men in the story from Amos to Potter to Findley to even Laura’s husband. They’re all tyrannical and expect their women to mind them.

I always enjoy a different horrific landscape to situate a story in, and in Saul’s hands, the human villains are just as horrific and richly drawn. I also particularly appreciate how authentic his dialogue is when Michael is talking with other 11-years-olds, and for that matter, with the adults. Saul is adept at writing children realistically, and then putting them in awful situations for maximum effect.

If that sounds like your bag, I’d recommend one of Saul’s more well-known books, Nathaniel.

**3.5
El libro cuenta la historia de Michael, quien al perder a su padre en un accidente, se muda junto a Janet, su madre, a Prairie Bend, un pequeño pueblo donde nació y creció Mark.
Allí se reunirá con sus abuelos y sus tíos, con quienes no han tenido nunca relación.
El pueblo esconde grandes secretos, leyendas perturbadoras y acciones que deberán tener sus consecuencias.
En el transcurso del libro se Irán develando muchos de estos misterios y, a través de una tensión muy bien lograda por parte del autor, conoceremos la verdadera historia que se esconde.
Es una novela que te atrapa firmemente en muchos momentos y te deja con intriga hasta el final. Aunque no posee muchas partes de grandes acciones, logra llegar a un punto de suspenso increíble.

Okay, maybe it's just me, but the ending totally ruined this for me.
I was sooooo on the edge of my seat trying to figure out what the the connection was Between Nathaniel and Michael and the goddamn dog and what do I get in the end??? A complete cliffhanger???? Ugh.

Other than the terrible ending, I thought it was pretty suspenseful overall, but not as scary as I thought. Kinda frustrating with the whole small town collective and the grandfather. So glad he dies.... But I still never figured out if those kids were actually born dead or alive!!!!

The ending of this book I thought was going to give me what I thought was closure. I'm not sure if there will be some sort of sequel, but when youf defeat the problem, it usually goes away. I feel I have more questions than answers this time. Not a bad book, I did enjoy it. I just want more answers.

I believe John Saul has to grow on me. This is the first of his books I have read. There are others I will tackle but I hope they are not as under whelming as this one.

I didn't hate this book but it didn't leave a good impression on me. The last couple of chapters didn't shed much light. The story was rushed at the end. If there is a sequel to this book I don't want to read it. I thought the character of Nathaniel could have been built up alot more. At times I thought he was Michael's age but if you follow the timeline then he would have been in his 20's. Either I totally missed that part in the book or it was never mentioned.

Anyways, I would not recommend.

In the late 80s/early 90s, I picked up John Saul just about every time I went to the library. He was a prolific, pulpy writer who wrote in the only genre I was into during my brace face years. Somehow, Nathaniel never got checked out back then, but it turns out I wasn't missing much. It was dumb and not very creepy.

Prolly explains why I don't reach for Paranormal Thrillers much anymore: I'm still burned out decades later.

The 80s was a totally awesome time to be a teen, by the way.


^ Not an actual picture of anybody I know. This could be a stock photo of ANY high school in the late 80s. It's the big hair with bangs and oversized t-shirts.

Started out like a horror book for teens, but it settled into a nice, genuinely creepy story.

Then the rails came off. The ending reads as if Saul had four different endings, but he accidentally put them through a paper shredder and let a kid piece them together. Disjointed and bizarre. Overall, it's not bad. But it doesn't make me want to read anything else Saul wrote.