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Dark Harvest

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About this listen

"This is contemporary American writing at its finest." — Publishers Weekly, starred review

Winner of the Stoker Award and named one of the 100 Best Novels of 2006 by Publishers Weekly, Dark Harvest is a powerhouse thrill-ride with all the resonance of Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery."

Halloween, 1963. They call him the October Boy, or Ol' Hacksaw Face, or Sawtooth Jack. Whatever the name, everybody in this small Midwestern town knows who he is. How he rises from the cornfields every Halloween, a butcher knife in his hand, and makes his way toward town, where gangs of teenage boys eagerly await their chance to confront the legendary nightmare. Both the hunter and the hunted, the October Boy is the prize in an annual rite of life and death.

Pete McCormick knows that killing the October Boy is his one chance to escape a dead-end future in this one-horse town. He's willing to risk everything, including his life, to be a winner for once. But before the night is over, Pete will look into the saw-toothed face of horror--and discover the terrifying true secret of the October Boy...

 Horror Scary

Critic reviews

“Probably the most exciting and original voice in horror literature to have appeared in the last decade.” —Peter Straub

“A major new talent.” —Stephen King

“This is contemporary American writing at its finest.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review) on Dark Harvest

“Already [Dark Harvest] has the aura of a classic. Required reading for Halloween.” —Booklist

“If you're looking for a scary Halloween tale, with lots of blood and gore--and candy--you've come to the right place.” —Rocky Mountain News on Dark Harvest

“Using a quick, lean prose reminiscent of the finest Gold Medal-era fiction and, at the same time, as fresh as a Quentin Tarantino film, Partridge packs more into this slim volume than most authors do in a bloated 600-page epic.” —The Austin Chronicle on Dark Harvest
All stars
Most relevant
It's a short story but it didn't keep me engaged, unfortunately. The story/premise isn't bad, but I just wanted to know more about what was actually happening and I don't think it delivers (I don't know, I might have zoned out and missed the reasons why!). It is guessable what the one revelation in the story is, too. Just needed some background/lore as opposed to more gore.

Didn't quite capture my interest

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Hard to get into at first. Listened to the end. Found the narrator hard to listen to. This is my first ever audio book though.

Not bad. Just not brilliant.

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The story idea seemed intriguing but while I waited for it to kick in, the cliché heavy writing just got more and more ridiculous as if it was a written by a school child. I listened right the way through, laughing at some of the lines, cringing at the shallow characters who had no motive for doing what they were doing only to be given the ending that the rest of the book deserved. A lame shoot out and everyone disappears into the sunset. The poor reading of the book only amplified the poor writing. It sounded like someone attempting a style of a cinema trailer voice-over on every... single... line. I never want to hear this guy's voice again and certainly won't read anything else by this author. Laughably poor.

Cringe, shallow, nothing more than an interesting idea

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