This month’s Book Cover Spotlight falls on the Alex McVey cover of Johnny Halloween: Tales of the Dark Season, a horror short story collection by Norman Partridge.
Okay, I’m going to let the moldy cat out of the bag and tell you that my all time favorite Halloween book is Dark Harvest by Norman Partridge.
I feel a tinge of guilt because Halloween was once held by Ray Bradbury in my heart — and he will always be a part of the October season for me — but Dark Harvest is my Halloween book.
When I saw the book cover for Johnny Halloween: Tales of the Dark Season, I immediately thought of The October Boy — Alex McVey captured that animated fiery bipedal Jack o’ Lantern wonderfully in oranges, yellows, greens and browns. Halloween colors.
As I read up on the book, I discovered that a new novelette set in the town of Dark Harvest lay within its pages. A new October Boy. I wanted that book.
Unfortunately money is tight. I tried to do the right thing and resist the lure of the flaming Jack o’ Lantern.
I was pathetic.
I held out for three days — each day going to the Cemetery Dance website, re-reading the sales page for Johnny Halloween, staring at the beautiful book cover and imaging what that story would be like. I’d click on the button to add it to the sales cart only to back off at the last moment, then go back and stare at the cover painting some more.
Finally, when I couldn’t stand it any longer — I bought it.
I may be eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on my lunch hour for the next month but it will be worth it . . .
And ooohhhh the rush . . . .
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Johnny Halloween: Tales of the Dark SeasonAuthor: Partridge, Norman |
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Norman Partridge’s Halloween novel, Dark Harvest Now Partridge revisits Halloween with a collection featuring a half-dozen stories celebrating frights both past and present. In “The Jack o’ Lantern,” a brand new Dark Harvest novelette, the October Boy races against a remorseless doppelganger bent on carving a deadly path through the town’s annual ritual of death and rebirth. “Johnny Halloween” features a sheriff battling both a walking ghost and his own haunted conscience. In “Three Doors,” a scarred war hero hunts his past with the help of a magic prosthetic hand, while “Satan’s Army” is a real Partridge rarity previously available only in a long sold-out lettered edition from another press. But there’s more to this holiday celebration besides fiction. “The Man Who Killed Halloween” is an extensive essay about growing up during the late sixties in the town where the Zodiac Killer began his murderous spree. In an introduction that explores monsters both fictional and real, Partridge recalls what it was like to live in a community menaced by a serial killer and examines how the Zodiac’s reign of terror shaped him as a writer. Halloween night awaits. Join a master storyteller as he explores the layers of darkness that separate all-too-human evil from the supernatural. Let Norman Partridge lead you on seven journeys through the most dangerous night of the year, where no one is safe . . . and everyone is suspect. Table of Contents:
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, was chosen as one of Publishers Weekly‘s 100 Best Books of 2006. A Bram Stoker Award winner and World Fantasy nominee, Partridge’s rapid-fire tale of a small town trapped by its own shadows welcomed a wholly original creation, the October Boy, earning the author comparisons to Stephen King, Ray Bradbury, and Shirley Jackson.
October 2010 (Hardcover — Cemetery Dance)
October 2010 (Hardcover — Cemetery Dance)
October 2010 (Hardcover — Cemetery Dance)If you do decide to purchase Johnny Halloween: Tales of the Dark Season, let me recommend you pick up or borrow and read a copy of Dark Harvest also by Norman Partridge. It will make “The Jack o’ Lantern” go down smoother.
Technically “The Jack o’ Lantern” is a prequel — it happened before the events in Dark Harvest, but much of the fun of Dark Harvest lies in it being your first read. Trust me.
- January’s Book Cover Spotlight: Siren
- September’s Book Cover Spotlight: Pork Pie Hat
- February’s Book Cover Spotlight: A Choir of Ill Children
- March’s Book Cover Spotlight: Seldom Seen in August
- April’s Book Cover Spotlight: In the Midnight Museum
- May’s Book Cover Spotlight: Butterfly
- June’s Book Cover Spotlight: The Red Church
- July’s Book Cover Spotlight: Johnny Halloween
- August’s Book Cover Spotlight: The Condemned
- December’s Book Cover Spotlight: Spore
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