The Farm [Mass Market Paperback]

In this novel, Katy Logan and her daghter Jett move to the mountain town of Solom, NC, after Katy marries Gordon Smith, who owns some farmland in the mountains. Katy agress to move because she believes it will be good for Jett, since it will get her away from the drugs and crime that are all too prevalent in big city life. What Katy does not realize, however, is that what is lurking in Solom may be far more dangerous than those things. Mysterious things begin to happen once they move to Solom. Jett has the feeling she is being 'watched' by Gordon's herd of goats, and she begins having hallicinations(or are they?) about a mysterious long dead preacher who is rumored to roam the mountains every several years, riding his horse Old Saint, and looking for his next victim, who he would carry off to the great beyond. Also, Jett hallicinates (or does she?) about a scythe wielding scarecrow that may be stalking her when she wanders into the dark shadows of the barn.

This novel was well paced, and made me feel as if I was in Solom. This novel was very suspenseful, creepy, and atmospheric. This author's descriptions made me feel like I was wandering down an old country lane, or across a pasture late at night, and being stalked by a creepy scarecrow with a scythe. If you like novels that really creep you out, then I highly recommend that you get this book.

As a fan of horror in general, and LITERATE horror in particular, Scott Nicholson keeps improving in my opinion. His newest, The Farm, exudes a sense of creepiness and "there's something not quite right here" overall. While the small town horror angle has been played up for years, and is somewhat tired, this book makes the reader feel right at home in the small town of Solom. Many comparisons have been made between Nicholson and King/Koontz, but i feel he is more akin to Bentley Little in the sense of unease reading one of his books instills in you(a BIG compliment in my opinion).

At their core, the authors of classic horror novels - I'm thinking the early works of Stephen King, Peter Straub, or Thomas Tryon - understand the subtlety of terror - that truly scary stories build slowly from anomalies in natural, everyday events, gradually pulling the reader irresistibly into what they know will be eventually scaring the pants off them. Regrettably, this subtlety is lost on Scott Nicholson in this flat and disconnected yawner of "horror" fiction.

Recently divorced Katy Logan and her "Goth-lite" twelve-year daughter, "Jett", leave their life in Charlotte behind and head for the hills of western North Carolina with new husband/step-dad Gordon Smith, a professor of religious history. One never grasps Katy's attraction to this pompous buffoon, but before the first page has turned we're experiencing our first haunting, and then serving up a smörgåsbord of ghouls - carnivorous goats, scarecrows that simply won't stay staked, a headless housewife, and a centuries-dead circuit preacher. While Nicholson borrows liberally from the literature - Tryon's "Harvest Home" and King's frightening short story, "The Man in the Black Suit" come to mind - this conglomeration of demons conjures up about as terror - and makes about as much sense - as an episode of "Scooby Doo". To make matters worse, Nicholson, whose bio puts him in Carolina's Blue Ridge Mountains, writes of these rugged mountain people with thinly veiled contempt, going beyond simple stereotype to patronize and condescend. But in a bizarre and certainly unintended way, "The Farm" was a perversely entertaining novel. Nicholson's fumbling inaccuracies with topics across a wide range - twelve-year olds, geography, economics, firearms, and even the relatively pastoral Charlotte, a drug infested Las Vegas-like Sin City in Nicholson's world - makes for a comical backdrop. The author may not be able to tell a Kalashnikov from a cabbage, and his deliciously indignant and out-of-context political ramblings blunt hopes for any possible redeeming horror value by the time it caravans to a ham-fisted climax in keeping with 400 pages of silliness the precede it.

So, no, despite strong reviews from Amazon readers, I didn't find much to recommend in "The Farm", scary only in the abysmally clumsy plot and insipid dialogue. I'll admit that good horror is hard to find these days - Joe Hill didn't really do it for me either - but you may want to consider Susan Hill's "The Woman in Black" as an example of classic horror the way it was meant to be read.

› Go to Amazon.com to see all 30 reviews  3.9 out of 5 stars