- Paperback: 244 pages
- Publisher: Overlook Connection Press (July 2003)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1892950618
- ISBN-13: 978-1892950611
- Product Dimensions: 22.9 x 15.5 x 1.7 cm
- Shipping Weight: 358 g
- Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #181,238 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
Review
" ... the thing that makes The Girl Next Door so disturbing: the fact that the reader, even though repulsed by the story, cannot look away. The Girl Next Door is definitely NOT for the faint of heart." -- -- Henry W. Wagner, Cemetery Dance
"... the closest thing we have to an American Clive Barker... " ". . . no writer who has ever read him can help being infulenced by him, and no general reader who runs across his work can easily forget him. He has become an archetype." -- -- Stephen King
"This is the real stuff, horror embedded in genuine literature, an uncomfortable dip into the pitch blackness in the underside of the American literary tradition."-- -- Edward Bryant, Locus Publications --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
"... the closest thing we have to an American Clive Barker... " ". . . no writer who has ever read him can help being infulenced by him, and no general reader who runs across his work can easily forget him. He has become an archetype." -- -- Stephen King
"This is the real stuff, horror embedded in genuine literature, an uncomfortable dip into the pitch blackness in the underside of the American literary tradition."-- -- Edward Bryant, Locus Publications --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Book Description
Suburbia in the 1950s, a dark side emerging in the Chandler house for teenage Meg and her crippled little sister Susan --captive to an Aunt, who is rapidly descending into madness. "The Girl Next Door is alive.... in a way most works of poplular fiction never attain; it does not just promise terror but actually delievers it. But it's a page-turner, all right; no doubt about that." - Stephen King
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
...ummm....,
By The Easy Reader "BorisDisco" (The great state of Michigan) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Girl Next Door (Paperback)
I read all the hype, and braced myself...It didn't help. This novel is the most disturbing reading experience I will ever endure...After this one you will be changed!!!
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Overwhelmingly Brutal Realism *Should* Make You Squirm,
By Schtinky "Schtinky" (California) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Girl Next Door (Paperback)
Ketchum's novel should make you squirm with discomfort, not because it is a horror book, but because it is horrifyingly closer to the real side of human brutality than to those fantastical drafted gore fests we sink our teeth into when our tongues require the taste of terror.There is a novel by Luanne Rice called Stone Heart that crept into the hidden realm of Domestic Abuse without the benefit of rose colored glasses, and left me breathless in the wake of such an emotional journey. "Girl Next Door" took me through that journey again, but this time the passage was darker and filled with unaccountable dread. "How could this happen?" you will say. "Why didn't anybody DO anything?" The tide of emotion you will feel sweeping over you, washing your pity in tears as salty as the ocean and swirling the intense sadness through your soul, will leave you touched by a profound sense of loss. In the 1950's, life was simple for a group of neighborhood children, living in a close knit, out of the way community. David was a boy back then, when Meg and Susan Loughlin move in next door with Ruth Chandler and her three sons, after the death of their parents in a car accident that left Meg scarred and Susan crippled. David doesn't mind playing with Ruth's boys, and often found Ruth to be quite pleasant, in that she would treat the boys as adults and even allow them beer at times. But Ruth had a legendary temper, well known throughout the neighborhood. David is enchanted by Meg, and therefore hangs around more than ever next door, wanting to be near her. Ruth, unstable before, begins rushing down towards the pits of insanity at a noticeably accelerated pace; and makes the Loughlin girls targets for her anger-infused mania. Descending from verbal abuse, to overworking Meg at chores, to her final psychotic imprisonment of the two innocent girls, Ketchum's painting of Ruth in the colors of derangement and lunacy is vivid and realistically unsettling. Ruth slowly begins to allow others to join her in terrorizing the girls, and though David is mortified at the scenes unfolding right in front of him, he does nothing and tells no one about Ruth's basement until it is too late. I will not divulge any further information, but with the story being told from David's viewpoint, you can feel and understand his hesitation and fear, and remember that he himself was still just a child. In this book, you may find yourself wishing that Ketchum was less skilled in his writings, so that you wouldn't find yourself so drawn into the characters and the appalling scenario. This book will make you angry and sad, leave you feeling helpless in your inability to change the outcome, and that is exactly what you should be feeling. You will not walk away untouched. By far, one of the most riveting and revolting horror books I have ever read, well worth the money you spend.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Captivating,
By L_M_L (Kelowna, BC) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Girl Next Door (Mass Market Paperback)
It's very difficult to walk away from this book, I found myself coming back to it all day. Chilling and disturbing, Ketchum paints pictures that you wish you had never had to imagine. However it's not for shock value, it tells a tale of a woman's descent into madness and the power adults have to twist a childs mind. Definately the darkest side of human nature.
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