The Night Country : A Novel

The Night Country : A Novel

<DIV><b>A ghost story that begins in everday tragedy, from a distinctly American master of both forms: a "scary, sad, funny . . . mesmerizing read" (Stephen King) </b><br><br>At Midnight on Halloween in a cloistered New England suburb, a car carrying five teenagers leaves a winding road and slams into a tree, killing three of them. One escapes unharmed, another suffers severe brain damage. A year later, summoned by the memories of those closest to them, the three that died come back on a last chilling mission among the living.<br> <br>A strange and unsettling ghost story in the tradition of Ray Bradbury and Shirley Jackson, <i>The Night Country</i> creeps through the leaf-strewn streets and quiet cul-de-sacs of one bedroom community, reaching into the desperately connected yet isolated lives of three people changed forever by the accident: Tim, who survived yet lost everything; Brooks, the cop whose guilty secret has destroyed his life; and Kyle's mom, trying to love the new son the doctors returned to her. As the day wanes and darkness falls, one of them puts a terrible plan into effect, and they find themselves caught in a collision of need and desire, watched over by the knowing ghosts.<br><br>Macabre and moving, <i>The Night Country</i> elevates every small town's bad high school crash into myth, finding the deeper human truth beneath a shared and very American tragedy. As in his highly-prized <i>Snow Angels</i> and <i>A Prayer for the Dying</i>, once again Stewart O'Nan gives us an intimate look at people trying to hold on to hope, and the consequences when they fail. <br></div>