THE STORY: A beautiful New York editor retreats to a lonely cabin on a hill in the quiet Maine beach town of Dead River, during off season; awaiting her sister and friends. Nearby, a savage human family with a taste for flesh lurks in the darkening woods, watching, waiting for the moon to rise and night to fall. This novel appears for the first time in its original unexpurgated of the authors … vision. The original publisher refused to publish it in this version in 1980. Now available only in this edition with an introduction by Douglas E. Winter.
This novel contains graphic content and is recommended for regular readers of horror novels.
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This is the 1st book I have read from this author. I was amazed by it and read it pretty quickly. Reminds me of The hills have eyes and Wrong turn. Will be checking out more books by him
Off Season is hands down one of the best horror novels ever written. Jack Ketchum places normal people in a maelstrom of violence and does not supply an ounce of hope or redemption for these characters. There is no light at the end of this tunnel. FYI – The story behind its publication is almost as enthralling as the novel itself.
I was given off season by Jack Ketchum himself at a Horror Convention before he passed away. I asked him which novel of his I should start with and he gave me his “first born” and the author’s edition at that.
This is a helluva read but not for the faint of heart. Ketchum is a brilliant author of horror. He knows how to make you cringe. Prose flows, description is painted with an artists brush.
I can’t say I cared at all for any of the characters. Not through bad writing but because the writing was so well done that I found myself knowing people like those characters and not at all liking or rooting for them. The girl Marjie had potential but just became a wimp at the end. Believably but nevertheless.
The only bad part I would say is that there was alot of character POV jumping within the same chapter. I used to do that when I first started writing but when I started reading it in some novels I realized it was a huge distraction. I prefer if POV is going to change that the chapters change as well. Other than that, this is a great read!
Jack Ketchum has a way to capture your psyche and never let it go until the end. And when you think it is over, it creeps into your nightmares and you will not sleep for days.
This is the first book I’ve ever read by Jack Ketchum and, since I love horror stories, it’s a book I have been wanting to read for quite a few years. But I wasn’t entirely prepared for the nightmare within these pages because most of the horror novels I’ve read are supernatural tales! This terrifying tale is like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre on steroids! That’s what I’ve told people and it’s what I wholeheartedly believe! If you read “The Author’s Uncut, Uncensored Version”,published by Leisure Books as a paperback, the story makes for a quick read because it’s only 270 pages. The rest of the book is made up of the short story Winter Child, a bonus story by Jack Ketchum, plus his afterword to the title story and his introduction to the short story. This uncut, uncensored version is probably the one that most readers are familiar with today. That’s okay because it’s the one I would recommend if you want this all-out shocker in all of it’s suspenseful, bloody, gory glory! This is honestly one of the most terrifying horror novels I’ve read in a long time! That’s saying something, coming from a horror fan who has read books by Stephen King, Dean Koontz, Peter Straub, and lots of other horror authors! While none of the other reviewers seem to give a description of the plot, or at least not much of one, that’s okay because this page offers a thorough enough description without giving away spoilers.
So I will just end my review by saying that if you want a truly horrific psychological chiller in the tradition of Wrong Turn and other horror movie classics, this book, Jack Ketchum’s bloodcurdling 1981 debut, is definitely not to be missed! Horror fans looking for a grisly tale of terror that’s guaranteed to stun them will be pleased! As for me, there’s no doubt about whether I will look for more titles by Jack Ketchum to add to my bookshelf! When it comes to horror fiction, this writer is a national treasure!