The Halloween Man

by Douglas Clegg

Book Overview

The Halloween Man walks when the screaming begins, and only Stony Crawford holds the key to the power of the chilling mystery of Stonehaven, and to the power of the unspeakable creature trapped within... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0843944390
• ISBN13: 9780843944396
• Release Date: January 1998
• Publisher: Leisure Books
• Length: 360 Pages
• Weight: 0.41 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 4.2" x 6.8"

Customer Reviews

A Horror Harvest

This is my third Douglas Clegg book. I've also read his short story collection, The Nightmare Chronicles, and his novel, You Come When I Call You. I read all three books back-to-back this summer, and just wasn't able to put any of them down.The Halloween Man is the story of Stony Crawford, a boy on the verge of manhood who, in the autumn of his fifteenth year, learns some troubling things about his birth, and must decide how to move forward in the light of this knowledge. There are many similarities between this novel and You Come When I Call You. They both feature main characters on the cusp of adulthood who must battle demonic forces in a small town (in both cases the town is ultimately wiped out Roanoke Colony-style by the evil force in question).Clegg probably does a better job in You Come When I Call You of building a strong propelling narrative that leaves the reader with no other choice than to keep turning pages. The Halloween Man is still very reader-friendly, but it's a little bit smaller and quieter of a novel (a little bit, anyway). The focus here is more on atmosphere and history. Clegg brings out more of the local color of the small seacoast New England town than he did for the desert town of You Come When I Call You. There's something very Lovecraftian about the briny surroundings that doesn't bode well for the local inhabitants. In both novels, Clegg is concerned with religion and in teasing out what he believes, and what his characters believe about the origins of Biblical stories. I found this very fascinating, especially in The Halloween Man, in which Clegg does a more complete job of teasing out those beliefs.If you've read and enjoyed any of Clegg's other writing, you should certainly pick up The Halloween Man. If you haven't read anything by Clegg and are thinking about it, I would either start with his short story collection, The Nightmare Chronicles, or this novel. You Come When I Call You is more of a powerhouse, but The Halloween Man displays more range and more of Clegg's facets as a writer.

Other Clegg novels

I had never heard of Douglas Clegg until Halloween Man and Nightmare Chronicles. I started these books for fun but found them to be moving, serious, funny in parts, but over all pretty great books to read.Now my big problem is tracking down his books Goat Dance, Never Land and Childrens Hour.Halloween Man is one of those novels where you can't recommend it to people who like slasher stories, even though there's a little slashing. You can't recommend it to people who like serious fiction because they all seem to believe that horror stories can't be serious.So who do I recommend this to? People who like Straub, Koontz, King, Little, and maybe Barker. This is a fascinating story, but not for people who don't demand a lot from their horror fiction. Yet it's also very entertaining.I can't wait to read Clegg's upcoming magnum opus, You Come When I Call You. I have no idea what it's about, but if it's anything like Halloween Man, it will be amazing reading.

Great horror novel

This one should be a movieI recently finally got around to reading Halloween Man. I bought it here about six months ago maybe a year. Im glad I did. Halloween Man is one page turner and from the opening through the story about Stonehaven and all the wild things that go on there, this is a gripping story.The way the story goes is there's a guy who is kidnapping this kid, but it may be that the kid has a dark power. Then we get the guy's life. He was brought up in this quiet town that had kind of a seamy underbelly. Then when he finds out that he and his girlfriend need to get out of town as teenagers, all hell breaks loose. There are thing about his own birth he never knew and now he's finding out just who he is and what his place in this town means.Im not good at describing it. Halloween Man is really great. Its definitely a read you have to stick with because it all builds up to this one really shocking part. But the story about what lives ina cave in Europe is really interesting, too. There's a wild character in here called Fairclough who may just be the most diabolicly interesting villain I've ever read.I recommend this as one of the best horror books of the year

Coulnd't Put This One Down!

I've been reading horror novels since the age of seven. I'm now 30, and the only author that I've enjoyed more than Clegg is Stephen King. HALLOWEEN MAN is a definite must have for every horror fan's bookshelf.

Best Horror

I loved Halloween Man. From the opening to the very end, the suspense was great. I read three other Clegg books, but this is the best so far. A guy takes a boy who may or may not be some sort of monster child back to the coastal town where he grew up to possibly kill him. But the story grows into this entire history of the town and just how dark the kid's nature may be. the horror just built and built and built, and then it explodes so that the last 100 pages flew by. You bet this story has heart, which makes it great. It's not just scares and shocks, although its full of those too. Halloween Man is about finding out how to be human in the midst of horror and fear. I look forward to the authors next novel, You Come When I Call.