The Siege of Trencher's Farm

by Gordon M. Williams

Book Overview

The original novel on which Sam Peckinpah's controversial movie Straw Dogs was based, and the inspiration behind a brand-new movie by Rod Lurie, starring Alexander Skarsg rd and Kate Bosworth - due... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• ISBN: B004BI70U0
• Release Date: January 1970
• Publisher: Dell Publishing
• Weight: 0.25 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Misleading Cover but Great Book

I hate it when publishers put images from the movie on the cover of a re-released book, especially when all the image scenes used from the film are not even in Gordon Williams' classic novel. For starters we have photographs of Amy (played by actress Susan George), a character who isn't even in this book. George Magruder's wife in the book is named Louise, Louise is a lot older than the Amy character from the movie (35) and has dark not blond hair. Plus Louise never fights any of the attackers so why use an image of Amy fighting an attacker on a bed. Plus there's not really any shotgun action from the character George (in fact he questions the whole anti having a gun for protection stance in the book) so why use Hoffman holding a shotgun on the cover? Apart from the misleading cover, (and I have just read this cover version as I thought that maybe Williams had gone back and done a written version of the film with the new characters) the story is exactly the same as when it was originally published back in 1969 under the title The siege of Trencher's Farm. Those who are huge fans of the Straw Dogs movie may well be disappointed if after being mislead by the cover expect to read a written version of that film. If you haven't read the book the basic plot is an American professor George Magruder is writing an English style book and so he can be inspired has agreed to his wife's request to relocate to rural England so she can show their daughter the kind of childhood she had. They rent and old isolated house known as Trencher's Farm in the area of Dando. George is a quite shy and reserved and when the local tavern patrons make it clear they don't want him around decides to make no real effort trying to get to the know the locals. Amongst the small town population are a number of uneducated, racist bigots who have never gone more than a few kilometres out of town let alone seen the world (except a few that had to go fight in World War 1 but have dismissed the outside world). Since they can't see George doing any work they assume he is a rich snobby American and the fact he has an attractive wife only makes the situation worse. Meanwhile Niles a convicted child killer with the mentality of an 8 year old finds himself on the lose when the ambulance he is in crashes in the snow on route back to the mental asylum. George unfortunately hits the nearly frozen to death Niles with his car and when asking the tavern to call an ambulance for the man instead receives on his doorstep drunk locals wanting to torture and kill Niles who they wrongly assume knows the whereabouts of Janice Hedden a mentally disabled girl who has gone missing. George knows there is no way Niles would have had time to kidnap the girl as he was hitting him with his car moments after the girl went missing but this explanation falls on death ears to the men to drunk or brain dead to listen. What follows is a test for George, for himself Karen and Louise to survive he's going to