Publisher’s summary: It’s Halloween night, 1984, in Coventry, Massachusetts, and two families are unraveling. Up and down the street, secrets are being revealed, and all the while, mixed in with the trick-or-treaters of all ages, four children who do not belong are walking door to door, merging with the kids of Parmenter Road. Children in vintage costumes with faded, eerie makeup. They seem terrified and beg the neighborhood kids to hide them away, to keep them safe from The Cunning Man.
There’s a small clearing in the woods now that was never there before, and a blackthorn tree that doesn’t belong at all. These odd children claim that The Cunning Man is coming for them… and they want the local kids to protect them. But with families falling apart and the neighborhood splintered by bitterness, who will save the children of Parmenter Road?
All Hallows is a definite slow burn. Author Christopher Golden takes the Stephen King approach here, allowing us to get up close and personal with his sizable suburban cast—introducing first their personal demons before letting loose all the literal hellions.
The focus on interpersonal relationships might not resonate with some readers, though, as it does mean that for a large portion of the book, the horror is much more of the domestic kind, with the supernatural elements only really kicking in well into the second half. While the social drama is very much the heart of the story—it’s compelling and, at times, considerably more harrowing than any of the horrific happenings that follow—the novel could have certainly benefited from a better balance overall. The otherworldly aspects are alluring and fascinating, but they also feel somewhat tacked on, with Golden throwing in a lot of lore significantly late in the game. Horror often thrives on mystery and ambiguity, yes, but if the goal is to establish a larger mythology, you’re probably going to need more than a handful of cursory paragraphs.
Still, the sudden supernatural shift sets us up for some seriously shocking scenes, made all the more impactful by the considerable amount of time we’ve already spent with these characters and their struggles. We empathize, and thus we are horrified. I found the Cunning Man and, in particular, the old-fashioned trick-or-treaters exceedingly creepy. The preternatural principles of the story may be a bit vague, but they do bring a lot of dark folkloric flair. They work for me.
That shadowy atmosphere is the best thing this book has going for it—something I fully expected after reading Baltimore, Christopher Golden’s magnificently Gothic collaboration with Mike Mignola, last year. Golden completely captures both the informal, ephemeral nature of the holiday and its more arcane, ethereal facet. The end result is a lot of ghoulish fun—a novel that evokes the playful spirit of Spirit Halloween just as much as it does the mythical essence of Samhain—making All Hallows, for this reader at least, the perfect read to close out the All Hallows season.
ricardo reading 