Outstanding in its field
Synopsis
REAP WHAT YOU SOW
In the wake of a series of panic attacks, isolated and introverted Carina takes a friend up on an offer: go to Greentree, Oregon, escape her abusive ex, and start a new life.
But upon arrival, the town is stranger than Carina could have ever imagined.
For one, they still have a video store. For two, everyone is rich.
For three, what’s up with all these scarecrows?
As Greentree’s secrets begin to unravel, as the autumn sun bends below the corn, as scythes sharpen in the night—a violent revolution stirs.
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Review
Scarecrows are absolutely terrifying, and if you find that statement ridiculous then you are not standing in the right fields. In A Spectre is Haunting Greentree, Carson Winter takes this horror icon and squeezes all the terror he can get out of it till the straw pops out, but still finds time to weave in a darkly furious anti-capitalist message and a thread of overcoming your fears.
Carina has arrived at Greentree, an isolated Oregon rural town, to try and rebuild her life away from her abusive ex. Her fear of noises in the night is not helped by staying in a farmhouse near to fields of scarecrows. Meanwhile, Greentree itself is a bizarrely wealthy place, with an unusually busy video store. And then the killing starts…
The immediate thing that jumped out at me here like a dark figure in a cornfield was Winter’s knack for creating a sense of dread and genuine terror at an unexplained noise. The terror that comes from supposedly inanimate objects coming to life is always the sense they might be near rather than the actual reveal, and there are some genuinely terrifying “something in the night scenes” here. I am rarely scared by horror these days – desensitized brain, or is horror fiction rarely meant to be scary, we’ll settle that debate in the field later – but I was genuinely creeped out by this tale.
But besides the shivers, Carson also dovetails Carina’s character arc nicely with the idea of building tension. Her instinct as someone who’s fled her abusive ex to a new town is to be scared of every noise; sensing intruders everywhere. We are never sure whether there is something round the corner of if it is her paranoia; it is that classic melding of psychological trauma and real supernatural terror that makes the opening scenes so electric. Her fears also make for a rousing journey as she slowly learns how to live again as others most definitely learn to start dying all around her.
However this is a book ultimately more interested in the message rather than the character as the perils of capitalism – particularly a strange, animalistic, blood-fuelled kind – is a strong theme here. A deal has been struck in Greentree and boy is it about to go wrong. Little more can be said without entering the perilous cornfields of spoilers, but the idea of the working class finally twigging that they can reap the profits themselves rather than simply reap the lands is a strong one here, and the wild nature that lurks below capitalism – there is a reason that modern economists speak of “animal spirits” when they discuss the stock market – is explored in intriguing ways, not least through a bold and effective choice of POV.
And ultimately, when the revolution comes, it is as terrifying and bloody as you’d hope for, though in all honesty the great joy of this book was in the build-up. Winter writes unease and building dread beautifully, and I guarantee you you’ll be as wary of these scarecrows as the birds that leave them well alone.
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