Harvest Home is a
1978 novel written by Thomas Tryon. It’s
about a family that moves to the village of Cornwall Coombe, where the
villagers adhere to the “old ways.” Ned
Constantine, his wife Beth and their daughter Kate relocate to Cornwall Coombe,
which is a village that celebrates festivals revolving around the cultivation
of corn. The leader of the village, the
Widow Fortune, is also a midwife and practices herbal medicine. Nothing goes down in the Coombe without the Widow knowing. Ned is
suspicious of the Widow’s influence on the town and her medical remedies, but
Beth and Kate grow to love her.
Ned is right to be suspicious of the Widow, as she is the
leader of a cult—made up of the Coombe’s women—that practices pagan fertility
rites to ensure a good harvest. Their
husbands and sons are locked up in their houses during Harvest Home (which is
the most important of the corn festivals), as they are not allowed to see or
hear anything that takes place during the commemoration. During Harvest Home, the Corn Maiden mates
with the Harvest Lord and the women then murder him and sprinkle his blood in
the cornfields.
Ned is declared an outcast by the Widow for being too
nosy. When he tries to interfere with
the festival, he learns that the newly minted Corn Maiden is his wife Beth. The women capture Ned and force him to watch
his wife fuck the Harvest Lord, and then they blind him and cut out his tongue. Ned learns later that his wife Beth is
pregnant—not by him—and his daughter Kate is next in line to be Corn Maiden.
I enjoy books and movies about pagan cults. Harvest
Home is a decent read, but honestly it could have used a good edit, as the
first two-thirds of the book kinda slogs along…and then the final third is when
things get really interesting. I paid a
whole $1 for it on Amazon, so it was a worthwhile investment.
You are something else. They have to build the story up first before they can give you the gore that your little heart desires.
ReplyDeleteYeah but Tryon could have done that more efficiently.
Delete