Harvest Home (novel)
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Harvest Home cover
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| Author | Thomas Tryon |
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| Language | English |
| Genre | Horror, Drama |
| Publisher | Alfred A. Knopf |
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Publication date
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1973 |
| Media type | Hardcover |
| Pages | 401 |
| ISBN | |
| OCLC | 595306 |
| 813/.5/4 | |
| LC Class | PZ4.T8764 Har PS3570.R9 |
Harvest Home is a 1973 novel by Thomas Tryon, which he wrote following his critically acclaimed 1971 novel, The Other. Harvest Home was a New York Times bestseller. The book became an NBC mini-series in 1978 titled The Dark Secret of Harvest Home, which starred Bette Davis (as Mary Fortune) and David Ackroyd (as Ned). The mini-series was generally quite faithful to the plot of the book.
Harvest Home is narrated in the first person by Ned Constantine, and describes events surrounding himself, his wife Beth, and their daughter Kate as they relocate from New York City to an isolated Connecticut village named Cornwall Coombe where Ned can pursue an artistic career.
The opening chapters describe the past marital difficulties of Ned and Beth, now apparently resolved; the moody Kate's serious, potentially life-threatening asthma, in part a psychosomatic reaction to those marital troubles; and the eccentricities of life in Cornwall Coombe. The villagers adhere stubbornly to what they call "the old ways", eschewing modern agricultural methods and limiting contact with the outside world. The villagers celebrate a number of festivals that revolve around the cultivation of corn, which is their chief product. The most important rite is Harvest Home, which takes place at the conclusion of the crop growing year. While the villagers are ostensibly Christian, Ned gradually becomes aware of the paganism that underlies life in Cornwall Coombe, particularly its rituals.
The Constantines befriend the Dodds — Maggie Dodd, an educated woman who left Cornwall Coombe but later returned with her husband, Robert, an outsider. Maggie is the church organist. Robert Dodd, totally blind, is a retired college professor. Other prominent villagers who become friends with the newcomers are Worthy Pettinger, a young man who disdains the old ways and wants to go to agricultural college; Justin Hooke, who serves as the current year's ceremonial "Harvest Lord", and his wife Sophie, whom Justin has chosen to be his "Corn Maiden" in the approaching "Corn Play"; Jack Stump, a local itinerant peddler, only recently arrived; and Mary Fortune, a widowed herbalist and midwife, and the town's most influential resident.
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