A review by xterminal
All Heads Turn When the Hunt Goes By by John Farris
3.0
There are certain novels that are discovered early on by other novelists and talked about constantly. Some of the time, the public picks up on these and turns them, and their authors, into popular figures. Far more often, however, they are left in obscurity among the masses while achieving legendary status among the industry insiders. Anne Rivers Siddons' _The House Next Door_ is a prime example; Lee Smith's _Oral History_ is another. And there are many other examples, including this tome, which achieved something close to legendary status even before its publication-- and then disappeared, despite having the kudos of almost every major horror writer of the time thrown at it. Twenty-two years later, Farris is dimly remembered as having authored the novel that was the basis for the very bad movie _The Fury_ (1976) and nothing else. Which is something of a crime, because Farris was above average as far as seventies horror novelists went; of course, most of those have faded into (well-deserved) obscurity, as well, but a few live on. And Farris, while not on the same level as King and Koontz, is certainly no more than a shallow notch below either. And he was miles above, say, Frank de Felitta, whose every book went to #1 on the NYT chart and smashed publication records.
That being said, I've read a smattering of Farris over the years. His work is readable, if not compulsively so, and it goes quick-- if it weren't for the supernatural elements, I'd call Farris a writer of slick mysteries in the John D. MacDonald tradition. He has the same sense of pace and timing, and the same wry, understated sense of irony that, when it works, is as funny as anything ever penned by Douglas Adams. And this was right along the same lines. Not as much a travelogue-style book as many of his others-- this one is set, alternately, in the Blue Ridge Mountains (in a school obviously supposed to be VMI), in England, and on a plantation in the deep south known as Dasharoons. The action takes place in WW2, and ties together the plantation's owners, who seem to be cursed, and the son of a missionary doctor in the Congo.
Much of what happens here is, if not predictable, at least understandable to someone with an extra twenty-two years of scholarly research on various subjects under his belt. But this book came before a lot of that research, and so some of the details contained therein are astounding in their accuracy. (Farris stretches the truth now and again, but one wonders if that wasn't the going wisdom at the time on some things.) Of course, telling you what all this research went into would destroy most of the book's sense of disjunction; you kind of feel you have a sense of what's going on, but you're not really sure. (It's possible that those unfamiliar with these areas of research will be completely out of their depth.)
Because of the advances being made in anthropology and sociology, the book hasn't held up well on that level. But that's not the book's fault, and I tried to not penalize the book for what's gone on around it in the world since. Farris does a good job of capturing the deep south during WW2, everything has a rational explanations right up to the end, the characters are drawn well enough so that you start to worry about what happens to them (if not immersed, a la Walker). In general, a good, solid, easy read.
That being said, I've read a smattering of Farris over the years. His work is readable, if not compulsively so, and it goes quick-- if it weren't for the supernatural elements, I'd call Farris a writer of slick mysteries in the John D. MacDonald tradition. He has the same sense of pace and timing, and the same wry, understated sense of irony that, when it works, is as funny as anything ever penned by Douglas Adams. And this was right along the same lines. Not as much a travelogue-style book as many of his others-- this one is set, alternately, in the Blue Ridge Mountains (in a school obviously supposed to be VMI), in England, and on a plantation in the deep south known as Dasharoons. The action takes place in WW2, and ties together the plantation's owners, who seem to be cursed, and the son of a missionary doctor in the Congo.
Much of what happens here is, if not predictable, at least understandable to someone with an extra twenty-two years of scholarly research on various subjects under his belt. But this book came before a lot of that research, and so some of the details contained therein are astounding in their accuracy. (Farris stretches the truth now and again, but one wonders if that wasn't the going wisdom at the time on some things.) Of course, telling you what all this research went into would destroy most of the book's sense of disjunction; you kind of feel you have a sense of what's going on, but you're not really sure. (It's possible that those unfamiliar with these areas of research will be completely out of their depth.)
Because of the advances being made in anthropology and sociology, the book hasn't held up well on that level. But that's not the book's fault, and I tried to not penalize the book for what's gone on around it in the world since. Farris does a good job of capturing the deep south during WW2, everything has a rational explanations right up to the end, the characters are drawn well enough so that you start to worry about what happens to them (if not immersed, a la Walker). In general, a good, solid, easy read.