Shadowland
by Peter Straub
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Book Summary Information
Author: Peter StraubEdition: Mass Market Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2003-03-04
ISBN: 0425188221
Number of pages: 480
Publisher: Berkley
Book Reviews of Shadowland
Book Review: A Totally Unique Horror/Dark Fantasy Masterpiece
Summary: 5 Stars
An innovatively written tale spreading across the territory of horror and dark fantasy, Shadowland is equally driven by concept and by characters, and is an indispensible addition to the library of any devotee of the fantastic or just excellent novels in general.
The style in which the book is narrated is unique, something I've never encountered elsewhere. It's written by a character - now an author - who played a small role in the events during his youth, and who has, years later, gathered the rest of the story through extensive talks - sort of half-interviews, half-conversations - with another character, Tom Flannagan, who played a more direct role in the events being recounted; a lesser role is played by further talks with other characters who were more or less peripheral to the big events. The fact that the author character is never identified by name lends an additional dose of eerie authenticity to the tale.
It starts out - after a pair of prologues touching on dreams of ancient wizards, and on the world of stage magic where some of the acts may not be 100% illusion - in 1950s Arizona and the start of the school year at a private school, an institution very austere and unforgiving even for the era, where the teaching staff is mostly unpleasant and many of the older students arrogant thugs, and a hard year is set for Flannagan and Del Nightingale, the two main players of this part of the novel. The novel's narrator is present for the events of this section, and plays a fairly signifigant side role, as he, Flannagan, Nightingale, and several other first-year students at the Carson Upper School form friendships and try to make it through the year, which includes not only the familiar, worldly difficulties, not other, more exotic, troubles lurking in the background. One of the interests Tom is introduced to early in the school year is magic, which is Del's passion, and something he practices most of the time he's not in school, achieving a high level of skill at. Uncannily high, in fact...
After many threads have woven together and subplots have beun to meld, we find ourselves ready for the next act, as summer dawns and Del invites Tom to come along with him for his annual trip to his Uncle Cole's estate in New England. Coleman Collins is a rich recluse, at one time a world-famous stage magician, and now mentor to Del during the summer months. It's here that the main thrust of the novel takes place. Tom meets, for the first time, the array of people Del's come to know during his consecutive summers at the estate: Collins's small band of roughish - servants? friends? lackeys? - Tom isn't quite sure; a forlorn and beautiful young girl named Rose; and the mysterious Coleman Collins himself. Many characters aren't necessarily what they seem, and during the school year and, especially, during that fateful summer that follows where Del and Tom co-apprentice under Collins, we encounter wonderous beauty, riveting tension, the telling of fantastic fables within the larger story, and a character who's slowly revealed to be one of the most believably and disturbing evil characters in horror history. The twists and turns are many: some bring unexpected brightness to the tale, some are very dark (one in particular hits like a sledgehammer right to the heart). Some aspects of the book - the true motivations of certain characters; the spiritual/theological meaning behind certain revelations - are wide open to individual interpretation, and that can actually be a good thing: sometimes things are better off not spelled right out, but left for the reader to make up their own mind on (the identity of the 'dream wizard' early on, for example). Some may think the first section of the book - the school year, which is largely a 'lead-up' phase - occupies too much page space, but I like the time the book took in establishing its characters and in letting the more mystical elemets seep in gradually.
You feel like you know the characters deeply in this book, and come to truly care about their fates; the magical elements feel real, and sometimes it seems that the weirder the magic gets, the more genuine it feels. As I said earlier, this is a must for fans of horror or dark fantasy (maybe of fantasy in general), and also recommended for fans outside of those fields. The only caveat for readers not into horror or dark fantasy is that when Shadowland gets dark, it gets DARK. There are some frightening and wrenching moments in here, but in the end all the book's elements blend together for a tale that's haunting in more ways than one.
Summary of Shadowland
You have been there?
if you have ever been afraid.
Come back. To a dark house deep in the Vermont woods, where two friends are spending a season of horror, apprenticed to a Master Magician.
Learning secrets best left unlearned. Entering a world of incalculable evil more ancient than death itself. More terrifying. And more real.
Only one of them will make it through.
First setting: an all-male prep school in Arizona, where two sensitive freshmen form a bond based on their interest in magic tricks. Second setting: the labyrinthine house of a weird magician uncle in New England, where the two boys spend a memorable summer being trained in the art of illusion. Or is it real magic? Third setting: an alternate world where dark forces are at play--forces that first show up at the school, but intensify their power the summer. Shadowland is a superb, under-recognized, early novel from a master of literary terror. Get it while it's back in print!
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