Cry for the Strangers Book

I remembered reading this in my youth and enjoying it, but find it doesn't measure up as an adult. John Saul was a much different type of writer than King and Koontz, his books fashioned on creepiness rather than horror. Cry for the Strangers is broken up into three parts ' Book One, Book Two, Book Three ' and therein lies much of the problem with this story about a fictional seaside town called Clark's Harbor and the four people who have moved there and find it not welcoming to strangers.

Book One is the best portion, John Saul doing a wonderful job of setting everything up, ratcheting up the creepiness as old legends and some mysterious deaths come into play, as do the townspeople. The husband wants to write a book about biorhythms and try to figure out why young Robbie, a former patient and son of the second couple, has so improved since moving to this unwelcoming town. It's not a gripping, edge of your seat kind of story, but you're hooked, willing to keep turning pages to discover what's happening in Clark's Harbor. But then comes Book Two.

In the second section, we follow around the unlikable sheriff, while the main two protagonists return to pack for the big move, placing them off-stage. It was while they were off-stage in part two that it came to me what was wrong with this story, which I'll get to in a bit.

Book Three is better, as the main couple return. While there is some excitement, the ending, rather than being creepy, sort of ruins it for this reader. This same ending would have worked well if this had been a short story ' perhaps even a novelette or novella ' and that's what is wrong with this book. This is so long, and the reader has so much invested, that we expect more than we get, and certainly not that final scene.

Cry for the Strangers is a terrific short story which has been padded into a bloated novel. It isn't that the idea, the premise, isn't good, it's that it's a thick rubber band stretched until the elasticity barely holds. This was an early effort from Saul, but most of his books follow this same kind of pattern. I loved this as a teenager, thinking it was very creepy. But as an adult, I found the narrative stretched so far that it muted the creepiness, highlighting the book's bloated length. Saul is a good writer, but I can't help feeling this story would have made a wonderful, perhaps even memorable, read had it not been padded. Trimming down and then combining parts one and three, and losing part two entirely, would have made this a fantastic read!

I wouldn't discourage anyone from giving this book a read, since I often have the same issues with King and Koontz (whom I prefer). Tastes vary and you might like this book more than I did. I certainly didn't dislike it, but I ruined a fond teenage memory by revisiting this book. Maybe the old saying is true, that you just can't go home again…