オフシーズン (扶桑社ミステリー) [文庫]

避暑客が去り冷たい秋風が吹き始めた九月のメイン州の避暑地。ニューヨークから六人の男女が休暇をとって当地にやって来る。最初に到着したのは書箱編集者のカーラ。すこし遅れて、彼女の現在のボーイフレンドのジム、彼女の妹のマージーとそのボーイフレンドのダン、そしてカーラのかつてのボーイフレンドのニックとそのガールフレンドのローラが到着した。六人全員が到着した晩に事件は勃発した。当地に住む“食人族”が六人に襲い掛かったのだ。“食人族”対“都会族”の凄惨な死闘が開始する。

Eighteen years after its mass market release by Ballantine, Ketchum's debut horror novel gains hardcover publication. It's about time. Though this merciless tale of human evil in the Maine woods went out of print soon after publication, its bleak vision and extreme violence still influence horror today. Only a novel of expert articulation and emotional truth can cast such a long shadow, and Ketchum's is both. Horror critic Winter calls the book one of "remarkable elegance," and indeed it's drum tight. Equally impressively, Ketchum uses the devastation of a group of tourists by a band of cannibals not to pander, as so many horror writers after him have done, but to explore with intelligence (and ferocity) the nature of evil and of the human spirit that can resist it. The novel's structure isn't original, modeled largely on the film Night of the Living Dead, but its events unfold with shocking energy and directness. The imagery is cruelAbloody battles between the tourists and cannibals, torture and consumption by the cannibals of their victimsAas is the arbitrariness of who will live and who will die; but always Ketchum is in command. In an afterword, Ketchum details the rough history of the novel, explaining how he has reinserted cuts forced by Ballantine. This signed and limited edition not only revives a horror classic and offers some neat publishing lore, but also reminds us that, once upon a time, some of the most exciting genre writing came in paper covers. (Aug.) FYI: Jack Ketchum is the pseudonym of Dallas Mayr (Ladies' Night, etc.).
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --このテキストは、絶版本またはこのタイトルには設定されていない版型に関連付けられています。

They had Hunted every animal but there was no flesh like man's . . . Welcome to Jack Ketchum's ferocious and unforgettable first novel, Off Season. Originally published in 1981, Off Season was a defining moment of contemporary horror fiction, an instant classic whose impact on the writing and reading of horror continues today... ...when I read Off Season, I knew that its writer was different; that he was working from that raw and risky perspective known as personal vision, and that he had written a novel that was his own, and not what a publisher wanted or expected. Stocked in the shadows of bestsellers and a blur of Stephen King wannabes, Off Season was issued as a paperback original by Ballantine -- a publisher who has never shown much enthusiasm for the fiction of fear. The cover was a minimalist triumph, its title embossed in black on black, stained with a red thread of blood. The author's name -- a pseudonym -- was reported in white block capital letters, and the top of the cover announced:"THE ULTIMATE HORROR NOVEL." The hyperbole was deserved. Off Season was the genuine article, its horror insistent, visceral, and disturbing.-- From the Introduction to Off Season: Unexpurgated by Douglas E. Winter
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Jack Ketchum is the pseudonym for a former actor, singer, teacher, literary agent, lumber salesman, and soda jerk. He is also a former flower child and baby boomer who figures that in 1956 Elvis, dinosaurs and horror probably saved his life. His first novel, Off Season, prompted the Village Voice to publicly scold its publisher in print for publishing violent pornography. He personally disagrees but is perfectly happy to let you decide for yourself. His short story The Box won a 1994 Bram Stoker Award from the HWA and he has written ten novels, the latest of which are The Girl Next Door, Stranglehold, Red, and Ladies' Night. His stories are collected in The Exit At Toledo Blade Boulevard and Broken on the Wheel of Sex.
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