In the wink of an eye, as quick as a flea,
The Devil he jumped from me to thee.
And only when the Devil had gone,
Did I know that he and I’d been one . . .Every autumn, John Pentecost returns to the farm where he grew up, to help gather the sheep down from the moors for the winter. Very little changes in the Endlands, but this year, his grandfather—the Gaffer—has died and John’s new wife, Katherine, is accompanying him for the first time.
Each year, the Gaffer would redraw the boundary lines of the village, with pen and paper but also through the remembrance of tales and timeless communal rituals, which keep the sheep safe from the Devil. But as the farmers of the Endlands bury the Gaffer and prepare to gather the sheep, they begin to wonder whether they’ve let the Devil in after all.
So, I’m probably the outlier here, as I have not yet read The Loney as yet. This is my first taste of Hurley.
As a horror novel, this is very quiet. Sleepily quiet. You’ll learn about small, well-removed rural communities and the day-to-day of managing a farm…probably more than you want to…
…but here’s the thing: Andrew Michael Hurley’s prose is mesmerizing. Hypnotic. I listened to this on audio while walking, and there were times where I just got lost in the story and had no idea where or how far I’d walked while I listened to the story.
The horror elements creep up on you silently, much like Jackson’s Haunting of Hill House, so don’t come in looking for screaming horrors that grab you by the throat. Hurley’s horrors whisper, and just graze you with their fingertips.
Like others, however, there were hints to what the ending could be, but never was, and I found that a touch disappointing. I wasn’t looking for a big bang ending—not from a book like this—but I did expect a bit more that I got.
But for all of that, a good read.
