Want a NOOK? Explore Now
In the last hours of Halloween, he reaches the outskirts of the dying town of Elm Haven. There, he moves into the abandoned farmhouse that was once the home of his closest boyhood friend, the strange and brilliant Duane McBride, who lost his young life in a grisly "accident" back in the terrible summer of 1960. Hoping to find peace in isolation, he settles in for the long, harsh winter.
But Dale is not alone. Soon after he arrives, cryptic messages begin appearing mysteriously on his computer screen while he struggles to work on his novel. He sees black dogs roaming the grounds. And an old enemy has reemerged, a bully who seems as determined to persecute Dale as he was in childhood.
Forty-one years after I died, my friend Dale returned to the farm where I was murdered. It was a very bad winter.
I know what you're thinking. There's the old journalism anecdote of William Randolph Hearst needing someone to cover the Johnstown flood and sending a young cub reporter. It was the kid's big break. The next day the novice cabled back this lead to Hearst's paper: "GOD SAT ON A LONELY HILL ABOVE JOHNSTOWN TODAY, LOOKING DOWN IN SORROW AT NATURE'S FIERCE DESTRUCTION." Old-timers swear that Hearst did not hesitate ten seconds before cabling back this response: "FORGET FLOOD STORY. INTERVIEW GOD."
I say I died forty-one years ago and your response is, Forget the story about Dale. Who cares? Tell us what it's like to be dead -- what is the afterlife like? What is it like to be a ghost? Is there a God?
At least, these would be my questions. Unfortunately, I am not a ghost. Nor do I know anything about any afterlife. When I was alive, I did not believe in ghosts or heaven or God or spirits surviving the body or resurrection or reincarnation, and I still do not. If I had to describe my current state of existence, I would say that I am a cyst of memory. Dale's sense of me is so strong, so cut off and cauterized from the rest of his consciousness by trauma, that I seem to exist as something more than memory, something less than life, almost literally a black hole of holistic recollection formed by the collapsing gravity of grief.
I know this does not explain it, but then I do not really understand it myself. I know only that Iam and that there was a -- "quickening" might be the best word -- when Dale decided to return and spend the winter at the farm where I once lived and where I died.
And, no, I have no memory of my death. I know no more of that event than does Dale. Evidently one's death, like one's birth, is so important as to be beyond recall.
When I was alive I was only a boy, but I was fairly smart and totally dedicated to becoming a writer someday. I spent years preparing for that -- apprenticing myself to the word -- knowing that it would be many more years before I could write a real short story, much less a novel, but practicing with opening paragraphs for stories and novels nonetheless.
If I were borrowing an opening for this tale, I would steal it from Thackeray's boring 1861 novel Lovel the Widower:
Who shall be the hero of this tale? Not I who write it. I am but the Chorus of the Play. I make remarks on the conduct of the characters: I narrate their simple story.
Thackeray's ominiscient "I" was lying, of course. Any Creator stating that he is a simple Chorus and impassive observer of his creatures' actions is a hypocrite and a liar. Of course, I believed that to be true of God, on the few occasions when I considered that He might exist at all. Once, when Dale and Mike and I were having a chickenhouse discussion of God, my only contribution was a paraphrased quote from Mark Twain: "When we look around at the pain and injustice of the world, we must come to the ineluctable conclusion that God is a thug." I'm not sure if I believed that then or now, but it certainly shocked Mike and Dale into silence. Especially Mike. He was an altar boy then and most devout.
But I'm digressing even before I begin the story. I always hated writers who did that. I still have no powerful opening line. I'll just begin again.
Forty-one years after I died, my friend Dale returned to the farm where I was murdered. It was a very bad winter.
Dale Stewart drove from western Montana to central Illinois, more than 1,700 miles in 29 hours, the mountains dwindling and then disappearing in his rearview mirror, endless stretches of autumn prairie blending into a tan and russet blur, following I-90 east to I-29 southeast to I-80 east to I-74 south and then east again, traveling through the better part of two time zones, returning to the checkerboard geometries of the Midwest, and forcing himself down through more than forty years of memories like a diver going deep, fighting the pain and pressure that such depths bring. Dale stopped only for food, fuel, and a few catnaps at interstate rest areas. He had not slept well for months, even before his suicide attempt. Now he carried drugs for sleeping, but he did not choose to stop and use them on this trip. He wanted to get there as soon as possible. He did not really understand why he was going there.
Dale had planned to arrive at Elm Haven in midmorning, tour his old hometown, and then drive on to Duane's farmhouse in the daylight, but it was after eleven o'clock at night when he saw the ELM HAVEN exit sign on I-74.
He had planned to move into Duane's old house in early or mid-September, allowing plenty of time to enjoy the fall colors and the crisp, sunny autumn days. He arrived on the last day of October, at night, in the last hours of the first Halloween of the new century, hard on the cold cusp of winter.
I screwed up, thought Dale as he took the overpass above I-74 and followed the night-empty road the two miles north toward Elm Haven. Screwed up again. Everything I haven't lost, I've screwed up. And everything I lost, I lost because I screwed it up.
He shook his head at this, angry at the bumper-sticker-stupid self-pity of the...
A Winter Haunting. Copyright © by Dan Simmons. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.Anonymous
Posted July 8, 2004
For a sequel, Dan Simmons did an awesome job. This book will keep you so into it that you cant put it down. And in the immortal words of the public...you should buy this book.
1 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted January 31, 2013
I really enjoyed this book. Although I figured out most of it before the end of the book, I really enjoyed how the author 'painted the picture' and kept me hooked.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted January 11, 2013
Very good read, Simmons is a great writer
0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted December 30, 2012
Although I did enjoy A Winter Haunting, I liked Summer better. I think this did tie up a few of loose ends for me and it gave me a greater understanding of what happened in Summer of Night. Great read if you are a fan of Simmons, but if you are a first-time reader of his work, I recommend you start with Hyperion or Carrion Comfort to get a sense of his style.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted November 24, 2012
A very well done ghost story, vague and disconcerting, as a ghost story should be.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted October 6, 2012
I was amazed and pleased to see a sequel to Summer of Night that includes Duane McBride. Like many readers, I missed him and would like to see him in future Dan Simmons novels.
Anonymous
Posted September 14, 2012
Riddled with contradictions, reading like an english lit project, following the usual drugstore horror novel formula, this is hardly worth my time. Frequent sidetracks and even more frequent returns to various go-nowhere subplots don't help. The author name drops Stephen King references so much, it's no wonder King endorses it on the cover - but, did he even read it?
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.JohnPopa
Posted August 10, 2012
"A Winter's Haunting" is a slight book that never seems to become a particularly involving ghost story, nor is the protagonist's human drama engaging enough to maintain itself. It's not a bad book but for a writer as accomplished as Simmons, it feels undercooked.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted August 5, 2012
i got this book to read to scare my brother by reading it but when i got to the first or second page i thought that it was verry unapropriate and i personaly dont like it so please dont even get the sample because this book is unapropriate
0 out of 6 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.This was not a great book. I bought this book because I could not find one of his book as an ebook and I was told that this was a great book. I do not thank I will read another book by him.
0 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.If A Winter's Haunting is a five star read (which it isn't), Summer of Night (it's "part one") deserves a constellation. Dan Simmons is such a good writer though, that his lesser (not as scary) efforts are worth picking up.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Thaumaturgy
Posted September 16, 2010
Simmons is an exceptionally "smooth" writer. His prose is easily digested and I find myself devouring his work, even as I think it isn't as well developed as I would like.
I disliked "Summer of Night" since it seemed to be a pale homage to Stephen King's "It" with shades of "'Salem's Lot". But this "sequel" took the lameness of "Summer of Night" and leveraged it as a half-memory and built a much stronger sense of fear.
However, as in "Summer of Night" this seemed a pale remake of King's "Secret Window/Secret Garden" with overtones of "The Shining" and "The Dark Half"; the broken author retreating to refocus his work but getting lost at the retreat.
I was quite pleased that my favorite character, Duane, from "Summer of Night" played a central role. Bravo for Simmons for "resurrecting" this character in a sense.
Still in all, "A Winter Haunting" was a good read, excellent literary candy.
And anyone who can take central Illinois and build a work of horror (without resorting to the obvious horror of being stuck in central Illinois!) is doing their part representing the Midwest, long overdue for its own horror landscape!
0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Overall, this book was just good, not great, not amazing, not anything I will really bring up with friends to discuss. Simmons is one of mt favorite writers, he has a way with words and knows how to fuse sarcasm, comedy, horror, and wit in his stories. A Winter Haunting, however, wasn't one of his best books. It started out great and by mid way through I was beginning to see exactly where the story was headed, not that that's necessarily such a bad thing but when you're reading a ghost story you expect to be shocked, scared, and overall blown away at the end when the story unravels, I was not any of those things when I finished the book last night. Still a decent read though!
0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.This book is not for Children, or even young Adults. This book holds loads of sexual content, some rapings, constant F words and raley other words, and sexual tempt, including racial prejiduce.
Yet, this was still and awesome book! It isn't that creepy in the beginng
but it has dramatized car races and guns and explosions. It is also a dramatic love story, between Dale, his wife, and two other girls(SEXUAL). Not for children, but awesome for the older people. Great book!
0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted December 2, 2007
I read Summer of Night after this one. They are both terrific. Simmons keeps the tension high, and does not tip his hand. It is one of the best ghost stories you will come accross. Buy it!
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted August 5, 2007
This book has plenty of creepy, and sometimes downright scary moments for ghost story lovers. The story loses it's creep a bit towards the end, but the ending is satisfying overall.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted March 19, 2004
THIS BOOK WAS AWESOME, I COULDN'T PUT IT DOWN, I AGREE WITH DEAN KOONTZ, DAN SIMMONS IS BRILLIANT. THIS IS BY FAR THE BEST BOOK I'VE READ THIS YEAR. I HAVEN'T READ SUMMER OF NIGHT YET, BUT I HOPE ITS AS GOOD AS THIS ONE!!
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted March 29, 2004
This was the best book yet I have ever read .... It was so enthralling I had a hard time to put it down, Poor Dale the main character had a rough time.... It was great, Please buy it.... It is worth your time to read.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted May 13, 2003
A cold wind was blowing as I hunkered down in my darkened room, alone in the house. My reading lamp was on the page; I was waiting to be scared. I kept waiting, and waiting . . . After slogging through the entire book, I found myself feeling disappointed. Despite a few intriguing devices, A Winter Haunting failed to hold me. The plot seemed to suffer from a dearth of substance, rather like one of the recent teen horror flicks (minus the gore) represented as a series of disjointed scenes pasted together with memories. Though much of the writing itself was beautifully descriptive, just as you would expect from Mr. Simmons, I don't think this represents his best work. I am still a fan of Dan Simmons, and look forward to his next book.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted April 7, 2003
On the front cover, Stephen King is quoted as saying 'I am in awe of Dan Simmons.' Probably because Dan showed Steve that a scary story can be told in under 600 pages. There are no wasted moments. In most ghost stories I've read, or seen film versions of, you get the feeling that the main character is having dellusions (seeing people wh aren't really there, etc.)but he does not realize it until the end. In Winter Haunting, Dale Stewart is thinking that himself. So as reality comes and goes, you don't lose the tension between reality and his imagination. I am about to order Summer of Night. I recommend A Winter Haunting to everyone.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.
Overview
In the last hours ...