Synopsis
Two boys, Will and Jim, tangle with Mr. Dark and his mysterious carnival, which blows into town one autumn night.
History
First publication: Simon & Schuster, September 1962
Review
This is one of the great American fantasies, capturing the spirit of the small town Midwest in a style that is a joy to read. Most writers just write to get the story straight, but some writers go farther and craft the sound of their sentences. Bradbury is one of those, but while a lot of such writers like Poe or Hawthorne make it heavy and difficult to follow, Bradbury still keeps it simple enough to be easy to read. This is a horror novel, which I compared sort of to Needful Things by Stephen King, but this doesn’t rely on describing dismemberings for its horror, making it less gross, less scary, but still perfect for autumn and Halloween. And it makes it perfect for kids to read. This story is not being told to just horrify, scare and gross you out, it exists to tell a human story, about a father and a son, and about how our fears, regrets and sorrows feed the darkness that can overcome and destroy us. Something Wicked This Way Comes is everything I want in a novel.
Videos
We have the story in these editions:
Something Wicked This Way Comes, hardcover, William Morrow, 2001-00-00
All of the stories in the Green Town series:
Farewell Summer
End of Summer
The Great Fire
Driving Blind
All On a Summer’s Night
Miss Bidwell
Autumn Afternoon
These Things Happen
The Pumpernickel
The Screaming Woman
At Midnight, in the Month of June
Night Meeting
Something Wicked This Way Comes
Farewell Summer
