Off Season

Jack Ketchum's OFF SEASON is a classic horror novel for fans of the grotesque. There's no doubt the novel is horrific - it's about a family of inbred cannibalistic lunatics living in a cave on the coast of Maine, and Ketchum holds no punches in describing the brutality of their violence. But beyond that, OFF SEASON is a well-written and gripping novel that has a lot to say about both humanity's propensity for violence and the sheer absurdity of our ongoing struggle to survive. There's more to this book than blood and body parts, and that's what makes it worth reading. The story focuses on Carla, a young editor from the big city who has rented a remote cabin in Maine for a month of relaxation and work on her latest project. When she invites sister Marjie and four of their friends to join her for a week in the woods, she has no idea it will be the start of a nightmare for all of them. Within hours of the guests' arrival, the six friends are attacked by human monsters intent on murder . . . and worse. Some reviewers here have described OFF SEASON as a novel that lacks characterization, while others have complained about the slow start to the violence. Neither assessment has merit. Ketchum does an excellent job differentiating his characters: Carla is self-assured and confident, younger sister Marjie has always seen herself as weak and suffers from depression, Nick loves both of them but is trying to put the past behind him, and police chief Peters is middle-aged and tired but determined to do the right thing. These are identifiable characters that are likable and easy to root for. Carla's other three guests (her current boyfriend Jim, Marjie's boyfriend Dan, and Nick's new girlfriend Laura) are less fleshed out, but Ketchum is able get his readers to understand all three in very short order. As for the slow start to the violence, the only readers who will complain about that are those who are only picking this up for the gore-fest. It's true that the first 130 pages are a set-up for what's to come, but that set-up is full of foreboding, hints of brutality, and glimpses of depravity. Ketchum shifts perspective from Carla to her sister and friends to Peters to members of the cannibalistic family, and in so doing he is able to build suspense over those first 130 pages, so that when the attack actually occurs it's impossible not to be blown away. The "slow start" is the roller coaster's creaky rise up to the first big drop, and the rest of the book is pure free-fall. Just how gross is this book? It's pretty gross. Ketchum's villains are cannibals, after all, and they really love the hunt . . . and the kill and the butchering and the cooking. There's enough blood and gore for any shock-horror fan. At the same time, what makes this novel worth reading is Ketchum's portrayal of these fiends as human - as horrible as they are, they are not monsters. And as Marjie and the others are sucked deeper and deeper into depravity, Ketchum forces us to see how far they themselves will go to survive. This is not an easy book to read, and it's not an easy book to forget. The original version of OFF SEASON, published in 1981, was edited to remove things the publisher felt were too over-the-top for mainstream readers. The paperback edition released in 2006 (as well as the pricier hardcover edition) restores the uncut version of the manuscript. Does it make a huge difference? I read the original version in 1981, and the only thing that stood out to me as obviously different in this new version is the ending and the fate of one particular character - this change is important, and it makes a big difference in terms of the overall message of the novel. The other changes involve the inclusion of some additional bits of grotesque description during the many scenes of brutality. I can't say I would have noticed most of the changes without Ketchum's afterward - well, one particularly horrific moment with a fish hook did stand out! Overall, if you're a horror fan, this is a novel that is definitely worth reading. It's more than just a collection of gross-out moments, though, so if it's just the gore you're looking for, OFF SEASON might disappoint (the sequel, OFFSPRING, actually has more non-stop violence than OFF SEASON, although it is less successful). Horror fans who appreciate well-written prose with a challenging message will enjoy this. It remains one of my favorites.

This was my first Ketchum book and I cannot wait to read the follow up to Off Season, chillingly called Offspring. This tale is pretty simple as it deals with civilized humans and with some barbarians who speak and think but who choose to stalk and watch their prey before they make their surprise attack. This is not savagery fueled by regular hunger, this is deep and evil lust for causing pain and cruelty to the innocent in the most excruciating manners possible, this is the tale of the Off Season and the harvest of souls that soon follows. When Carla retreats to an isolated cabin in the midst of a quiet Maine town she has in mind some book editing along with a nice relaxing week in the company of her sister Marjorie and her boyfriend Dan. Along for the ride came Jim, Carla's handsome but not emotional new hunky boyfriend as well as her ex Nick and his new air head of a girlfriend Laura. Carla has a whole day to herself to clean and refresh the whole cabin before her company, as the off season in the small town of Dead River provides nothing but fresh air and beautiful views of forests and nearby cliffs above a chillingly green sea. She has no idea but her steps have all ready been entangled in a slowly spinning game of cat and mouse. She is being slowly watched by a savage family that lives in the nearby coastal rocky cave and they are not simple dirty humans who feed on scraps and peek through windows, they are something much darker and hungrier than the wildest animals she could have crossed paths with. What Carla and her company have in store is beyond what many people can handle hearing about, and this is where the book plunges from serene scenery and character development into a black nightmare of infinite proportions that seems to have no way out but through the dark and hungry jaws of the savages. When the civilizations collide and the city dwellers get a nasty shock of reality, they have very little time to absorb the impact of being attacked and hunted by a rabid pack of humans who have a growing appetite for human flesh as it fills them with power and fuels their barbaric primordial magic. In the middle of the night while making love to Jim, Carla finds herself drowning in his blood as an attack through the window takes over her serene world and she is pulled out of the house naked, in the middle of the night with children and dirty men and women dressed in skins clawing at her muscles, wanting to absorb her flesh and her vital energy. The battle for life and death begins as the sleepy vacationers are roused to screams and sounds of violent trashing about the house. A few of them meet a grim and gristly fate at the hands of barbaric and ferocious people that live in a black cave filled with skulls and clothing and a big metal cage that is literally their place for incoming meals. With the characters battling for their lives and few of them brutally eaten, Ketchum hooks and sinks the reader with his infinite morbid descriptions of cannibalism and the undying will to survive that is the only shining light the prey has left. I was engrossed and scared to turn the page but the book was one that sucked me in, I felt like turning to the last page more than once just to see who could have possible came out alive out of this disgusting battle but I'm glad I read it and got to the ending, which was bittersweet and explosive. - Kasia S.

Bottom line, this book is worth reading to us voyeurs and carnage junkies. It is short and the first 50 pages or so establish the characters, who will soon get mangled and massacred and maimed like sides of beef slaughtered by the feral killers in the woods. This leaves about 100 pages of breakneck action, with gore and brutality of almost unspeakably epic proportions. You want violence? You want rape? You want a perverse combination of the two that will make you retch? This story makes cannibalism look like Grey Poupon on a silver spoon. I'm still not sure why the author bothers to attach any background or personality to the main characters when they only serve to further the plot and be systematically annihilated. They're like human slabs to be fed into the meat grinder to provide the bizarre predators with a focus for their aggression. The natives are appropriately revolting and primitive, and are chilling in their single-minded butchery. The characters' complexities quickly dissolve into basic qualities: THE BRAVE ONE, THE COWARD, THE SENSITIVE ONE, etc. The writing style is simplistic and raw, which serves the story well. No poetic metaphors or descriptions here; everything is described in straightforward terms, like a series of roundhouse blows that leave one doubled over on the ground. The gore eventually grows tiresome, even though the author takes it to new heights of sadism. Any attempt at humor or irony or insight is mowed over by the grotesque series of events that spirals out of control and makes you wish the protagonists had an Uzi to chop the offenders into hamburger. The ending is horrendous, with some sort of moral attached, showing how violence feeds on itself. But I found the turn of events rather contrived, as if the author wanted to comment on how ordinary men can become murderers if placed in a terrifying situation.

I love jack Ketchum this book was amazing if you love splatter punk this book is for you ! I would definitely check out triggers if you have any this books not for the faint of heart !!

I had previously read “The Girl Next Door” by Jack Ketchum, so I was very well aware of what I was getting myself into with this book. It definitely did not disappoint. I will admit, after 38% of the e-book had gone by without too much excitement, I was beginning to wonder just when all hell was gonna break loose. But oh man, after that the fecal matter finally hit the proverbial fan……..and the blood…intestines…brain matter…and other sundry body parts. Once I got to that point, it was pretty much non-stop brutality and was impossible for me to put down until it was finished. Jack Ketchum absolutely does not hold anything back with his writing. He explains in extremely graphic detail every rusty fishhook through the tongue and every filthy fingernail gouge to the eye, so much so that afterward you feel like you need to shower to wash off all the blood splatter. If you are new to the horror genre, you probably should not start off with this book, or any Ketchum novel for that matter. If you like to see the hero always walk away with the girl after rescuing her at the last minute from the jaws of death, then you may be in for quite a shock. His books are gory, disturbing, unnerving and at times repulsive – everything I love about and expect from this genre. The only downside to the e-book – there were quite a few issues with the transcription to the Kindle electronic format. For instance, the name of one of the main characters, Carla, kept switching to “Carta” for pages at a time, then would suddenly switch back again. This happened multiple times throughout the book. I certainly don’t hold the author at fault for this and I am not factoring this into my rating, but it definitely caused a pretty big distraction for me. Otherwise, I loved everything about this book and plan on reading everything I can get my hands on from Jack Ketchum. There is also a bonus short story at the end of the e-book called “Winter Child”. As Ketchum explains, this story was meant to be included as a “story-within-a-story” of one of his previous novels, but it ended up slowing down the pace too much and therefore just didn’t work. So, years later he released it as a stand-alone short. It’s a very solid horror story, without the usual carnage of his full-length works but still a creepy, quick read.

This was recommended to me on more than one occasion and I finally bit the bullet and bought it. It starts off a tad slow after an explosive opening chapter, but it is off to the races once the plot goes into full gear. This is NOT for the faint of heart. Ketchum has created a brutal, nihilistic, gory, intense, bleak horror novel that forces you to keep reading it. This is one for the more extreme horror fans that can handle the violence depicted on the pages.

I ran across Jack Ketchum's name years ago in the way of an interview. I was a little perturbed there existed a modern horror writer with a substantial output whom I knew nothing about. It took me years to find a book by him- The Lost-but afterwards I was hooked. I managed to see most of the film versions of his books (did think The Lost for screen was a little on the weak side, but you can't have everything). I avoided the first published novel, Off-Season, because I felt the subject matter (Backwoods Cannibals On The Rampage) had been done death. Even by 1980 when the book was first published. Until now. Considered part of his "Dead River" trilogy (the other two novels being The Offspring and The Woman), this is the book which launched his career. I feel it also kicked started the whole "splatterpunk" horror phenomena which ran amok in the late 80's to early 90's. Crazed cannibal movies for the drive-in movie circuit have been around every since Jack Hill unleashed Spider Baby in 1964. But this was the first time a novel had taken the gore level to 11. Off-season is loosely based on the legend of Sawney Bean, a 16th century legend about a clan of murders and thieves who hid-out in the caves of Scotland near Galloway. The clan also had a tendency to dine on their victims, which made for a lot of chapbooks. Unfortunately, there is little evidence to suggest they ever existed. The tales told about them still made for chilling tales along the northumberland border country. In Ketchum's novel, the crazed cannibals are the survivors of a family who were in charge of a lighthouse off the coast of Maine. When a hurricane struck in the 19th century, one of the daughters ran off from the family, insane from lack of food. She managed to survive long enough to kidnap a child of the next family. Soon, an entire tribe of these creatures had populated the island in secret. Until "men with guns" forced them onto the mainland, where the hunting was much better. The novel begins with a woman being chased by the cannibal children. She's made the mistake of stopping to check on an innocent girl who was crying by the road. The feral kids chase her over a cliff and into the sea. At the same time, a group of innocent 30something New Yorkers are about to arrive at a cabin in the Maine woods, near the town of Dead River. What they don't know is the location of the cannibal tribe's hidden cave, in close proximity to the cabin. The tribe soon becomes aware of the latest opportunity and heads out on a raid. Parrell to the action is a sheriff named Peters who's about to retire. Dead River doesn't see much activity except in tourist season. His biggest problem are Gothamites who can't understand why the plumber won't show up when summoned. But when the woman who went over the cliff at the beginning is fished out of the ocean, he starts to add isolated incidents up. She swears it was a pack of kids who chased her. The sheriff remembers a drunk rambling about a group of kids beating a dog to death down by the ocean. And there have been more disappearances around town than the population would warrant. When the cannibals do attack the cabin, it's quick and viscous. But one man has had military training. Plus there's a pistol floating around..somewhere. The gore flies fast, but Ketchum has done all he could do to make us feel sympathy for the victims. The original book had plenty of the violence toned-down by the publisher. The unabridged version restores it. The cannibal tribe is the reverse of all the "noble savage" stories so many of us read as kids. Imagine Tarzan butchering Jane's family and you will have some idea of the brutality of this book. It's not a novel to be read if you dislike violence in your fiction. The tribe is viscous beyond description, but Ketchum has done a little research and tried to imagine how such a group might survive. They don't even have names; the clan leader is simply refereed to as "The Man". The ending is nihilistic. Ketchum was trying to make a point about the random senselessness of the universe, but his publishers made him put a positive spin on a few characters. The unabridged version removes the positive. An important horror novel, but not the sort of thing to read for brightening your day. [...]

Wow Even after reading this book it still lingers. This book was selected for my monthly August read and this was a great selection. I have read Jack Ketchum before but I can honestly say this book is definitely unhinged. This book was a slow burn for me slow at some parts but when the action started I was held captive. This book is about a woman who has a cabin in the woods to meet a deadline and have a nice vacation. So she decides to invite her sister, her friends and ex what could possibly go wrong? Did I mention the woods is isolated and there is tribe of people that has a taste for humans? The scenes, the setting and the explicit graphics in the book makes it a great read! If you have a weak stomach and don’t normally read horror books I would urge you to read something else. Everyone else enjoy.

der zweite roman von ketchum, den ich gelesen habe. "the girl next door" war schon ziemlich gut und grauenhaft - im positivem sinne -, aber dieser roman schlägt "the girl next door" auf ganzer länge. eigentlich recht kurz und knackig gehalten, so ist's vielleicht am besten. ketchum hält sich nicht mit belanglosen dingen in diesem roman auf. carla, eine autorin, hat ein am waldrand liegendes ferienhaus gemietet. ruhige gegend, kaum eine menschenseele, da will sie mit fünf freunden eine schöne zeit verbringen. doch diese schöne zeit, kaum hat sie angefangen, wird urplötzlich von eine großfamilie von kanibalen zerstört. fast hilflos sind die stadtbewohner diesen wilden ausgeliefert und müssen einen erbitterten kampf ums überleben aufnehmen. wie gesagt, ruhephasen oder sowas gibt's in dem buch kaum, nur am anfang ein paar. danach zieht das tempo ernorm an. an brutalitäten und splatter hat ketchum diesmal echt nicht gespart, also sollten eher zartbeseitete leute dieses buch nicht kaufen. genial von ketchum ist, dass man die wahren hauptrollen eigentlich nicht erkennt. hat man einen scheinbar identifiziert und denkt: ach, der/die ist also der/die held(in) hier", stirbt diese person auch schon. und sehr gut finde ich es, dass das buch recht actionreich ist, soll heißen, es geht hier auch zur sache. als bonus gibt's die kurzgeschichte "winter child". ist zwar nicht schlecht, aber nachdem man den roman gelesen hat wirkt die geschichte recht unspektakulär. kann's kaum erwarten mehr von ketchum zu lesen...

arrived a week earlier than expected and is in great condition, i’m a couple chapters in and loving kethcum’s style of writing! all in all a good buy

Fantastisk bok! Inte för den känsliga.

Good read but gory

Aclaro que aun no lo he leído, pero este y su secuela encabezan mi lista de pendientes.