About the Author

Thomas Tryon (1926-1991) was an American stage, screen, and television actor who became a popular author of horror novels and shorter fiction evoking the Golden Age of Hollywood. He earned awards and critical praise for his role in Otto Preminger's The Cardinal (1963) and continued to appear in movies and television programs into the early 1970s before abandoning his acting career. His first novel, The Other (1971), remained on bestseller lists for seven months and was made into a 1972 film of the same name. Tryon's other books include the novels Harvest Home and Lady, the novella collections Crowned Heads and All That Glitters, two historical novels set in pre-Civil War New England, and a children's book, The Adventures of Opal and Cupid. Dan Chaon is the acclaimed author of novels Among the Missing, which was a finalist for the National Book Award, You Remind Me of Me, and most recently, Await Your Reply. Chaon's short stories have won the Pushcart Prize and The O. Henry Award, and been included in The Best American Short Stories anthology. He has been a finalist for the National Magazine Award in Fiction, and he was the recipient of the 2006 Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Chaon lives in Cleveland, Ohio, and teaches at Oberlin College, where he is the Pauline M. Delaney Professor of Creative Writing.

Reviews

“It is perhaps unfair and a little inaccurate to typecast The Other as a horror story. It is so ingenious and well-written that it transcends that—or any—label. The setting is the small Connecticut town of Pequot Landing, which under other circumstances, might be idyllic.  But the people who inhabit Tryon’s New England are just as haunted as O’Neill’s, and a lot more violent…His [Tryon’s] characterizations have depth and subtlety, the narrative is well-paced and suspenseful. Where he really excels is with mood and atmosphere. Rarely have such commonplace surroundings been made to seem quite so dark and menacing and chillingly evil.”
—Chicago Tribune

“A lyrical, impressive horror story that is a cross between The Bad Seed and John Cheever’s The Wapshot Chronicles.”
—Los Angeles Times

“This first novel from Thomas Tryon is a distinguished one, it may well leave you blenched with horror, but it is beautifully, even poetically, wrought, and within its boundaries there would seem an actual divination into the spirit of murderess insanity….In due time The Other will doubtless become one of the classics of horror tales, comparable to The Turn of the Screw.”
—Dorothy B. Hughes, Los Angeles Times

“Like most professional writers, I resent Tom Tryon’s The Other, since Tryon should get on with the job of being a good actor and not write good books as well. Enough is enough already. The Other is a highly readable chiller.”
—Anthony Burgess, author of A Clockwork Orange
 
“If you're looking for a good scary book to enjoy this Halloween, here is a suggestion: The Other by Thomas Tryon. The 1971 horror classic is a tale of a seemingly bucolic farmhouse in a small Connecticut town in the 1930s. There are no vampires in the story, no ghosts, no swamp monsters or ghouls or zombies or witches. There are two little boys, twins Niles and Holland, the picture of innocence. Or so it seems. The story is told in the voice of one of the boys, now older and a resident of a sanitarium. Insanity, it seems, is a family inheritance, and insanity is at the core of the chilling story that slowly unfolds and culminates in some horrifying deaths.”
—Advocate (Baton Rouge)
 
“Truly extraordinary! One of those books over which everybody will take leave their senses, all seven of them…”
—Kirkus
 
“A smashing suspense-horror novel.”
—Minneapolis Tribune

“A humdinger…A whirlpool of Oh-My-God horror. Please congratulate Mr. Tryon for me. What a marvelous job he’s done.”
—Ira Levin, author of Rosemary’s Baby
 
“Tryon succeeds in creating a story that cast a subtly savage spell.”
—Saturday Review

“The Other is an all-out war on reality.”
—Chicago Sun-Times

“The most memorable chiller-thriller to come along since Rosemary’s Baby….A tale of evil obsession with surprises and shockers.”
—Hartford Courant
 
“Thomas Tryon has unfolded a horror story of supreme proportions.”
—Los Angeles Herald-Examiner
 
“A psychological thriller that you read a second time to see how the author did it.”
—Cleveland Plain Dealer
 
“Thomas Tryon’s The Other will scare the hell right out of you….You’re almost afraid to turn the next page.”
—Rocky Mountain News