I was unsure of whether to post this to general fantasy or horror, as it could be considered either dark fantasy or horror...
There are very mild spoilers here, btu nothing major.
I read this book recently, as it is a nominee for the 2009 World Fantasy Award, and I have heard some great things about it.
And it is
wonderful. It is everything that I wish Bradbury's
Something Wicked This Way Comes had been when I read it a while back (a book which I had trouble getting into).
It is a coming of age story that captures both the fun times and horrible times of childhood.
In the 1960's in a small town on New York's Long Island, a family is struggling. The mother is a drunken artist. The father works three jobs to make ends meet and is rarely home. The three kids are obviously bright as hell, but are all having problems with school. One set of grandparents live in an in-law suite in the house, and they are pretty much giving the kids what raising they are getting.
The book teeters on the edge of the realistic and the surrealistic, and neatly captures the idyllic life (such as Halloween) of a small town childhood along with the horrors of such (as a mild example, the ice cream man being a sexual predator of children).
What a great creative book!
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