Night Country

Elevates every small town's bad high-school crash into myth.

Where would we be if love ended with death? At midnight on Halloween in a cloistered New England suburb, a car carrying five teenagers leaves a winding road and slams into a tree, killing three of them. One escapes unharmed, another suffers severe brain damage. A year later, summoned by the memories of those closest to them, the three come back on a last chilling mission among the living.

A strange and unsettling ghost story in the tradition of Ray Bradbury, 'The Night Country' creeps through the leaf-strewn streets and quiet cul-de-sacs of one bedroom community, reaching into the desperately connected yet isolated lives of three people changed forever by the accident: Tim, who survived yet lost everything; Brooks, the cop whose guilty secret has destroyed his life; and Kyle's mum, trying to love the new son the doctors returned to her. As the day wanes and darkness descends, one of them puts a terrible plan into effect, and they find themselves caught in a collision of need and desire, watched over by the knowing ghosts.

Macabre and moving, 'The Night Country' elevates every small town's bad small high-school crash into myth, finding the deeper human truth beneath a shared tragedy. Stewart O'Nan once again gives us an intimate look at people trying to hold on to hope, and the consequences when they fail.