Log in with Facebook 
I already reviewed this book last year, but it was good enough that it's now on my annual re-read list. It definitely got me in the Halloween mood!
I already reviewed this book last year, but it was good enough that it's now on my annual re-read list. It definitely got me in the Halloween mood!
It’s rare to be able enjoy a book and its movie adaptation equally. The characters are so wonderfully drawn, it’s impossible to not have strong feelings about them all, from the skin-crawling creepiness of Norman Bates to anger and impatience for the complacently incompetent sheriff. The story and the pop-psychology it depends on is a little dated now, but not enough to detract from the fun.
Sometimes the best part of a thriller is the big reveal at the end. No doubt Psycho has an excellent one, for the .0001% of readers who don’t already know. But for the rest of us, there’s no loss in reading pleasure for already knowing the book’s secrets. The author has so many tongue-in-cheek references to it, that it’s almost designed for re-reads. Every time I came across a seemingly innocent remark or reference with a double-meaning, I genuinely laughed out loud.
Audiobook, via Audible. Paul Michael Garcia’s narration is fantastic – his Norman gave me shivers, but he voiced every character and their POV perfectly. At only 5 ½ hours of audio, Psycho is just short enough to go on my annual Halloween reading list.
Terrible 1966 revision of the 1947 novel. They just randomly tossed in updated pop culture references (ex. “The kind of girl who wore false eyelashes” instead of “the kind of girl who wore harlequin frames”), then made a key change to the opening scene and tacked on a completely new and completely terrible ending.
So if you’re thinking of reading Robert Boch’s first novel, resist the temptation to go for the cheap paperback and spend the extra cash on the harder-to-find original. You won’t regret it.
Did she know? Had she known all along, known about the hole in the wall, known that he was watching? Did she want him to watch? Was she doing this to him on purpose? The bitch!
She was swaying back and forth, back and forth, and now the mirror was wavy again, and she was wavy, and he couldn't stand it, he wanted to pound on the wall. He wanted to scream at her to stop, because this was an evil, perverted thing she was doing and she must stop before he became evil and perverted, too.
That's what the bitches did to you. They perverted you, and she was a bitch, they were all bitches, Mother was a -
Suddenly she was gone, and there was only the roaring.
Bloch’s first novel is styled as the written confession and diary excerpts of a serial killer. The misogyny is so vividly portrayed that I could only read so much at a time before needing to go scrub my brain and find something more pleasant to occupy it. The main character’s hatred, though targeted specifically at women, extends to his fellow men, himself, and society in general, and there’s just enough twisted truth in his observations to give him authenticity. It sucks you in with an amusingly cynical worldview, then pushes it several steps too far, so that the reader is along for the ride that becomes increasingly disturbing until you want out, but the doors are locked and you’re stuck there riding along with a madman filling your ears with his raving. It’s a fascinating look at 1940’s pop psychology.
In reading about the author and the writing of this book, I was interested to discover that Bloch was actually a protégé of Lovecraft and a member of the Lovecraft circle, and this book does have a bit of a gothic feel to it, although the horror is entirely psychological.
Apparently, Bloch re-released this novel in paperback, with some revisions and an all-new epilogue to end it that gives more insight into the main character. The darn book is out of print, but I’m so interested in comparing them that I ordered a copy from a used bookseller.
I read this for the 2018 Halloween Bingo square Free Read. Now I feel the need to go back and re-listen to Psycho, which I remember being outstanding on audio (read by Paul Michael Garcia), and for which I apparently neglected to write a review.
Previous Updates:
