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A Stir of Echoes, by Richard Matheson
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Tom Wallace lived an ordinary life, until a chance event awakened psychic abilities he never knew he possessed. Now he's hearing the private thoughts of the people around him-and learning shocking secrets he never wanted to know. But as Tom's existence becomes a waking nightmare, even greater jolts are in store as he becomes the unwilling recipient of a compelling message from beyond the grave!
This eerie ghost story, by award-winning author of Hell House and I Am Legend, inspired the acclaimed 1999 film starring Kevin Bacon.
- Sales Rank: #152342 in Books
- Brand: Matheson, Richard
- Published on: 2004-07-01
- Released on: 2004-07-01
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.28" h x .62" w x 5.46" l, .70 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 224 pages
Review
"One of the most important writers of the twentieth century."--Ray Bradbury "Matheson is one of the great names in American terror fiction."—The Philadelphia Inquirer
"Matheson inspires, it's as simple as that."—Brian Lumley
About the Author
Richard Matheson is The New York Times bestselling author of I Am Legend, Hell House, Somewhere in Time, The Incredible Shrinking Man, A Stir of Echoes, The Beardless Warriors, The Path, Seven Steps to Midnight, Now You See It . . . , and What Dreams May Come. A Grand Master of Horror and past winner of the Bram Stoker Award for Lifetime Achievement, he has also won the Edgar, the Hugo, the Spur, and the Writer's Guild awards.
He lives in Calabasas, California.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
ONE
The day it all started—a hot, August Saturday—I’d gotten off work a little after twelve. My name is Tom Wallace; I work in Publications at the North American Aircraft plant in Inglewood, California. We were living in Hawthorne, renting a two-bedroom tract house owned by one of our next-door neighbors, Mildred Sentas. Another neighbor, Frank Wanamaker, and I usually drove to and from the plant together, alternating cars. But Frank didn’t like Saturday work and had managed to beg off that particular day. So I drove home alone.
As I turned onto Tulley Street, I saw the ‘51 Mercury coupe parked in front of our house and knew that Anne’s brother, Philip, was visiting. He was a psychology major at the University of California in Berkeley and he sometimes drove down to L.A. for weekends. This was the first time he’d been to our new place; we’d only moved in two months before.
I nosed the Ford into the driveway and braked it in front of the garage. Across the street Frank Wanamaker’s wife, Elizabeth, was sitting on their lawn pulling up weeds. She smiled faintly at me and raised one white-gloved hand. I waved to her as I got out of the car and started for the porch. As I went up its two steps I saw Elizabeth struggle to her feet and adjust her maternity smock. The baby was due in about three months. It was the Wanamaker’s first in seven years of marriage.
When I opened the front door and went into the living room, I saw Phil sitting at the kitchen table, a bottle of Coca-Cola in front of him. He was about twenty, tall and lean, his darkish-brown hair crew-cut. He glanced in at me and grinned.
“Hi, brother man,” he said.
“Hi.” I took off my suit coat and hung it in the front closet. Anne met me in the kitchen doorway with a smile and a kiss.
“How’s the little mother?” I asked, patting her stomach.
“Gross,” she said.
I chuckled and kissed her again.
“As they say,” I said, “hot enough for you?”
“Don’t even talk about it,” she answered.
“Okay.”
“Hungry?” she asked.
“Ravenous.”
“Good. Phil and I were just about to start.”
“Be right with you.” I washed my hands and sat down across from Phil, eyeing his blindingly green polo shirt.
“What’s that for,” I asked, “warning off aircraft?”
“Glows in the dark,” he said.
“Helps the co-eds keep track of you at night,” I said. Phil grinned.
“Now don’t you two get started again,” Anne said, putting a dish of cold cuts on the table.
“Whatever does you mean?” Phil said to her.
“Never mind now,” she said. “I don’t want any needling session this weekend. It’s too hot.”
“Agreed,” said Phil, “needling excluded. Agreed, brother man?”
“And spoil my weekend?” I said.
“Never mind,” said Anne. “I can’t face that and the heat both.”
“Where’s Richard?” I asked.
“Playing in the backyard with Candy.” Anne sat down beside me with a groan. “There’s a load off my feet,” she said.
I patted her hand and we started eating.
“Speaking of Candy,” Anne said, “I trust you haven’t forgotten the party tonight at Elsie’s.”
“Oh my God,” I said, “I did forget. Do we have to go?”
Anne shrugged. “She invited us a week ago. That was excuse time. It’s too late now.”
“Confusion.” I bit into my ham on rye.
“Brother man seems less than joyous,” Phil said. “Elsie’s shindigs no goo’?”
“No goo’,” I said.
“Who is she?”
“Our next-door neighbor,” Anne told him. “Candy’s her little girl.”
“And parties are her profession,” I said. “She’s the poor man’s Elsa Maxwell.”
Anne smiled and shook her head. “Poor Elsie,” she said. “If she only knew what awful things we say behind her back.”
“Dull, huh?” said Phil.
“Why talk?” I said. “Go to the party with us and see for yourself.”
“I’ll liven ‘er up,” said Phil.
* * *
A little after eight-fifteen Richard fell asleep in his crib and we went next door to Elsie’s house. In most marriages you think of a couple’s home as theirs. Not so with that house. Ron may have made the payments on it but the ownership was strictly Elsie’s. You felt it.
It was Ron who answered our knock. He was twenty-four, a couple of years older than Elsie, a couple of inches taller. He was slightly built, sandy-haired with a round, boyish face that seldom lost its impassive set; even when he smiled as he did then, the ends of his mouth curling up slightly.
“Come in,” he said in his quiet, polite voice.
Frank and Elizabeth were already there, Elizabeth settled on the red sofa like a diffident patient in a dentist’s waiting room, Frank’s thin body slouched in one of the red arm chairs. He brightened only a little when we came in, raising his bored gaze from the green rug, straightening up in the chair, then standing. I introduced Phil around.
“Hi!”
I glanced over and saw Elsie peering around the corner of the kitchen doorway. She’d cut her dark hair still shorter and bobbed it still tighter, I noticed. When we’d moved into the neighborhood, she’d had long, drabby blond hair.
We all said hello to her and she disappeared a moment, then came into the room with a tray of drinks in her hands. She was wearing a red, netlike dress which clung tightly to the curves of her plump body. When she bent over to put the tray down on the blondwood coffee table, the bosom of the dress slipped away from her tight, black brassiere. I noticed Frank’s pointed stare, then Elsie straightened up with a brassy, hostesslike smile and looked at Phil. Anne introduced them.
“Hel-lo,” Elsie said. “I’m so glad you could come.” She looked at us. “Well,” she said, “name your poison.”
What happened that evening up to the point when it all began is not important. There were the usual peregrinations to the kitchen and the bathroom; the usual breaking up and re-gathering of small groups—the women, the men, Frank, Phil and myself, Elizabeth and Anne, Elsie and Phil, Ron and me—and so on; the drifting knots of conversation that take place at any get-together.
There was record music and a little sporadic attempt at dancing. There was Candy stumbling into the living room, blinking and numb with only half-broken sleep; being tucked back into her bed. There were the expected personality displays—Frank, cynical and bored; Elizabeth, quietly radiant in her pregnancy; Phil, amusing and quick; Ron, mute and affable; Anne, soft-spoken and casual; Elsie, bouncing and strainedly vivacious.
One bit of conversation I remember: I was just about to go next door to check on Richard when Elsie said something about our getting a baby-sitter.
“It doesn’t matter when you just go next door like this,” she said, “but you do have to get out once in a while.” Once in a while, to Elsie, meant an average of four nights a week.
“We’d like to,” Anne said, “but we just haven’t been able to find one.”
“Try ours,” said Elsie. “She’s a nice kid and real reliable.”
That was when I left and checked on Richard—and had one of my many n
Most helpful customer reviews
78 of 81 people found the following review helpful.
One of his best; different from the movie
By Craig Clarke
This is another terrific thriller from Richard Matheson. When the film version came out a few years ago, it was instantly dismissed as a rip-off of The Sixth Sense -- a difficult feat considering that the novel that was the source of the film was written over forty years prior. As a fan of the film (it is highly underrated and will definitely provide entertainment for fans of the genre), and of Richard Matheson's work, I felt I owed it to myself to check out the original: A Stir of Echoes (What, a definite article is good enough for The Sixth Sense, but not for Stir of Echoes? I'll never understand Hollywood).
When Tom Wallace is hypnotized at a party by his brother-in-law, he turns out to be a surprisingly good subject. Afterwards, he is told how malleable he was, and a good laugh is had at his expense when he unwittingly performs a post-hypnotic suggestion. But afterwards things aren't the same for Tom: he begins having dreams that a woman in black is in his house, and then realizes that he is able to read people's minds. This comes in handy on more than one occasion, but generally appears to be a nuisance, especially to Tom's wife, Anne, who wants him to see a doctor.
Given what I have read of Matheson, I wasn't surprised by the level of quality presented in the story. What did surprise me, however, was that A Stir of Echoes, although first published in 1958, is not at all dated; it could have just as easily been written today, Matheson's story and characters are so "modern" and timeless. This is particularly true given the modern atmosphere of being more accepting to the idea of spirits "crossing over" from another plane.
As the story progresses, the tension ratchets higher and higher. Matheson hardly lets up, steadily adding more complications to the plot until the surprise revelation. This is one of the reasons that I like Matheson's work so much: the knowledge that I am always in for a ride.
(Fans of the movie please note: the plot of A Stir of Echoes differs from the film in many details. The base story is, of course, the same, but the identities of the participants -- the alleged ghost, the alleged killer -- are different, which allows for a novel experience in reading a book you think you're already familiar with.)
47 of 52 people found the following review helpful.
A PLEA FROM THE GRAVE WILL NOT BE DENIED...
By lawyeraau
Although not one of Matheson's best efforts, it nevertheless makes for a page turning, good read. Written nearly half a century ago, the book still has a contemporary feel to it. There are just a few issues which remind one how long ago it was written. Its central themes, however, are as fresh today, as when the book was first published.
The main character in the book is Tom Wallace, a working stiff with a house and family, who goes to a local gathering of friends and family. There he allows himself to be hypnotized by a relative who is an amateur hypnotist. A doubting Thomas, he agrees to undergo hypnosis in the belief that he would not be susceptible to it. Much to his chagrin and the amusement of others, he is, indeed, put under. Shortly after coming out of his trance, he finds that life, as he knew it, had irrevocably changed.
What he had thought was a cheap parlor trick, turned out to be the catalyst that changed his immediate reality. His existence began to be punctuated by visions, telepathic intrusions, psychic impressions, and other paranormal experiences. The effect that this has on him, his life, and those whom he loves is what gives the book its substance.
It is this altered reality, however, that makes his new life more meaningful than the one he had been leading prior to his being hypnotized. The book barrels on to a climactic ending, as events from the past intrude on the present, demanding a resolution. The realization that things or people are not always what they seem is brought home here with great impact.
Do yourself a favor, read the book and skip the movie. They bear little resemblance to one another.
20 of 20 people found the following review helpful.
Almost as fresh as the day it was written
By A Customer
While "Stir Of Echoes" is not as emotionally compelling as Matheson's classics "I Am Legend" or "What Dreams May Come," this is still one hell of a good read. It's a tribute to Matheson's skill as a writer that this novel is almost as fresh as the day it was written - there are only two or three items throughout the entire book that might give away the fact that it was penned over four decades ago. The "horror" in this novel will probably be as discomfitting as a hangnail for fans of the in-your-face "slice & dice" gore of a Clive Barker or a Robert McCammon. "Stir Of Echoes" doesn't rely on a steadily rising body count to draw you along - it keeps your interest by demonstrating just how fragile "normality" can be. Not just among your friends and neighbors, but also within your own family, within your own mind. The increasing sense of isolation in the main character, Tom Wallace, is what drives "Stir Of Echoes". This fast-paced novel is a very pleasant diversion for a Saturday afternoon at the beach or an evening at home.
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