Return to a time of transistor radios, Bazooka Joe comics and afternoon airings of MOTHRA in THE SHADOW YEAR. But being a novel from fantasist Jeffrey Ford, that more innocent time comes infused with much malfeasance, mischief and murder.

Built upon “the shifting mirage” of Ford’s recollection, this eerily autobiographical work has one of the strongest starts in recent memory. Our narrator is the middle child in a poor family, headed by a father who works several jobs and a mother who drinks until she passes out. The kids retain their sanity by exploring their neighborhood, which isn’t so quiet anymore when reports of a prowler surface.

Mere instances of a Peeping Tom, however, soon balloon into full-fledged homicide when classmates start to disappear. One boy turns up dead months later, frozen under the ice of the lake, found by our narrator, who eventually theorizes with his older brother Jim than the mysterious man in white seen driving ominously around the area is to blame.

The narrator – never named, it should be noted – keep track of the goings-on via a notebook and a small-scale replica of the town they keep in their basement. Strangely, they notice that their little sister appears to have a strange connection with this model; wherever she places figures representing various neighbors, they tend to appear in real life – for example, the boy in the lake.

It’s obvious Ford kneels at the altar of Ray Bradbury with this one; with Halloween described as having its own smell, how could it not? If Bradbury had penned STAND BY ME, the result might be THE SHADOW YEAR. The novel is no mere pretender, though, as Ford’s prose flows poetic and rich, yet still cast under a coating of evil.

Suspense is sustained almost for the entirety, petering out only in the last 40 or so pages, but Ford does an excellent job of bringing everything full circle. The ending is so chilling, you won’t question how it possibly could be. One thing also not in dispute: This book deserves to be his commercial breakthrough. –Rod Lott

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