Brian and I pick up a bit of the slack for a special Halloween episode of The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast: Thomas Tryon’s horrific The Other.
Thomas Tryon was a relatively successful actor when he quit to become an author. The Other, from 1971, a disturbing (trust us!) and gripping story of two young brothers, twins Holland and Niles, who are struggling following the death of their father. Niles is kind-hearted and sad; Holland is cruel and angry. It’s a wicked combination.
We don’t know what we’ll be talking about in Episode 18, mostly because we have many that we’d like to talk about! Nevertheless, we hope you’ll join us when we return!
Happy Halloween!
This is the first podcast I’ve listened to here – and I loved the conversant quality between Trevor and Brian.
I read “The Other” as a child (!) – maybe eleven years old, and it spooked me beyond compare. But it also thrilled me – there was power in such things remaining only in a book and experiencing it there rather than in real life. While I don’t tend to read much like this since I have become a mother (for obvious reasons!), the idea of fiction affording us opportunities to feel through emotions and process situations as observers is so empowering to me. My horizons are expanded, some ideas challenged and others strengthened, and my compassion enlarged by fiction.
And now I must now admit, I remember very little of this book. I remember the original cover though quite well – white paperback, “The Other” in heavy black font and the “O” with a dark face inside… Chills! Haha – but I can’t remember why. Even listening to the podcast didn’t call up specific memories… I just remember the eerie quality…
Oh boy! And I thought I was traumatized by Charlotte’s Web!