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The Well
- Narrated by: Matt Godfrey
- Length: 8 hrs and 8 mins
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The Well
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Summary
Years earlier, John Tracker fled the insanity of his family and their house, a centuries-old monstrosity that his grandfather Theophilus rigged full of hallucinatory tricks and vicious death traps designed to capture the Devil. Now middle-aged, John receives word that the place is to be demolished to make way for a freeway, and he decides to revisit it with his girlfriend Amy Griffith before its destruction.
But when a blizzard traps them inside the house, they will be forced to contend with the dangers hidden within: strange time-shifts, murderous traps, and something evil that stalks the halls in the form of John's grandmother Vera. As the terror mounts, John and Amy will make the horrifying discovery that Theophilus's mad ambition to trap the Devil may have succeeded only too well ...
Jack Cady (1932-2004) has been recognized as a master American storyteller and was the recipient of the World Fantasy, Nebula, and Bram Stoker Awards for his novels and short fiction. This edition of The Well (1980), a classic of modern horror fiction, includes an introduction by Tom Piccirilli.
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Critic reviews
"[A] superior example of horror fiction ... a vision out of hell ... an original and awesome adventure that should be read in broad daylight, when one is not alone." (Publishers Weekly)
"It takes no special critical powers to recognize in Cady an exceptional writer, who is not just promising but has already achieved some remarkable feats." (Joyce Carol Oates)
"[A] haunted house story ... intelligently written both in terms of concept and style ... Cady develops his horrors with subtlety." (Encyclopedia of Fantasy and Horror Fiction)
What listeners say about The Well
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- Prester Jim
- 26-04-20
Hill House, Hell House, Well... House?
Enigmatic 1980 novel from Jack Cady that promises more than it delivers. The early chapters set up an intriguing take on the haunted house / deathtrap dungeon sub-genre with a style that lies somewhere between magic realism and The Shining. Cady is a talented writer and the book goes beyond the usual chills to explores themes of atavism, morality, self determination and free will. The setting, Tracker House, is a Mid-Western family pile in the fashion of H.H. Holmes' murder castle or the Winchester Mystery House, and which hosts a nest of diabolical traps set to capture The Devil. This great premise is rather skewed when it becomes apparent that Cady's use of The Devil is largely metaphorical and part of a rambling discourse on nature versus nurture. Unable to stray too far from genre expectations for too long, even the idea of the house as a personification allegory or purgatorium finally underwhelms into a dull tussle between Good and Evil.
As this suggests, most of the book's strengths and weaknesses lie in the tension between its high-concept ambition and its genre form. Unfortunately, much of the storytelling is too elliptical to be satisfying as a page-turning thriller, whilst the more experimental elements are too bound by formal storytelling to disrupt the structure into something more interesting; instead, it just feels incomplete. One promising idea squandered is that of inconstant time ("timeslips"); at first it looks as if Cady is going to do something more interesting than the usual 'ghostly location haunted by its own past' trope (the initial scene between the hero and his possibly deceased grandmother is genuinely great) but instead it just peters out, half-formed and under-explored; like the house itself, there are long passages that go nowhere at all. Conversely, the most successful elements of the novel are also removed from the main narrative: each chapter is prefaced by a brief study into Tracker family genealogy which play with such Great American Novel themes as heredity, nation building and individualism; these were by far my favourite parts of the book.
Also on the positive, the narration by Matt Godfrey is excellent throughout, even carrying some of the longueurs. I notice that Valancourt have had the good sense to use him for several of their books; yet despite his admirable efforts, I found 'The Well' became a chore to finish.
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story2 out of 5 stars
- Dr Caterpillar
- 31-03-20
Nebulous
I was expecting something like a cross between The Ring and Cube. What I got was... I dunno!
The language felt somehow slippery. 40 minutes in, I went back to the beginning because I wasn't sure what had happened. Several times I rewound 30 seconds because I didn't think I'd heard properly. I had, but I was still none the wiser. I even looked up the word "grade" because I didn't know what it meant in the context of a highway - I guessed it meant something like embankment but I'm still not sure.
There was so much waffle about the main character's age, his job, his age, his gandparents, his age, his other grandparents, his age, his great grandparents, and his age. (I'm not exaggerating.) Then more about his girlfriend, her age, her attitude to sex, her age, her job and her age. All tell not show, and not at all evocative.
When we finally get to the house, I'm curious about these deathtraps, but he just glosses over how they're no big deal if you know what you're doing. A big thing is made of time shifts, which seem to just be another term for memories.
When the girlfriend gets to the house she is blase about his warning that there are deathtraps. She narrowly misses being burnt to death, and she's STILL dismissive.
That was when I decided to get a refund. These characters are as unconvincing as they are boring.
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