A Stir of Echoes

During a social with his friends, Tom agrees to be hypnotised. During the following days, Tom becomes haunted by unusual things - reading the thoughts of people around him, the nightly visitations of an etherial young woman to the house, the uneasy feeling about a babysitter that resulted in the prevention of a kidnapping. It puts a strain on his marriage, especially when they both realise that he knows her mother is dead without being told, and doesnt warn her.[return][return]There are several sets of couples that Tom and his wife interact with - Elizabeth and her husband; the other couple who live next door and who own the house that the Wallaces have recently rented after the departure of the previous owner. During the next few weeks, as the realisation that he has become a "medium" - Tom picks up undercurrents of thoughts and emotions going on between his neighbours. He also tries to work out why he is being visited every night by a ghost. Who she is, and why she is there rocks their little group.[return][return]Written in the 1950s (and made into a Kevin Bacon movie in the 1990s), this does not feel dated.[return][return]Read by Scott Brick, I did struggle in the middle and had to put it asied for a bit. There was nothing wrong with the book or the reader (I actually think he was a very good reader), I just had to put it away for a week or so.

matheson is one of the best genre writers of the 20th century. this is a neat story with all his classic sinister suburbanite trappings, it's just executed better in other works.