Friday Book Snippets: 'Nathaniel'

Happy Friday, fellow readers!

I'm featuring the 1984 horror novel Nathaniel by John Saul for this week's Friday Book Snippets, hosted by Anne @ My Head is Full of Books and Olivia @ Bemused and Bookish. Although it’s not my current read, I wanted to highlight it because it ties into my answer for this week's Book Blogger Hop.

To keep it brief, I was heavily bullied by both classmates and teachers throughout my high school years in the late '90s. To cope, I immersed myself in horror books, and that’s where I discovered John Saul. The first book I read by him was Second Child, a hardcover edition I found on a shelf in my closet. That’s a whole other story: my grandmother moved to South Missouri after my grandfather's death, and the few possessions that survived the '93 flood—ones she didn’t take with her—ended up crammed in my small childhood home. This explains why I had a bookcase in my closet filled with her books. Most were romances, except for a few like Second Child.

Later on, I found more John Saul books at a "book exchange or sell" store, including Nathaniel, which became my favorite by the author. I still have that paperback copy, even though I also own it twice in hardcover.

One of these days, hopefully next year, I plan to take a trip down memory lane and reread Nathaniel and some of John Saul's other books.

Book Beginnings:

The night closed in like something alive, its warm dampness imbuing the house with an oppressive atmosphere that seemed somewhat threatening to the child who sat in the small front parlor. There was something in the air she could almost touch, and as she sat waiting, she began to feel her skin crawl with the peculiar itching that always came over her late in the summer. She squirmed on the mohair sofa, but it did no good—her cotton dress still clung to her like wet cellophane.

— Saul, John. Nathaniel, Bantam Books, 1984, p. 1.

The Friday 56:

"Damn you," she whispered at last. "Damn you for telling me just enough to make me wonder about everything, but not enough for me to know anything."

— Saul, John. Nathaniel, Bantam Books, 1984, p. 235.

〜B.J. Burgess