THE HALLOWEEN TREE

The Halloween Tree by Ray Bradbury

145 pages

Reviewed by Rae C.

It's Halloween night and the "best boy who ever lived", Pipkin, is sick and can't come trick or treating.  The neighborhood gang has to go on without him, but not before Pipkin points them to the haunted house with the Halloween Tree.  The boys go, and there they meet the mysterious (and annoying) Moundshroud, who takes them on a trip through the ages and around the world to discover (Bradbury's version of) the roots of Halloween.  And to save their friend Pipkin, who is in awful danger.  The book has a somewhat happy ending, but not before the manipulative Moundshroud gets his pound of flesh.

I read this book when I was in my early teens, but among the great Sci Fi writers, Bradbury always disappoints me. There are no girls in the group, the writing is indulgent and very masculine, and the story is too thin and Bradbury's research is superficial.  There is NO god named "Samhain"!  Pure literary fantasy.

(Whenever someone mentions Samhain as a deity, I know it is from this book alone.  Samhain is the greatest Feast day of the Celtic Druids, their New Year, and based on the position of the Pleiadaes.  At the time the Catholic Church appropriated the holiday, it probably did fall on Halloween, but not anymore.  It's generally around the 5th of November these days. Samhain is a time when the veil between the worlds is thin, and the dead come back to visit.  The Druids divided the year in half, and the flip side of Samhain is Bealtaine, when the veil is again thin- but this time with the spirits of fertility and new life.  The 1960's movie The Wicker Man is an exploitation of Beltaine that is inaccurate like the Halloween Tree, but much more satisfying.)

If an editor had been a little more rigorous about the indulgent prose, and Bradbury had been more thorough in his research and made the plot work with history instead of changing history to fit his plot, I might have liked it more. At least as an adult.  As a kid I never cared much for books where there were no girls at all.  And I hated Moundshroud's trickery.  I felt like I'd been robbed at the end.

Read it if you want to see the Dickens influence (Pipkin, the Marley knocker, the story itself), and to see how this influenced Burton's Nightmare Before Christmas (mostly the illustrations of Moundshroud).  Or maybe you will like it.  Many men I know consider this a Halloween classic that has to be read every year.

The Dime Museum Murders

  

The Dime Museum Murders: A Harry Houdini Mystery (Book 1 of 3) by Daniel Stashower   256 pages

I loved the way this story opened: It’s Halloween. Every year reporters track down the now forty-nine-year-old Dash Hardeen, younger brother of Erich Weiss, more commonly known as Harry Houdini, to interview him about his brother. Harry is already dead. Dash loves the attention that the night and the new reporters bring. It makes him feel close to Harry again.

The reporter, Jack Matthews, asks his questions; the same ones that all other reporters before him have asked, especially on Halloween. Matthews picks up a heavy gold medallion and asked Dash about it. Dash tells him that it is “a memento from the very first time that Harry Houdini ever died.” Now he really has Matthews’ attention, and Matthews wants to hear more. It’s a long story, Dash tells him, and then real story begins.

It’s 1897 in New York. Harry is still trying to make it. He has small name recognition but isn’t yet the superstar he is to become. To make ends meet, Harry and his beloved wife, Bess, are working the dime museum, or a ten-in-one. The patron pays a dime and gets to see ten acts, each act lasting three minutes.

Across the city, toy tycoon Branford Wintour is murdered in a locked room. The police call on Harry to help them solve the case. At least that’s what Harry believes. What the police really want is or Harry to identify a priceless and, some thought forgotten, automation. Although the police discourage the brothers, they continue to investigate.

The novel is well written. Not the page-turner I was hoping for, but it has a nice steady pace. Author Stashower does an excellent job in showing what an ego-manic, jerk of a personality that Houdini was. Dash is the more, much, much, much more likable character. I enjoyed reading about the magic and how hard Harry worked at becoming Houdini. I was also fascinated by the automations and the toy story that the brothers’ mentors ran.

There is a major flaw with this book: The title indicates that the murders take place where Harry and Bess perform. They don’t.  

I give The Dime Museum Murders: A Harry Houdini Mystery (Book 1 of 3) 3 out of 5 stars.