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Off Season  By  cover art

Off Season

By: Jack Ketchum
Narrated by: Richard Davidson
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Publisher's summary

September. A beautiful New York editor retreats to a lonely cabin on a hill in the quiet Maine beach town of Dead River - off season - awaiting her sister and friends. Nearby, a savage human family with a taste for flesh lurks in the darkening woods, watching, waiting for the moon to rise and night to fall.

And before too many hours pass, five civilized, sophisticated people and one tired old country sheriff will learn just how primitive we all are beneath the surface...and that there are no limits at all to the will to survive.

©1981 Jack Ketchum (P)2009 Audible, Inc.

Critic reviews

"If you read Off Season on Thanksgiving, you probably won't sleep until Christmas." (Stephen King)
100 Must-Read Thrillers (International Thriller Writers)

What listeners say about Off Season

Average customer ratings
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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Wow!

Where has this autho been all my life? I'd never heard of Jack Ketchum till recently, and took a chance on this book. I am partial to this type of story, and the genre in general, but I didn't expect the book to be as good as it was. Very, very intense, graphic violence, but for a good reason. The antagonists (the family of cannibals) are truly froghtening, even the children. If you can deal with the violence, I highly recommend this book. One of the most frightening stories I've read in a long time.

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19 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Breathless

I now understand why Jack Ketchum's "Off Season" is a classic.
Mr. Ketchum is a master of setting a scene. He is also expert in building tension and conflict.
The story was gruesome...deliciously so. His writing...genius.
I will listen to it again.
And again.

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14 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars

Nice!

Flowed really well. People didn't like some of the gore but I'm all for it. It wasn't to much that made the story lose traction. It was a good listen. Fast paced and had me tense up in quite a few moments. People out to relax and end up in a fight for survival that leads to one of the most horrible nights I can remember in a book. Overall I liked this book. Good scary horror.

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10 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

The 1980s were a long time ago, eh?

Overall, it's an okay story. I didn't realize that 1981 was so long ago but after reading this book and noticing just how much it reads like a "classic", I understand that the 1980s is a whole world ago and what was shocking and revolting then in fiction has been outdone since in real life. I didn't find it particularly gory or disturbing (go read Meat if you want something disturbing) but I'm sure for an 80s audience it must have been.

The women are beyond useless and the "bad guys" are beyond believable, and if I lived in Maine I'd be offended at how "hillbilly-y" Ketchum portrays the locals, but it's fast and nicely paced and you might still find yourself wondering how it'll turn out in the end, even if you might not care about any of the characters enough to hope for their survival.

But, for a fast and gory - albeit somewhat dated - horror book, it's decent enough. I don't think I'll read more of Ketchum though as it's really more like Shock-Horror than Terror-Horror which is what I prefer when I read horror books. Oh, and there's no subtlety as to what's going on, or what will happen in the end.

The narration is okay. He's not the most animated narrator I've heard, but he doesn't hurt the story any.

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6 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars

Mediocre at Best

I temper my judgement of this book for two reasons:
1. He wrote it 30 years ago, so it's unfair to compare the many books that did what he tried better since then, and
2. He was simply trying to write pulp slasher fiction and didn't care about character development and can't be judged too harshly for not doing it.

The author thinks he wrote an explicit novel, but there are 1960's novels that were more explicit (Rogue Roman comes to mind). You can't hinge the success of a novel on shock, but that's what Ketchum tried to do here.

To make explicit violence work properly, you need to pair it with beauty. Ketchum doesn't build up beauty at all, so the violence is simply boring.

Finally, the book is narrated as if by a parody of Captain Kirk. I kept forgetting to listen to the novel and imagined William Shatner reading the phone book as if it were the end of the universe. Every little thing is narrated like it's a shocker, and I mean everything no matter how trivial. There's no nuance at all, no finesse. But that may be the producer's fault and not the narrator. They may have told him to do it.

When I think of fun pulp books I listened to like "Infected" or smart explicit books like "Meat" or "Kafka on the Shore" it's hard to feel like I got any value hearing Off Season, but then those books are more mature.

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4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars

Great Read

Didn't expect this! Exciting and different. Not familiar with the author but want to read more. Story is just enough to feel for the characters without being bored.

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4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars

Not very good

I really had a hard time finishing this book. Not because of the book per se...I've always wanted to check out this novel and author. To be honest, I wasn't very impressed...its fame as a violent and nasty book is justified. The story is pretty formulaic, full of cliches and stereotypic characters. But all in all, It would have been a fun, B-movie type of experience if it wasn't for the voice artist who reads this: I didn't like his style at all. His "women" and "redneck" voices are specially sucky...I am still waiting for an audiobook version of The Girl Next Door. Hope it is read by somebody else, if ever released.

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

A great book ruined by a terrible narrator.

A book worth a read for the sheer bitterness of the story. I have been a fan of Ketchum for years and wanting to relive the stories wanted to revisit. Don’t
The narrator made this almost unbearable, his impersonating voices are just atrocious and will completely ruin the story/experience

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Great everything except 1st couple of mins...

1st couple minutes has some music that I was scared wouldn’t go away. It did and never me returned thank goodness. Narration was great, characters and story was great. I just watched the movie and this was a great addition to it, better as well but both good. Onto Mother!

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars
  • T
  • 08-29-22

This book Terrified me.

This book will Stay with you long after you’ve finished reading. I couldn’t stop listening I had to know what was going to happen next. The characters are engaging. The narrator is awesome! I especially loved Laura and the officers! I would recommend this to any horror fan.

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1 person found this helpful