Reviews

• Nick Antosca's Midnight Picnic is about a man who has come upon a child's bones. When Bram brings them upstairs and into his room, it draws the spirit of the boy who the bones once belonged to. This boy introduces himself in such a disturbing and unsettling way, it speaks volumes about the author's creativity. The boy's ghost takes a reluctant Bram to help him get revenge; a journey that eventually leads Bram into another dimension where the dead roam. Nick Antosca's skillful technique with conflict lured me right into the first page of this thriller novel: The main character, Bram, pulls into the parking lot of a bar and runs over a dog. When the dog drags himself away, Bram is astonished when he can't find him. This also left me astonished, as well as panicked. I realized from the very beginning of this novel that if Antosca can pull different emotions from a reader from the very first chapter, I was in for a ride. I found chapter one an appetizer because it warmed me up for some unsettling, "edge of your seat" narrative that kept me reading until the very end. One of the skills I see in Nick Antosca's writing style that lends to this fascination is his poetic way with words. Phrases like, "Trees move without wind...black depths, things sliding across the dark," empowers him to make the eerie sound beautiful. Another passage that moves me is the following: Something's descending over him like a fog, muting his feelings, softening his thoughts. It is as if the life of this world is wallpaper and he has seen the corner of it peeled away, then pressed sloppily back into place. Still, he can see the edge of something else....life imperceptibly displaced, a painting hung at a wrong angle (34). With the eerie, poetic quality of the language he uses, Antosca creates a haunting atmosphere in this novel. To add to this atmosphere, he creates a sense of loneliness with passages like the following: The long, wide highway, empty of cars. The night continues, there is no dawn. Endless rolling grass, a few trees. A horse, sleeping. Now and then a gas station in a bubble of light. Just the ghost of a gas station. And figures alone at the pumps, or visible in the glowing windows, buying bits and pieces of their lives, travelers on unseen roads (106). Midnight Picnic is about the strange and the chilling, shocking conversations with the dead, hatred fueled by determination, a man battling with a ghost's grudge, and even forgiveness. I recommend this book to anyone who wants to be taken on a haunting ride.

• Good story

• In many ways a good short book is better than a good long book, and this is a case in point. Antosca is a very talented writer and his story is both classic and original. It's the sort of thing Stephen King wishes he could write. Highly recommended.

• I enjoyed this book. Solid writing, creepy atmosphere.

• After thoroughly enjoying Fires, reading Antosca’s second book seemed like a natural thing to do. Midnight Picnic is every bit as expertly executed as Fires, and it similarly straddles the line between highbrow art and a labor of love (in other words, its depth is earned and its story is engaging for virtually any reader, but it's also an example of superb technical craft). This is a story to get your mind going--if you've ever wanted to know what it might feel like to really be haunted for real, take Midnight Picnic with you to the top floor of a Gothic library somewhere.

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