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Goodnight Moom
LITTLE HARRY WASNâ T LIKE OTHER CHILDREN
Harry never cared for reading or writing. He never showed any interest in baseball or TV. Harry lived for other things â like the pleasing sound of living creatures screaming in agony. And the soothing feel of warm blood running through his fingers. But when his grisly experiments progressed beyond stray pets and farm animals to classmates, Harryâ s dad decided to lock the boy away for good in the family basement. After all, the neighbors might begin to talkâ ¦
In the solitude of the dank, musty cellar, Harry waited and grewâ ¦ and grewâ ¦ and GREW! And while he waited, he was counseled by his one and only friend â the bright silvery orb in the inight sky that he called â Moom.â Harry spoke to Moom. And Moom spoke to Harry. Moom told Harry what he should do when he finally broke out of his subterranean prison â ¦
Moom told Harry to killâ ¦
and Killâ ¦
and KILLâ ¦
Harry never cared for reading or writing. He never showed any interest in baseball or TV. Harry lived for other things â like the pleasing sound of living creatures screaming in agony. And the soothing feel of warm blood running through his fingers. But when his grisly experiments progressed beyond stray pets and farm animals to classmates, Harryâ s dad decided to lock the boy away for good in the family basement. After all, the neighbors might begin to talkâ ¦
In the solitude of the dank, musty cellar, Harry waited and grewâ ¦ and grewâ ¦ and GREW! And while he waited, he was counseled by his one and only friend â the bright silvery orb in the inight sky that he called â Moom.â Harry spoke to Moom. And Moom spoke to Harry. Moom told Harry what he should do when he finally broke out of his subterranean prison â ¦
Moom told Harry to killâ ¦
and Killâ ¦
and KILLâ ¦
348 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1989
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August 5, 2020Bill Crider (July 28, 1941 – February 12, 2018)
Published under the pseudonym "Jack MacLane"
"Keepers of the Beast" (Zebra, 1988)
"Goodnight, Moom" (Zebra, 1989)
"Blood Dreams" (Zebra, 1989)
"Rest in Peace" (Zebra, 1990)
"Just before Dark" (Zebra, 1990)
Published under the pseudonym "Jack MacLane"
"Keepers of the Beast" (Zebra, 1988)
"Goodnight, Moom" (Zebra, 1989)
"Blood Dreams" (Zebra, 1989)
"Rest in Peace" (Zebra, 1990)
"Just before Dark" (Zebra, 1990)
January 10, 2017
Harry kills a cat, then a dog, then a cow, then a little girl, then his dad locks him in the basement, then he gets out, then he kills his dad, then he says "Moom?" Later, somebody urinates on a corpse. For Edgelords only.
November 10, 2023
Bill Crider wrote a handful of horror novels for Zebra under the Jack MacLane pseudonym in the 80s/90s and while Goodnight Moom may have the best cover, your enjoyment will depend upon your affinity for trashy pulp. This was a hard one to rate; I could have given this one 2 or 4 stars.
Set in some nameless, small Texas town, Goodnight Moom features a nasty redneck named Ed Leach. Homophobe, wife beater and all around asshole, this starts with Ed getting married and then promptly beating his wife because she would not give him a blow job. He did succeed, however, with his 'nasty little thing' to get her pregnant and soon enough, little Harry was born. Ed wanted nothing to do with the kid. At all. Yet, one must never spare the rod! Whether or not Harry was born 'troubled' or got that way when Ed threw him into a wall as a baby, it does not really matter.
Harry lives in his own world, never speaking to anyone. He goes to school but just sits there; he even passes first and second grade as he is so well mannered. Yet, the only thing he seems to really enjoy is killing things after causing them lots of pain. This 'yen' starts off small with cats and dogs (be ready for some serious animal foo here) but once it moves to kids, Ed decides that is enough and locks him in the basement of their house for good. The title comes from poor Harry's deranged mind; his mother used to sing to him about the moon and he kinda got mom and the moon mixed together. Being locked in the basement with only one small window, he spends lots of time looking at the moom...
Seldom have I read a book with so many deplorable characters. Ed is a first rate asshole and his 'pals' are not much better. I would have expected to feel at least a little pity for poor Harry, but not really. I will not go more into the plot; what I wrote above is not much more than the backflap blurb. On the one hand, this story moves along nicely, with one set piece to another chronicling Harry's life, warts and all. On the other hand, this is not really scary at all, even if there is plenty of gore from time to time, and really has no redeeming value what so ever. Pure escapist fun, if fun involves nasty acts of stupidity and violence, along with some asshole rednecks running around. Like I wrote at the start-- your enjoyment of this one will really depend upon your affinity for trashy pulp! MacLane/Crider knows how to write however and I have really liked the other novels of his I have read. Goodnight Moom? Glad I read it, but not sure if I will read it again.
Set in some nameless, small Texas town, Goodnight Moom features a nasty redneck named Ed Leach. Homophobe, wife beater and all around asshole, this starts with Ed getting married and then promptly beating his wife because she would not give him a blow job. He did succeed, however, with his 'nasty little thing' to get her pregnant and soon enough, little Harry was born. Ed wanted nothing to do with the kid. At all. Yet, one must never spare the rod! Whether or not Harry was born 'troubled' or got that way when Ed threw him into a wall as a baby, it does not really matter.
Harry lives in his own world, never speaking to anyone. He goes to school but just sits there; he even passes first and second grade as he is so well mannered. Yet, the only thing he seems to really enjoy is killing things after causing them lots of pain. This 'yen' starts off small with cats and dogs (be ready for some serious animal foo here) but once it moves to kids, Ed decides that is enough and locks him in the basement of their house for good. The title comes from poor Harry's deranged mind; his mother used to sing to him about the moon and he kinda got mom and the moon mixed together. Being locked in the basement with only one small window, he spends lots of time looking at the moom...
Seldom have I read a book with so many deplorable characters. Ed is a first rate asshole and his 'pals' are not much better. I would have expected to feel at least a little pity for poor Harry, but not really. I will not go more into the plot; what I wrote above is not much more than the backflap blurb. On the one hand, this story moves along nicely, with one set piece to another chronicling Harry's life, warts and all. On the other hand, this is not really scary at all, even if there is plenty of gore from time to time, and really has no redeeming value what so ever. Pure escapist fun, if fun involves nasty acts of stupidity and violence, along with some asshole rednecks running around. Like I wrote at the start-- your enjoyment of this one will really depend upon your affinity for trashy pulp! MacLane/Crider knows how to write however and I have really liked the other novels of his I have read. Goodnight Moom? Glad I read it, but not sure if I will read it again.
April 6, 2020
Goodnight Moom
By Jack Maclane.
Zebra Horror.
1989.
🎃🎃🎃🎃 Or 🎃🎃. Depends on what you're looking for.
This is a conflicted review for me. On one hand, Goodnight Moom, is absolute trash. It's got a paper thin plot, and it's written with the tact, prose and intellect of a pubescent boy.
On the other hand, it is so bizarrely written and charming in its approach to the story, so gory and meanspirited, SUCH an emblematic time capsule of horror novels in the 1980s, that I can't not recommend it.
This book is exactly the type of book that has given cult-like demand to old mass market horror paperbacks. It would never see the light of day in 2020, not by a major successful publisher. This is truly something that could only exist in the alternate universe where books like this had a mass audience; the alternate universe that is the late 80s/early 90s. If you're looking for a read totally indicative of what the fascination is with these books, check out Goodnight Moom. You'll find out, for better or worse.
Goodnight Moom is the cleverly titled telling of a not so clever story; it's like a barebones 80s backwoods slasher meets a southern fried Frankenstein tale, with a lengthy "hunt" by a bunch of imbeciles taking up about half of the book. Not a single surprise happens as the reader gets 350 double-spaced pages of huge print to stretch the length of a skeletal story; Harry is born to an abusive father and helpless mother. He's beaten into both mental and physical deformity, eventually taking his frustrations with the world out on animals and eventually people. This ends up with him locked in a basement, that he obviously breaks out of to go on the inevitable mass killing spree.
As a piece of nostalgia, this thing rips. It's never boring, it's silly and cruel at the same time, black humor is practically oozing out it's pages. If you like 80s b-movies, namely slashers like The Funhouse, Hell Night and The Burning, here's your equivalent in text form. As a piece of literature? It's garbage.
You be the judge. I was in the right mood, but I'll probably never read it again. Or remember that I did...
#horrornovels #horrorbooks #horrorfiction #horrorreads #horrorbookstagram
#paperbacksfromhell #80shorrorbooks #80shorror #zebrabooks #zebrahorror #bookstagram #jackmaclane #goodnightmoom
By Jack Maclane.
Zebra Horror.
1989.
🎃🎃🎃🎃 Or 🎃🎃. Depends on what you're looking for.
This is a conflicted review for me. On one hand, Goodnight Moom, is absolute trash. It's got a paper thin plot, and it's written with the tact, prose and intellect of a pubescent boy.
On the other hand, it is so bizarrely written and charming in its approach to the story, so gory and meanspirited, SUCH an emblematic time capsule of horror novels in the 1980s, that I can't not recommend it.
This book is exactly the type of book that has given cult-like demand to old mass market horror paperbacks. It would never see the light of day in 2020, not by a major successful publisher. This is truly something that could only exist in the alternate universe where books like this had a mass audience; the alternate universe that is the late 80s/early 90s. If you're looking for a read totally indicative of what the fascination is with these books, check out Goodnight Moom. You'll find out, for better or worse.
Goodnight Moom is the cleverly titled telling of a not so clever story; it's like a barebones 80s backwoods slasher meets a southern fried Frankenstein tale, with a lengthy "hunt" by a bunch of imbeciles taking up about half of the book. Not a single surprise happens as the reader gets 350 double-spaced pages of huge print to stretch the length of a skeletal story; Harry is born to an abusive father and helpless mother. He's beaten into both mental and physical deformity, eventually taking his frustrations with the world out on animals and eventually people. This ends up with him locked in a basement, that he obviously breaks out of to go on the inevitable mass killing spree.
As a piece of nostalgia, this thing rips. It's never boring, it's silly and cruel at the same time, black humor is practically oozing out it's pages. If you like 80s b-movies, namely slashers like The Funhouse, Hell Night and The Burning, here's your equivalent in text form. As a piece of literature? It's garbage.
You be the judge. I was in the right mood, but I'll probably never read it again. Or remember that I did...
#horrornovels #horrorbooks #horrorfiction #horrorreads #horrorbookstagram
#paperbacksfromhell #80shorrorbooks #80shorror #zebrabooks #zebrahorror #bookstagram #jackmaclane #goodnightmoom
October 2, 2025
One of the rare occasions where I didn't like most of the characters but gave it five stars. The people in this book were pretty much there to hate anyway. It was done perfectly. The story moved along and kept you engaged all while wanting the folks to get hammered.
An overbearing man has a child. He abuses his wife and the kid. The youngster is thrown to the wall and that pretty much sets him down the wrong path. He starts to kill things. The things start to get bigger and bigger till they think he killed a little girl. At that point the ten year old goes to the basement. Never to be seen again. Till much later.
He does get out and is hunted by his father and some of his worthless friends. The killing kid comes across others who hunt him down and some that just want to evade him. All in all, Bill Crider knew how to write a horror novel. Why he only did a handful is the real mystery.
An overbearing man has a child. He abuses his wife and the kid. The youngster is thrown to the wall and that pretty much sets him down the wrong path. He starts to kill things. The things start to get bigger and bigger till they think he killed a little girl. At that point the ten year old goes to the basement. Never to be seen again. Till much later.
He does get out and is hunted by his father and some of his worthless friends. The killing kid comes across others who hunt him down and some that just want to evade him. All in all, Bill Crider knew how to write a horror novel. Why he only did a handful is the real mystery.
September 11, 2024
3.5.
Marginally better than the book Jack MacLane (Bill Crider) would write the following year, Just Before Dark. Goodnight Moom is an interesting hybrid of slasher novel, Edward Levy's The Beast Within, and Thom Metzger's Big Gurl (though nowhere near as absurd). I was surprised by some of the developments and mourned the death of a character or two.
A better Zebra.
Marginally better than the book Jack MacLane (Bill Crider) would write the following year, Just Before Dark. Goodnight Moom is an interesting hybrid of slasher novel, Edward Levy's The Beast Within, and Thom Metzger's Big Gurl (though nowhere near as absurd). I was surprised by some of the developments and mourned the death of a character or two.
A better Zebra.
June 28, 2007
A baby pees on his dad, whose irate and perhaps rash response is to throw him at the wall as hard as he possibly can, then lock him in the basement for the remainder of his childhood. The child grows up to be retarded and homicidal, escapes the basement, and embarks on a rampage of people-choking and trailer destruction. It's called "Goodnight Moom" because the retarded killer can't say "moon" right. It's a late-80's horror book written by someone who obviously loves no one and nothing. I'd be lying if I said I didn't spend a fair amount of my waking hours thinking about this book, while chuckling softly to myself.
May 24, 2015
Extremely readable 80s B-Movie horror in book form. This novel was deliriously entertaining, much like an old b-horror film viewed late at night. There are some really revolting scenes of child abuse towards the beginning of the novel, be warned. Once this book kicks into high gear, its nearly impossible to put down. I read the final 100 pages in one sitting last night. Fine lit? Hell, no. Over the top fun for horror fans? Hell, yes. Jack MacLane is a pseudonym for mystery writer Bill Crider. I've enjoyed everything I've read by him.
March 19, 2011
I read this book in 1999 and thought it was a great book...Yea it make be a sick morbid book, but its a good read.
Now that I have 3 kids I think 2 myself what a ugly thing 2 do to your child, just because he was different.
Very surprised with the other reviews I seen... Read This!
Now that I have 3 kids I think 2 myself what a ugly thing 2 do to your child, just because he was different.
Very surprised with the other reviews I seen... Read This!
January 7, 2025
Incredible book. What a ride
March 4, 2014
This book is the perfect bedtime or nap story because it’s very calming in general. It made me want to sleep afterwards. I loved the use of cool colors rather than vibrant warm ones. I liked the cartoonish yet realistic feel of the drawing because it appealed the children and also makes them think about and compare their own homes to the books. The YouTube reading of this book I found a lot better than the actual book because the animations within the book were moving and interactive. I think children would truly enjoy it especially before naptime at school or home. The music in the background as well was also very relaxing and calming. Within the book it gives great tips for if you cant fall asleep as well without being too obvious such as counting. It also relates to how children fall asleep every night with their daily routines.
February 27, 2011
The book was quite morbid about severe abuse to a child, that when he grew up and got loose he turned around and started a killing spree of people. I got the ebook from library. Disappointed that there were repeats of paragraphs and some half sentences. The book carried on a bit more than needed and I found the ending to be very dull. Not very impressed.
March 22, 2021
I read this book when I was a freshman in high school. Although I don't remember every single detail, 30 years later this book still remains in the back of my head as one of the most disturbing and scary books I've read. I may need to re-read this as an adult.
April 15, 2024
What an EPIC waste of time! This book infuriated me!
Part 1 of this book was absolutely incredible!!!
From the get go it was off the fucking rails, batshit crazy, in the best way possible, and I was LOVING it.
The pace was breakneck! There was spousal abuse, child abuse, animal abuse, rape and overall horrible people, all before p.50.
Part 2 began on p.71, and unfortunately, there was a 10 year time jump, which I *hated*. I wanted to read about a psycho KID. Having him age up was a huge letdown for me.
The pacing also came to a stand still. There were still moments of mild intensity, but they were spaced much farther apart and there was way too much focus on other characters that I just didn’t like or care about. It was meh and I was indifferent to everything they was happening. It felt like a totally different book and I hated it.
And it only went downhill from there.
Just before the beginning of Part 3, an entire new set of characters with an entirely different plot line were introduced. The rest of the book was completely fractured and went in too many different directions, while not actually doing anything at all.
The last few pages went completely, RIDICULOUSLY, off the fucking rails in the worst way.
And don’t even get me started on the ending 🤬🤬🤬
This might be the *worst* final sentence of any book I’ve ever read.
Oh, and just so you know, the whole “Moom” thing is NEVER explained.
The main character allegedly gets some sort of supernatural abilities from the moon, but it is NEVER verified or explained. It may, or may not, be a *thing* 😡
Part 1 of this book was absolutely incredible!!!
From the get go it was off the fucking rails, batshit crazy, in the best way possible, and I was LOVING it.
The pace was breakneck! There was spousal abuse, child abuse, animal abuse, rape and overall horrible people, all before p.50.
Part 2 began on p.71, and unfortunately, there was a 10 year time jump, which I *hated*. I wanted to read about a psycho KID. Having him age up was a huge letdown for me.
The pacing also came to a stand still. There were still moments of mild intensity, but they were spaced much farther apart and there was way too much focus on other characters that I just didn’t like or care about. It was meh and I was indifferent to everything they was happening. It felt like a totally different book and I hated it.
And it only went downhill from there.
Just before the beginning of Part 3, an entire new set of characters with an entirely different plot line were introduced. The rest of the book was completely fractured and went in too many different directions, while not actually doing anything at all.
The last few pages went completely, RIDICULOUSLY, off the fucking rails in the worst way.
And don’t even get me started on the ending 🤬🤬🤬
This might be the *worst* final sentence of any book I’ve ever read.
Oh, and just so you know, the whole “Moom” thing is NEVER explained.
The main character allegedly gets some sort of supernatural abilities from the moon, but it is NEVER verified or explained. It may, or may not, be a *thing* 😡
June 28, 2023
The story of a very unhinged child.
This has 80s horror/slasher movie all over it. Adult Harry had strong Myers/voorhies vibes and it was very much a straightforward plot from the offset.
While this is definitely not in the realms of splatterpunk, from the get go this is a horrible book and honestly you can play the trigger warning bingo quite easily. Assault, child abuse, animal cruelty and murder will come up before you’re even getting into your stride with this one.
There was a very cohesive flow to the book and I enjoyed how it all came together here. I don’t think it’s an amazing book, but it is one I struggled to put down. The multi person narrative on this one helped with the flow and to be fair, i’m not sure how well you can carry a book just from the perspective of a psychopathic killing machine!
This has 80s horror/slasher movie all over it. Adult Harry had strong Myers/voorhies vibes and it was very much a straightforward plot from the offset.
While this is definitely not in the realms of splatterpunk, from the get go this is a horrible book and honestly you can play the trigger warning bingo quite easily. Assault, child abuse, animal cruelty and murder will come up before you’re even getting into your stride with this one.
There was a very cohesive flow to the book and I enjoyed how it all came together here. I don’t think it’s an amazing book, but it is one I struggled to put down. The multi person narrative on this one helped with the flow and to be fair, i’m not sure how well you can carry a book just from the perspective of a psychopathic killing machine!
November 20, 2018
Do it for Harry :)
Choosed the high rating due to the story development & its emotional factors the story contained. I strongly recommend this book if you're into psychological thrillers as well as a bloody rampage. I really love this book,
although I feel sorry for Harry and his mother.
Hope you like this book as much as I did :)!
Choosed the high rating due to the story development & its emotional factors the story contained. I strongly recommend this book if you're into psychological thrillers as well as a bloody rampage. I really love this book,
although I feel sorry for Harry and his mother.
Hope you like this book as much as I did :)!
June 22, 2020
Decent thriller with gruesome scenes and good characters
July 10, 2020
Fantastic novel really enjoyed it! Would highly recommend
May 12, 2024
I really liked this one...I just wish the Kindle version was better edited, whole paragraphs would repeat and it took me out of the story. Overall it was really good though.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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