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The Punishment: A Novel of Terror
Rayburn Quiller selects an island off Maine's coast for a long overdue family reunion, determined to ignore the century-old legend of school children who vanished while in the care of an entrancing, young school mistress
291 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1980
89 people want to read
About the author
Doris Shannon
22 books3 followersDoris Giroux Shannon was born in Elmira, New York, daughter of Edwin Giroux and Elizabeth Graham. Married Frank Shannon in 1947. They had two children.
She also wrote under the pseudonym 'E.X. Giroux'. Under that pseudonym she created 'Robert Forsythe', a retired barrister in London.
She also wrote under the pseudonym 'E.X. Giroux'. Under that pseudonym she created 'Robert Forsythe', a retired barrister in London.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
August 26, 2019
Tediously turgid prose plus unlikable characters equals me mentally checking out after about 100 pages but continuing on anyway due to the high rating here. That and I dug the concept of a family reunion featuring sinister relatives and telepaths on an ominous fog-shrouded island. I should have read the (ultra-spoilery) Kirkus Review instead. It would have saved me the trouble of trying to wade through this bilge, and it covers all the good stuff, anyway. The only reason it doesn't get one star is because some crazy-ass shit does go down eventually. But it reeks of having been written by someone with little to no interest in the genre who was just trying to cash in on the burgeoning horror scene of the 70s/early 80s.
2.0 Stars.
2.0 Stars.
May 5, 2021
Flawed, but definitely interesting. My copy is the 1980 hardcover reprint by St. Martin's Press which lacks the gory cover art of the paperback original, instead opting for a plain black dust jacket with only the title lavishly scrolled across the front like some kinky bondage romance. So I didn't know what to expect going in.
Essentially this is a gothic family drama. If you like V.C. Andrews, you'll probably find this right up your alley. For me, I don't have much taste for stories about incest, domestic abuse, and animal cruelty. So if these are triggers for you, this may not be the book for you to read.
That being said, there are some incredibly effective moments of horror here. Though it definitely goes totally off-the-charts insane toward the end, the majority is like peeling the layers of an onion, slowly revealing the pungency beneath the papery façade. The tension is very real.
For example, have you ever had a spouse or significant other who was the sweetest and most loving person in the world, but when they got around their family, they became a stranger to you? Ignoring you at parties and family get-togethers, making you feel like you're not part of the club let alone the family? Treating you with disdain for a few days after hanging out with their siblings and parents? And you ask, where does this come from? Does the family not approve of me and is filling my loved one with bad ideas about me? What did I do wrong?
Well, that's this book in a nutshell. Without spoiling much, I can share that one of the most effective scenes is when a wife dresses in a sexy negligé and fixes her husband ice cold martinis in preparation for a night of TLC. Now, I don't know about you, but that sounds like my idea of a good time! But the husband's reaction is completely unexpected. He tells her she isn't getting any more sex out of him, that he sees right through her, calling her a spoiled child, and even threatens violence. He then crawls into bed next to her, back turned away, and suddenly in the tense silence she realizes she's alone with a stranger. How humiliating, how tragic, and how scary!
The book also does a good job depicting the traumas of war and the loss of family members. Vietnam is mentioned quite frequently, and almost everyone in this story has had someone dear to them die violently. It does get a bit much, and this book can really be a downer, especially since author Doris Shannon delivers the entire story in a dry, distant voice devoid of any humor, wit, or irony.
As impactful as this book could be, unfortunately contemporary logic isn't always this book's friend. There are some things that happen that bugger belief, dating the book somewhat. I can't go into many details without spoilers, so I will give an example that is inconsequential. A practical stranger calls a psychiatrist and asks for personal mental health and social history on a girl he knows. There is no real reason for doing this, considering the context. But like an insecure high school coquette drunk on prom night, the doctor gives it away without much resistance. If that's how things went down in 1978, no wonder we have HIPAA. Simpler times, I guess.
So here's the bad: This book hasn't aged entirely well, though this lends a certain charm appreciated by junkies of old mass market horrors. And aside from a somewhat abrupt and violent prologue, the book takes a LONG time to get going. It takes you a while to get to know the characters, who do grow on you after a while, but until then you really don't like anyone. It wasn't until about page 140 that I started to appreciate where the author was going with certain characters, but by then I was checking out. A piece of unsolicited advice to you budding writers out there--you simply HAVE to make your characters likeable or you have no readership. They don't have to be good-looking. They don't have to be heroic. They don't have to be relatable. They don't even have to be nice. But the reader has to enjoy the characters on some level. It wasn't until over halfway through this book that the characters showed any individual charisma of their own to differentiate between them--and there were A LOT of them. With so many people with relatively bland names and personalities milling about drinking cocktails, the reader gets as confused as when reading "War and Peace." And Doris Shannon ain't no Tolstoy.
The good: A truly unsettling novel that gets under your skin. If you are a horror or thriller fan and it's been a while since a book made you feel something other than sleepy, you could do worse.
Essentially this is a gothic family drama. If you like V.C. Andrews, you'll probably find this right up your alley. For me, I don't have much taste for stories about incest, domestic abuse, and animal cruelty. So if these are triggers for you, this may not be the book for you to read.
That being said, there are some incredibly effective moments of horror here. Though it definitely goes totally off-the-charts insane toward the end, the majority is like peeling the layers of an onion, slowly revealing the pungency beneath the papery façade. The tension is very real.
For example, have you ever had a spouse or significant other who was the sweetest and most loving person in the world, but when they got around their family, they became a stranger to you? Ignoring you at parties and family get-togethers, making you feel like you're not part of the club let alone the family? Treating you with disdain for a few days after hanging out with their siblings and parents? And you ask, where does this come from? Does the family not approve of me and is filling my loved one with bad ideas about me? What did I do wrong?
Well, that's this book in a nutshell. Without spoiling much, I can share that one of the most effective scenes is when a wife dresses in a sexy negligé and fixes her husband ice cold martinis in preparation for a night of TLC. Now, I don't know about you, but that sounds like my idea of a good time! But the husband's reaction is completely unexpected. He tells her she isn't getting any more sex out of him, that he sees right through her, calling her a spoiled child, and even threatens violence. He then crawls into bed next to her, back turned away, and suddenly in the tense silence she realizes she's alone with a stranger. How humiliating, how tragic, and how scary!
The book also does a good job depicting the traumas of war and the loss of family members. Vietnam is mentioned quite frequently, and almost everyone in this story has had someone dear to them die violently. It does get a bit much, and this book can really be a downer, especially since author Doris Shannon delivers the entire story in a dry, distant voice devoid of any humor, wit, or irony.
As impactful as this book could be, unfortunately contemporary logic isn't always this book's friend. There are some things that happen that bugger belief, dating the book somewhat. I can't go into many details without spoilers, so I will give an example that is inconsequential. A practical stranger calls a psychiatrist and asks for personal mental health and social history on a girl he knows. There is no real reason for doing this, considering the context. But like an insecure high school coquette drunk on prom night, the doctor gives it away without much resistance. If that's how things went down in 1978, no wonder we have HIPAA. Simpler times, I guess.
So here's the bad: This book hasn't aged entirely well, though this lends a certain charm appreciated by junkies of old mass market horrors. And aside from a somewhat abrupt and violent prologue, the book takes a LONG time to get going. It takes you a while to get to know the characters, who do grow on you after a while, but until then you really don't like anyone. It wasn't until about page 140 that I started to appreciate where the author was going with certain characters, but by then I was checking out. A piece of unsolicited advice to you budding writers out there--you simply HAVE to make your characters likeable or you have no readership. They don't have to be good-looking. They don't have to be heroic. They don't have to be relatable. They don't even have to be nice. But the reader has to enjoy the characters on some level. It wasn't until over halfway through this book that the characters showed any individual charisma of their own to differentiate between them--and there were A LOT of them. With so many people with relatively bland names and personalities milling about drinking cocktails, the reader gets as confused as when reading "War and Peace." And Doris Shannon ain't no Tolstoy.
The good: A truly unsettling novel that gets under your skin. If you are a horror or thriller fan and it's been a while since a book made you feel something other than sleepy, you could do worse.
March 21, 2021
The Quiller family meet up for a reunion on the remote Winchfield island off the coast of Maine. One of the main characters is nineteen-year-old Tammy who has psychic abilities. She was very close with her father and when he died five years earlier she became catatonic and was sent to a psychiatric hospital/boarding school. Now she has to accompany her mother, Dorothy, and her mother's new husband, Jim Quiller, to the family getaway. While there, they learn about the history of the island and the Winchfield family who used to run a schoolhouse there. The locals had found out about some sinister goings-on and decided to take the law into their own hands and punish the Winchfields. The building on the island has been abandoned ever since...until the Quiller family arrive. And it turns out that the Winchfields aren't the only family with a dark past.
I would describe this as a gothic family drama with horror, paranormal and mystery elements plus a little romance. If you're a fan of V.C. Andrews's work then you might want to give this a try. Speaking of V.C. Andrews, yes there is incest here too. Also: murder, suicide, cannibalism, rape, child abuse.
There was a lot I liked here and while some of it was cliched it was well written and still made for a compelling and entertaining story. The isolated location was very atmospheric and added to the tension as the story developed. There are a lot of characters here with there being twelve in the family reunion alone plus some more side characters but the author did an excellent job in detailing them all well enough and early on enough that I didn't find it difficult to remember who was who.
One of my favourite moments was when Nigel, the long-lost grandson (because of course there's a long-lost grandson), helms a topic of conversation after dinner one evening about the possibility a of murderous tendencies being passed down genetically. He brings up some real true crime cases and I thought the way they were woven into the story was really well done.
I would describe this as a gothic family drama with horror, paranormal and mystery elements plus a little romance. If you're a fan of V.C. Andrews's work then you might want to give this a try. Speaking of V.C. Andrews, yes there is incest here too. Also: murder, suicide, cannibalism, rape, child abuse.
There was a lot I liked here and while some of it was cliched it was well written and still made for a compelling and entertaining story. The isolated location was very atmospheric and added to the tension as the story developed. There are a lot of characters here with there being twelve in the family reunion alone plus some more side characters but the author did an excellent job in detailing them all well enough and early on enough that I didn't find it difficult to remember who was who.
One of my favourite moments was when Nigel, the long-lost grandson (because of course there's a long-lost grandson), helms a topic of conversation after dinner one evening about the possibility a of murderous tendencies being passed down genetically. He brings up some real true crime cases and I thought the way they were woven into the story was really well done.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews