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The Waking That Kills
A dark novel of Possession. The ghosts that haunt us are not always strangers. Lawrence Lundy's military-pilot father is missing, and the boy is doing everything he can to keep his presence alive in the family home. Into this strange house comes Christopher Beale, a man just returned to the country who becomes drawn in to the apparent madness of the Lawrence and his mother.
A long, hot summer's dream. A suffocating nightmare. Shattered by a violent awakening! When his elderly father suffers a stroke, Christopher Beale returns to England. He has no home, no other family. Adrift, he answers an advert for a live-in tutor for a teenage boy. The boy is Lawrence Lundy, who possesses the spirit of his father, a military pilot – missing, presumed dead. Unable to accept that his father is gone, Lawrence keeps his presence alive, in the big old house, in the overgrown garden. His mother, Juliet Lundy, a fey, scatty widow living on her nerves, keeps the boy at home, away from other children, away from the world. And in the suffocating heat of a long summer, she too is infected by the madness of her son. Christopher Beale becomes entangled in the strange household... enmeshed in the oddness of the boy and his fragile mother. Only by forcing the boy to release the spirit of his father can there be any escape from the haunting.
A long, hot summer's dream. A suffocating nightmare. Shattered by a violent awakening! When his elderly father suffers a stroke, Christopher Beale returns to England. He has no home, no other family. Adrift, he answers an advert for a live-in tutor for a teenage boy. The boy is Lawrence Lundy, who possesses the spirit of his father, a military pilot – missing, presumed dead. Unable to accept that his father is gone, Lawrence keeps his presence alive, in the big old house, in the overgrown garden. His mother, Juliet Lundy, a fey, scatty widow living on her nerves, keeps the boy at home, away from other children, away from the world. And in the suffocating heat of a long summer, she too is infected by the madness of her son. Christopher Beale becomes entangled in the strange household... enmeshed in the oddness of the boy and his fragile mother. Only by forcing the boy to release the spirit of his father can there be any escape from the haunting.
224 pages, Paperback
First published October 22, 2013
5 people are currently reading
236 people want to read
About the author
Stephen Gregory
20 books92 followersStephen Gregory (b. 1952) was born in Derby, England, and earned a degree in law from the University of London. He worked as a teacher for ten years in various places, including Wales, Algeria, and Sudan, before moving to the mountains of Snowdonia in Wales to write his first novel, The Cormorant (1986), which won Britain’s prestigious Somerset Maugham Award and drew comparisons to Poe. The book was also adapted for film as a BBC production starring Ralph Fiennes. Two more novels, both set in Wales, followed: The Woodwitch (1988) and The Blood of Angels (1994). After the publication of The Blood of Angels, he worked in Hollywood for a year with Oscar-winning director William Friedkin (The Exorcist). More recently, he has published The Perils and Dangers of this Night (2008), and his new novel, The Waking That Kills, will be published in late 2013.
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
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Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews
April 19, 2015
Stephen Gregory strikes gold again with this creepy, literary, psychological story. That's the best description I can come up with for this horrific tale. I hesitate to put a horror label on this story because it's SO MUCH MORE than that.
Mr. Gregory's prose is sublime, as always, and often chilling. I had goose flesh quite a few times while reading this story full of madness, confusion, ghosts?, psychopaths?, alcohol and a mother's love.
The synopsis goes into the plot of this story, so I will not. Instead, I want to talk about my impressions. The subtitle of this book is "A dark novel of possession". I've been thinking about what that means. There were no Exorcist moments here. No heads turning 'round or pea soup spouting out. (What were there were quiet moments, punctuated with scenes of extreme violence and chilling madness.) Perhaps the possession mentioned in the subtitle is referring to the fact that we can't hold on to things in this life. Not people, not things, sometimes not even our memories. Perhaps this novel is about what happens when we cannot let these possessions, or people, go? That's how I choose to see it, anyway. Future or other readers, I would be happy to talk to you about what you thought in the comments below.
To mention the prose once again, it's beautiful and mostly simple, yet effective. (Though I had to break out my Kindle dictionary a couple of times.) I've tried to analyze it and that's the best I can come up with. Check out this quote below.
I went up to the tower. I thought I might find the woman and the boy there, in bed together. Or the boy and his father, enjoying some quality time, a dead man and a mad boy chuckling and joshing and exchanging their stories of being dead and being mad.
There you have it. No big words, nothing pretentious, just a few chilling sentences, made all the more chilling by the almost careless way they're related. Mr. Gregory is a MASTER at this and he has never failed at pulling it off.
Overall, this story was awesome! I don't know any other way to put it. If this book sounds even a little bit interesting to you, I recommend you grab it, read it and come back. We'll talk. :)
My highest recommendation!
Mr. Gregory's prose is sublime, as always, and often chilling. I had goose flesh quite a few times while reading this story full of madness, confusion, ghosts?, psychopaths?, alcohol and a mother's love.
The synopsis goes into the plot of this story, so I will not. Instead, I want to talk about my impressions. The subtitle of this book is "A dark novel of possession". I've been thinking about what that means. There were no Exorcist moments here. No heads turning 'round or pea soup spouting out. (What were there were quiet moments, punctuated with scenes of extreme violence and chilling madness.) Perhaps the possession mentioned in the subtitle is referring to the fact that we can't hold on to things in this life. Not people, not things, sometimes not even our memories. Perhaps this novel is about what happens when we cannot let these possessions, or people, go? That's how I choose to see it, anyway. Future or other readers, I would be happy to talk to you about what you thought in the comments below.
To mention the prose once again, it's beautiful and mostly simple, yet effective. (Though I had to break out my Kindle dictionary a couple of times.) I've tried to analyze it and that's the best I can come up with. Check out this quote below.
I went up to the tower. I thought I might find the woman and the boy there, in bed together. Or the boy and his father, enjoying some quality time, a dead man and a mad boy chuckling and joshing and exchanging their stories of being dead and being mad.
There you have it. No big words, nothing pretentious, just a few chilling sentences, made all the more chilling by the almost careless way they're related. Mr. Gregory is a MASTER at this and he has never failed at pulling it off.
Overall, this story was awesome! I don't know any other way to put it. If this book sounds even a little bit interesting to you, I recommend you grab it, read it and come back. We'll talk. :)
My highest recommendation!
April 16, 2015
4.5 stars.
Stephen Gregory has done it once again, creating a masterpiece of a story hinging on atmosphere and a strong psychological pull. His use of metaphors in this story, certainly bears mention, as well.
Lawrence Lundy, a boy who just lost his pilot father to the sea, and Christopher, a teacher coming home to watch over his confused father during his final days, find their fates are to become irrevocably entwined. Both characters are unable--or unwilling--to let go of the past, yet each manifests this in their own peculiar manner. One of Lawrence's scenes involve trapping a colony of Swifts--blocking them from leaving on their own, usual autumn journey: "....My birds, my sky, my space..." he murmurs as if in prayer.
For Christopher, it's the old hearse that his father used as a car and refuge for countless years. In one of his secreted moments of solitude, Christopher muses about his connection to his father's vehicle: "My father's car. Nothing to do with the Lundy family, nothing to do with the otherworld of Chalke House buried in the folds of the Lincolnshire Worlds. I needed, for a short while, to touch--yes, physically touch--the reason why I'd come back to England."
In the case of Lawrence, a troubled fifteen year-old boy who's father's plane had gone down over the sea; his real psychological problems had begun in a school art room. His life irrevocably changed when: "...A few thoughtless words had blighted his prospects of emulating the father he hero-worshipped, his boyish dreams had been shattered, he'd been grounded. A trivial thing, for a teenage boy to be colour-blind, not uncommon or noteworthy, unless it simply, unalterably, thwarted everything." At that pivotal moment, EVERYTHING was changed, leading to the events that transpired to bring Christopher into the lives of Lawrence and Juliet Lundy.
The psychological aspects of this story were so well entwined that I could "feel" the madness and the isolation coming from the pages. Each scene, no matter how trivial on its own, comes together to make a perfect whole story--leaving no gaps or questions as to how the emotional hauntings progressed in each of our characters.
Stephen Gregory is a master storyteller, and I unhesitatingly give my highest recommendation to all of his books that I have read. I plan on searching for everything I can find by this author!
Stephen Gregory has done it once again, creating a masterpiece of a story hinging on atmosphere and a strong psychological pull. His use of metaphors in this story, certainly bears mention, as well.
Lawrence Lundy, a boy who just lost his pilot father to the sea, and Christopher, a teacher coming home to watch over his confused father during his final days, find their fates are to become irrevocably entwined. Both characters are unable--or unwilling--to let go of the past, yet each manifests this in their own peculiar manner. One of Lawrence's scenes involve trapping a colony of Swifts--blocking them from leaving on their own, usual autumn journey: "....My birds, my sky, my space..." he murmurs as if in prayer.
For Christopher, it's the old hearse that his father used as a car and refuge for countless years. In one of his secreted moments of solitude, Christopher muses about his connection to his father's vehicle: "My father's car. Nothing to do with the Lundy family, nothing to do with the otherworld of Chalke House buried in the folds of the Lincolnshire Worlds. I needed, for a short while, to touch--yes, physically touch--the reason why I'd come back to England."
In the case of Lawrence, a troubled fifteen year-old boy who's father's plane had gone down over the sea; his real psychological problems had begun in a school art room. His life irrevocably changed when: "...A few thoughtless words had blighted his prospects of emulating the father he hero-worshipped, his boyish dreams had been shattered, he'd been grounded. A trivial thing, for a teenage boy to be colour-blind, not uncommon or noteworthy, unless it simply, unalterably, thwarted everything." At that pivotal moment, EVERYTHING was changed, leading to the events that transpired to bring Christopher into the lives of Lawrence and Juliet Lundy.
The psychological aspects of this story were so well entwined that I could "feel" the madness and the isolation coming from the pages. Each scene, no matter how trivial on its own, comes together to make a perfect whole story--leaving no gaps or questions as to how the emotional hauntings progressed in each of our characters.
Stephen Gregory is a master storyteller, and I unhesitatingly give my highest recommendation to all of his books that I have read. I plan on searching for everything I can find by this author!
April 15, 2015
Easily 5 stars. This tale is madness, start to finish. A man's self-imposed exile coincides with the disillusion of a family and its sometimes hard to read. .
A beautiful and haunting story.
A beautiful and haunting story.
October 14, 2024
What is wrong with this author and animal cruelty??? Kind of feel like if I met him, I'd wanna punch his lights out!!
Just fuck right off with your incessant animal abuse in the name of "horror" and "thriller". If that's all you got, then you're a sad old gobshite. Get te' fuck.
Just fuck right off with your incessant animal abuse in the name of "horror" and "thriller". If that's all you got, then you're a sad old gobshite. Get te' fuck.
August 27, 2025
Christopher Beale returns home to England to visit his dying father. After living in Borneo for several years he has nothing in the UK - no job, no other family, no home. He answers an advert for a live-in tutor for Lawrence, a teenage boy, who lives with his mother in Chalke House, a rambling mansion in the Lincolnshire countryside. Lawrence's father is missing, presumed dead, and the boy is clearly disturbed. Here the three spend a suffocating summer, as madness and obsession slowly overtakes them all.
Stephen Gregory is an underrated writer, sadly missed. The Waking That Kills is beautifully written, haunting and disturbing. It's a fever-dream of a novel, as the descent into madness is wonderfully paced and insidiously woven. Probably my favourite of Gregory's, this will appeal to fans of the macabre, with the bird theme lending a creepy, nightmarish tone to the proceedings. Highly recommended.
Stephen Gregory is an underrated writer, sadly missed. The Waking That Kills is beautifully written, haunting and disturbing. It's a fever-dream of a novel, as the descent into madness is wonderfully paced and insidiously woven. Probably my favourite of Gregory's, this will appeal to fans of the macabre, with the bird theme lending a creepy, nightmarish tone to the proceedings. Highly recommended.
February 15, 2014
The walking that kills it very hard to label into a style of novel, there are real elements of horror in here, not a horror like the modern torturous, gore type of unnecessary and over the top horror, but more in a very old fashioned classic horror, the language is absolutely exceptional, I don’t really know how else to describe Gregory’s ability with the English language, the scripting of this is makes this novel worth reading on it’s own without taking into account the tale being told, which is just as worth taking in aswell.
The walking that kills is a superb, classic descent to madness, haunting and weird don’t really do proper justice to such a well put together piece of work.
The walking that kills is a superb, classic descent to madness, haunting and weird don’t really do proper justice to such a well put together piece of work.
December 29, 2025
Oh, Stephen and his birds! Few authors master atmosphere quite as capably as Gregory does. This one starts off rather even-keeled, but there are happenings along the way that ensure it is going to get unsettling. The characters are complicated, and so is the situation we soon find ourselves approaching. I love how Gregory just fits birds of varying species into his stories, and allows them to dial up the menace and weirdness to varying degrees. Here we have swifts, and we get quite the introduction and a little species background before things just go way off the rails. I appreciate oddity, but was not quite prepared for the scenes with the swifts. Wow. But it isn't just weird for weirdness' sake, there is a depth to the tale that just continues to be plumbed as we stray further and further from reality. Another brilliant story from an avian mastermind.
March 26, 2025
This is Gregory’s most recent novel, published in 2013, and the least enjoyable of the three I have read so far. The others, his first The Cormorant, and The Blood of Angels, were excellent; twisty, unsettling, shocking and unpredictable.
In this, after a steady opening the story becomes increasingly silly, and reads more like a Python script than a horror novel.
In this, after a steady opening the story becomes increasingly silly, and reads more like a Python script than a horror novel.
November 16, 2014
A unique and creepy read. I was first introduced to Mr. Gregory by his novel 'The Woodwitch'. His talent of prose and storytelling will have you spellbound. 'The Cormorant' was just as good and I was hesitant when I heard about this book. He has only written these 3 books that I have known of but all of them are worth reading if you love horror and fine literature.
February 25, 2018
Somehow, despite not liking any of the characters, this still gets 4 stars. The process of reading this and the slow, suffocating madness it explores was so uncomfortable that it was sort of brilliant. It's the weirdest book I've read this year so far and it was nice to see Stephen Gregory flexing his Bird-Obsession muscles again.
May 14, 2024
On the back of my copy was a snippet from a NYT review: "A first class terror story with a relentlessness that would have made Edgar Allan Poe proud."
Poe? lol.
To be fair, I finished it so it's well written enough to be engaging so there's that.
Poe? lol.
To be fair, I finished it so it's well written enough to be engaging so there's that.
October 7, 2019
I'm not much of a horror reader, but I'm always up for some psychological terror. I remember reading Red Dragon and going to ensure that my windows were all locked up.
The Waking That Kills has a pretty classic horror premise--a guy answers a job posting and ends up in the middle of something that he didn't expect. What results is a fever dream of sex, rural England, recollections of Borneo, and a heck of a lot of birds.
Honestly, I just ended up lost. After a while, it ws hard to tell what was supposed to be reality, and perhaps this represents an experience of madness, but I found character development to be minimal, and I found long passages about birds and Borneo, along with repeated descriptions of the "elfin body" to be distracting.
The Waking That Kills has a pretty classic horror premise--a guy answers a job posting and ends up in the middle of something that he didn't expect. What results is a fever dream of sex, rural England, recollections of Borneo, and a heck of a lot of birds.
Honestly, I just ended up lost. After a while, it ws hard to tell what was supposed to be reality, and perhaps this represents an experience of madness, but I found character development to be minimal, and I found long passages about birds and Borneo, along with repeated descriptions of the "elfin body" to be distracting.
May 17, 2021
I was disappointed with it. Stephen Gregorys books usually have a deep backstory and intersting central character, this just failed to live up to his other works. It became repetitive and dragged out after a promising start.
Will read another of his books as i have liked The Cormorant, Woodwitch and Blood of Angels.
Will read another of his books as i have liked The Cormorant, Woodwitch and Blood of Angels.
July 22, 2023
This is the second book I’ve read by Gregory, and once again I’m impressed with his writing style: economical and lean but also poetic and evocative. His descriptions of nature are sublime. Characters are deeply flawed and believable. Like The Woodwitch, I couldn’t put it down, but didn’t always enjoy it.
Read
August 5, 2022Too much saliva.
October 13, 2022
Tutor for the boy
be friendly, talk about birds
the mother has needs.
be friendly, talk about birds
the mother has needs.
February 28, 2023
Boy, can he do modern gothic.
April 7, 2023
I am sorry to say that I just couldn’t get into this book and found it a bit of a slog to read.
May 29, 2025
It was weird, oppressive, and uncomfortable; I disliked all the characters, and it's hard to say I enjoyed it. But I can't say it wasn't good.
June 8, 2015
This is my third book by this author and for some reason it didn't quite connect for me as well as the two I've read previously.
I think it's partly because I couldn't quite buy into the motivations of the protagonist. I found a lot of the decisions he made hard to believe and unconvincing. Surely he would have sought to extricate himself from the situation well before the story's events concluded? Yes, the author took great pains to show that he was the sort of character to get stuck in a rut and just go with the flow but Borneo was one thing but Chalke House quite another.
Still, Stephen writes in an easy and engaging way and it was a good enough read. But this wouldn't be where I'd recommend someone trying his work for the first time.
I think it's partly because I couldn't quite buy into the motivations of the protagonist. I found a lot of the decisions he made hard to believe and unconvincing. Surely he would have sought to extricate himself from the situation well before the story's events concluded? Yes, the author took great pains to show that he was the sort of character to get stuck in a rut and just go with the flow but Borneo was one thing but Chalke House quite another.
Still, Stephen writes in an easy and engaging way and it was a good enough read. But this wouldn't be where I'd recommend someone trying his work for the first time.
February 13, 2014
It says it is a novel of possession. By what? madness is all I see. The structure isn't bad, but it lacks the suspense I expect from this type of story. I was never really scared. The characters arcs were unrealized, uneven and though important to the story unexplained. This could add to the unreality of such a tale, but not in this case.
Read
July 12, 2014Beautifully written, but tragically repetitive. Also, the narrator has almost no agency, which makes it harder and harder to care as he does so little to alter the course.
October 13, 2014
Atmospheric, old school gothic horror feeling. Very enjoyable read.
May 3, 2016
He went for the job and stayed for the sex! Creepy kid, weird mother, missing/presumed dead husband/father. I expected it to be a little more on the scary side.
Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews