All Heads Turn When the Hunt Goes By

by John Farris

Paperback, 1977, 350 pages. Stephen King loved this book.

Genres: Horror, Fiction, Southern Gothic, Gothic, Historical Fiction, Paranormal, Pulp

350 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1977

About the author

Librarian note:
There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name

American writer and screenwriter of both adaptations of his own books (e.g. 'The Fury'), of the works of others (such as Alfred Bester's 'The Demolished Man') and original scripts. In 1973 he wrote and directed the film 'Dear Dead Delilah'. He has had several plays produced off-Broadway, and also paints and writes poetry. At various times he has made his home in New York, Southern California and Puerto Rico; he currently resides near Atlanta, Georgia. Early in his career he also wrote under the name Steve Brackeen.

Reviews

[Shelby *trains flying monkeys* · Rating 1 out of 5]

Stephen King liked this book. I did not. That makes me sad.

America's premier novelist of terror. When he turns it on as he does here, nobody does it better.

*glares at Stephen King*

I just can't finish it. I tried. It has voodoo and snakes. Dang it. I just couldn't figure out which character was who and what the hell was happening. I did read over half the sucker before throwing in the towel.

I'm bored now.

[Feliks · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is no other horror novel quite like this one. Its notoriety and reputation--its esteem and admiration--are fully well-earned. It was conceived at the dawn of the horror-fiction revolution stirred awake by Stephen King; during that long 'lull' before the genre exploded and multi-millions began to be tossed around. Ambitious mass-market authors at that time, were not really throwing all their energies into this genre because it was considered a 'sleepy backwater'. A special-interest genre. Ira Levin (of all people) was leading the field.

But then John Farris comes along and--via this one book--showed that a horror novel could stand on its own; be fully-fledged; could exhibit robustness, could obey all the principles of modern mainstream dramatic fiction. He was ahead of his time; he was a pioneer and a forerunner.

The strengths of his conception here, are many. First, 'All Heads' is a rich example of 'Southern Gothic' writing --and a very fine one at that. Much of it can be read--and marveled at--for just this aspect alone. It's a moody, atmospheric, crazy family saga combined with a sexually-realistic romantic storyline as well. Not an easy feat to pull off. Good Southern gothic is famously hard to arrive at 'correctly'.

Next: as a horror novel, 'Heads' is wildly creative and penetrating; psychological; unorthodox (spanning multiple continents? you don't see that too often, in horror yarns) as well as that convincing romance I'm mentioning (one meets that, even less frequently). The length and breadth of time Farris spends on description... conveying gorgeous Southern landscape, meticulous details of character, local histories, personal backgrounds, 'shared past' events...there's inventiveness in every quarter.

Next: the technical traits of Farris' writing style. You will need a thesaurus handy to accompany this read. It is dense, literate, weighty--this is challenging literature which has to be slowly sifted through and pored over. What Farris demonstrates by this is that horror novels don't have to written crudely, simplistically, or childishly (as they mostly were being written at the time and often continue to be written, today). This is a mature work penned from a mature sensibility; it's not 'kiddie horror'.

Do you catch the import of my comments so far? Folks, this is a full-blown novel. Morally ambiguous characters, fully-grounded motivations and genuine emotions; characters with unclear destinies; alternating perspectives. This is the kind of intimacy and delicacy that Stephen King usually abandoned in favour of faster-moving, more-sensational plots (and his famous 'commercial cues').

Let's talk straight: Stephen King succumbed to authorial flaws more often than not as his career bloomed. Besides his endlessly thin, repetitive characters..he also quickly began to write in extremely predictable, derivative cycles. Always borrowing from his horror predecessors --in some way or other--for his source ideas.

Though I'd love to be able to say that John Farris did not also fall prey to this, unfortunately he did. If Farris had only written one more book as unique as 'All Heads'; he would be a grandmaster of horror. But unfortunately--as it turned out--this specific tale is the only kind of work he can pen. All his books afterwards borrow from the format he first coined here. He's a proverbial one-trick pony.

Farris' fatal flaw is that he doesn't lift from other writers [as King does]: sadly, he re-uses material from himself. Right from this very title. The rest of his novels are wash-rinse-repeat: 'Orestian family sagas' just as this one is. This sole book is the primary model for all his later narratives. This is his only watershed.

Whereas Stephen King--for all his failings--always gave us something unusual and fresh in every story premise (whether he handled each premise very well, is a different matter). But title after title--he wasn't limited to just one, lone, stupendous creative outburst. Farris was. And that's why you've never heard about Farris. He came up with 'The Fury', too--which received a fair movie adaptation--but it just wasn't enough.

Bottom line: in any pound-for-pound "book matchup" you can take any single title of King, Levin, Straub, Campbell, or Barker--arrange any one-on-one comparison you wish--none of them will match the audacity, ingenuity, and execution of 'All Heads Turn'. Not 'The Shining'; not 'Ghost Story', not 'Rosemary's Baby'--nothing out there in its class--can compete. Where Farris stumbles--where his career falters--is when you compare him to his peers on criteria like 'output-over-time'. He has no durability, no sustainability. Nonetheless, 'Heads' is perhaps the single-best, standalone, 'graphic' horror novel, ever. Certainly the best in its particular style. And that feat is well deserving of all our constant and renewed admiration.

Look here. If all I've said up above doesn't convince you--then, forget everything I've stated--and let's make it just this: your hands will tremble; your breath will get short, your heart will race; and you will gulp and swallow on a cotton-dry mouth. You will have to leap out of your seat and pace around the room to calm yourself down. It is that crazy, that unsettling, that disturbing.

[Char · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this e-book with my horror group at Shelfari.

This book is widely considered a classic by many hard-core horror fans. It features African voodoo, slavery, southern plantations, snakes, curses and a unique cast of characters. It is well written and the story is beautifully told. I recommend the STORY highly for any fan of old-school horror.

However, the formatting problems in this book seriously interfered with my enjoyment of the story. There were commas and periods out of place, character names being misspelled or changed throughout the story, and weird issues like the word HALL being misprinted as HAIL throughout the entire book.

I am interested in reading more works by Mr. Farris, but at this point I may seek them out in paper form at the library because I fear another ordeal of being tossed out of the story by improper punctuation, misspelled words, question marks appearing out of nowhere, etc. I have reported these issues to the publisher.

Again, I highly recommend this story-for its beautiful prose and fascinating subject matter. However, I suggest you seek it out in paper form until the publisher corrects these formatting issues.

[Kenneth McKinley · Rating 5 out of 5]

All Heads Turn... is my first exposure to John Farris's work. I've seen his books on the horror shelves for many years and I have no clue why I haven't busted one open before now. Maybe, it was because I never really knew any Farris fans in my horror circles. Either way, All Heads Turn When the Hunt Goes By remedied that. I am now a fan.

The title is a curious one and, for the life of me, I have no idea why the book is named that, even after reading it. That mystery aside, Farris crafts a southern gothic piece that is laminated in rich and vibrant layer after layer. His style reminds me of a cross between Peter Straub and Stephen King, which seems fitting. King claims that Farris is one of his early influences and his hey day was right along King's in the 1970s and 80s.

Our story begins in 1942 with two different settings - Champ, one of three sons of a Virginia plantation owner, recollects that horrible day when his brother, Clipper, was getting married in his dress blues to his high school sweetheart. In a fit of unprovoked rage, Clipper takes his ceremonial sword and stabs it through his bride-to-be's throat. Not done yet, he then jumps down from the altar and lops off his father's head before turning the saber on himself and ramming it down his gullet. Meanwhile, in England, what appears to be a mysterious bomb explosion that turns the shrubbery dead and brown kills a man named Dr. Holley. Dr Holley has an unusual history that goes back to the deep, dark jungles of Africa. What comes out of that jungle was a shell of the original Dr. Holley.

The two threads twist and turn and eventually lead into one another. Along the way, Farris crafts a tale shrouded in mystery and the macabre with layers that don't give up their secrets easily. I've heard some say that the story was dry. For me, it was a nice, slow burn that was common with other writers of the era, particularly Charles L. Grant. The ending did seem like a rushed bunch of snippets that felt more hurried than speeding up the pace. It didn't diminish my enjoyment of All Heads Turn...and I look forward to taking the next dusty Farris tome that has been sitting for far too long on the shelf.


4 1/2 Rotting Paddleboats out of 5


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[Tony Vacation · Rating 5 out of 5]

All Heads Turn When the Hunt Goes By is in dire need of a physical reprint! (From what I hear the e-book is littered with lazy formatting issues.) Switching back and forth between the conventions and dressings of a southern family gothic and a tale of post colonial horror, Farris' novel of 1977 was a notorious experiment in form then but is mostly forgotten now. What it is still is a singular experience in the genre: unorthodox plotting, jarring transitions in tone, byzantine approach to backstory and surprising splashes of carnage and carnality. At times the prose can call to mind the command of language found in the more lucid writings of John Hawkes. The blunt racism of several characters will discomfort some readers, but such unpleasantness is a motif of the novel and not a prescription. And besides, it's not every day that a novel begins with a written account of a wedding as plush as a pageant that is cut short by a mannered bloodbath, and then climaxes feverishly with several possessions and an inept raid on a voodoo ritual. If I were to ever orchestrate a multi-million dollar heist and then double cross my fellow confederates in crime by fleeing in a time machine to the late 70's, then this is the horror novel that I would use my illicit gains to adapt into an arthouse flick.

[Latasha · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not exactly what I was expecting at all. The idea sounds great but the actual telling if it? Not as great. By 70% I was ready for it to be over. This book should’ve been one of my great loves but it just did not click with me.

[Rachel Bea · Rating 4 out of 5]

Once again, Goodreads logs the wrong version of the book... I read the Kindle version, not this fancy limited autographed one :)

This Southern Gothic begins with what must be one of the most iconic openings of a horror novel: a bloodbath at a wedding. The story then jumps to Britain where we eventually meet our main character, Jackson, who finds himself entangled with the survivors of the wedding massacre; and particularly so with Nhora, the stepmother. What follows is a tense, sensual, and suspenseful tale of family sins, voodoo, and the supernatural.

WARNING: The book takes place in the south, in 1940s Jim crow era. Almost all of the characters are racist. So, there is use of the n-word. I wish the author had dialed it back some because IMO it was too much.

[Robert Beveridge · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are certain novels that are discovered early on by other novelists and talked about constantly. Some of the time, the public picks up on these and turns them, and their authors, into popular figures. Far more often, however, they are left in obscurity among the masses while achieving legendary status among the industry insiders. Anne Rivers Siddons' _The House Next Door_ is a prime example; Lee Smith's _Oral History_ is another. And there are many other examples, including this tome, which achieved something close to legendary status even before its publication-- and then disappeared, despite having the kudos of almost every major horror writer of the time thrown at it. Twenty-two years later, Farris is dimly remembered as having authored the novel that was the basis for the very bad movie _The Fury_ (1976) and nothing else. Which is something of a crime, because Farris was above average as far as seventies horror novelists went; of course, most of those have faded into (well-deserved) obscurity, as well, but a few live on. And Farris, while not on the same level as King and Koontz, is certainly no more than a shallow notch below either. And he was miles above, say, Frank de Felitta, whose every book went to #1 on the NYT chart and smashed publication records.

That being said, I've read a smattering of Farris over the years. His work is readable, if not compulsively so, and it goes quick-- if it weren't for the supernatural elements, I'd call Farris a writer of slick mysteries in the John D. MacDonald tradition. He has the same sense of pace and timing, and the same wry, understated sense of irony that, when it works, is as funny as anything ever penned by Douglas Adams. And this was right along the same lines. Not as much a travelogue-style book as many of his others-- this one is set, alternately, in the Blue Ridge Mountains (in a school obviously supposed to be VMI), in England, and on a plantation in the deep south known as Dasharoons. The action takes place in WW2, and ties together the plantation's owners, who seem to be cursed, and the son of a missionary doctor in the Congo.

Much of what happens here is, if not predictable, at least understandable to someone with an extra twenty-two years of scholarly research on various subjects under his belt. But this book came before a lot of that research, and so some of the details contained therein are astounding in their accuracy. (Farris stretches the truth now and again, but one wonders if that wasn't the going wisdom at the time on some things.) Of course, telling you what all this research went into would destroy most of the book's sense of disjunction; you kind of feel you have a sense of what's going on, but you're not really sure. (It's possible that those unfamiliar with these areas of research will be completely out of their depth.)

Because of the advances being made in anthropology and sociology, the book hasn't held up well on that level. But that's not the book's fault, and I tried to not penalize the book for what's gone on around it in the world since. Farris does a good job of capturing the deep south during WW2, everything has a rational explanations right up to the end, the characters are drawn well enough so that you start to worry about what happens to them (if not immersed, a la Walker). In general, a good, solid, easy read.

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

John Farris is a legend in the horror genre, but unfortunately unknown to newer readers. Considering he's credited as being an influence to Stephen King, that should be enough.

This novel follows two families, but largely the wealthy Southern Bradwins, as a horrific wedding day tragedy unfolds, and the expatriate British doctor who comes to take care of the surviving war hero son. Deadly paths converge amid suggestions of an ancient African horror that has survived to seek it's vengeance.

Highest recommendation from a master storyteller .

[Sandy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having never read anything by John Farris, I stumbled upon his 1977 novel "All Heads Turn When the Hunt Goes By" after seeing David J. Schow's very laudatory remarks concerning the book in Jones & Newman's overview volume "Horror: 100 Best Books" (1988). In his essay, Schow calls it a "unique horror novel; the strongest single work yet produced by the field's most powerful individual voice," as well as "the first modern sexual horror novel yet written." "All Heads Turn" was hardly an early work for Farris; indeed, he had seen a full 20 books published before this one, including his breakthrough novel, "The Fury" (his 19th), in 1976. (As of this date, by my count, the author has released 43 novels for his huge fan base.) "All Heads Turn" does turn out to be quite captivating, and while my enthusiasm for the book cannot match Schow's, I did quite enjoy it nevertheless.

The novel starts with a ghastly and memorable horror set piece indeed, as "Clipper" Bradwin, the youngest son of the Bradwin clan of Dasharoons estate, goes homicidally berserk on his own wedding day in 1942. Two years later, a mysterious English doctor, Jackson Holley, escorts Clipper's older and war-wounded brother back to Dasharoons, in southeast Arkansas, and becomes involved with the estate's mistress, Nhora Bradwin, who was widowed on the day of that earlier tragedy. But, as it turns out, the wedding-day catastrophe of 1942 is only the beginning of a string of awful happenings soon to be visited on the seemingly accursed family. Farris blends into his tale a remarkable amount of historic detail (the sense of time and place is extremely well brought off here, whether Farris read up on the area or got his details from growing up and going to school, in the 1940s and '50s, in Tennessee), cultural tidbits (anyone remember who Dorothy Dix was?) and voodoo lore. And the author is revealed here to be a really terrific writer, too, whether employing a first-person narrative in journal form, the omniscient and detail-obsessed observer, or a more impressionistic style. Farris sure does have a way with a tossed-off description, too, as when he writes that a character had "eyes the color of spit on a sidewalk." His book is filled with uniformly interesting and unusual characters, and is a true horror piece not just as regards subject matter, but because something horrible happens to virtually every character in it. The novel ultimately gives us just enough information to connect our own dots, but some readers, I have a feeling, may be left wanting more. Still, that withholding of full explication only enhances the sense of voodoo mystery pervading Farris' work. And that double whammy of an ending...talk about coming full circle!

"All Heads Turn," good as it is, is certainly not a perfect book. Farris' plot is way too dependent on coincidence--better make that double coincidence--to be fully satisfying, and the author is even guilty of an occasional glitch here and there. For example, Nhora says, after the May 1942 slayings, that a character named Early Boy had long been dogging her, and that she could never forget his smile; later on, she says that she had FIRST seen him in May '42. A lantern that is said to be "burned low and...flickered out" on the porch of Old Lamb is somehow alight and ready to be extinguished six pages later. But these are quibbles. As I mentioned, I truly did find Farris' novel to be engrossing, gripping and oftentimes horrifying. As for that unusual title, I really cannot explain it, unless it refers to an 11th century letter that one of the book's characters glances at, and which mentions "horrid centaurs, the wild men, the blaring huntsmen...." Just another mystery, I suppose, in a book filled with many. To sum up: As Schow so rightly tells us, this is far from a "'feel good' horror" novel, but those game for some truly shocking thrills may find it quite a ride.

[Addy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautifully written and great story but didn't get the ending. I hate that, but what you gonna do? I'll give it 4 stars.

[Leslee · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a horror novel with some clout - mentioned both by Stephen King in Danse Macabre and again by Kim Newman and Stephen Jones in Horror: The 100 Best Books.

It's also a horror novel that was released over 30 years ago, but luckily has been re-released in ebook format and is now available on amazon for less than 5 dollars, which is a great price for this treasure of a horror novel that is a must read for anyone who considers themselves as a devotee of the horror genre.

All Heads Turn... is very much a product of its time period - Farris has a very lyrical prose style that can be very poetic, and this novel certainly makes for compulsive and easy reading. This is the literary equivalent to an early Dario Argento movie, and as we are dragged in to the feverish insanity deep in the steamy south I can't help but remember the feelings invoked by my first screening of Argento's Suspiria - nightmarish but beautiful at the same time.

Good voodoo horror novels are hard to find but you can tell that Farris has done his research here, and it never comes across as cartoonish or overdone. Strongly recommended for any fans of Southern Gothic and want to delve into the pulp history of horror fiction.

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Absolute classic by John Farris! I really like the setting on the plantation, the mysterious woman (goddess), the references to Rider Haggard's She. It's an amazing read, absolutely no Southern comfort but extremely thrilling and fascinating. Reading this book is like watching an eerie movie. The main character is a real head-turner. The book has a bit of a slow start but then it cuts like a knife...

[Lena · Rating 2 out of 5]

Alright it’s the end of the month and I’m calling it on this disappointment.

Anyone remember reading about that brief period, before VHS, when porn took itself seriously?

This felt like a horror version of Behind The Green Door. Just big chunks of She blended with racism, vulgarity, sweat, and chaotic violence.

It’s April and I’m out.

[Warren Fournier · Rating 4 out of 5]

This combination of noir thriller, cozy mystery, Southern gothic, and supernatural horror has been my surprise read of the year. John Farris may be best known for his book and screenplay for "The Fury", but "All Heads Turn When the Hunt Goes By" is often considered his best story. However, neither has entered the zeitgeist of American horror fandom, and this one has almost been forgotten except among Paperbacks from Hell readers. Is that because it is really not that good?

Not at all! I was shocked at how excellent the writing is, which has a ring of poetry that crystalizes into dangerously sharp edges. The book takes place in the Forties, and Farris writes perfectly as though this book were a product of that time, but also maintains the pacing, sleaze, grit, and gore that the Seventies brought to the genre.

The novel is structured in five parts, each taking the story from a different perspective in a different locale. We start off with an American military wedding where we meet Champ, who we think is going to be our hero. Then we jump to England with a completely different set of characters seemingly in a disconnected story. But then it turns out that there are characters introduced in a story within the story that we then follow from their perspective. Confused? Don't worry--it all flows and integrates wonderfully. In a way, it reminded me of the structure of the film "Barbarian", so if you've seen that movie, you know what I'm talking about.

Be prepared for a lot of twists and turns, with some effectively shocking moments that seem to come from nowhere, though there is one big twist that I think most of you will figure out very early. But it is the quiet moments that really make this novel special--those times when two characters sit down with a bottle of brandy or on the front porch of a shotgun shack. It is here where Farris really builds his lore and the complex personalities of his characters. For some readers, this may seem exposition heavy, but these conversations and stories end up being so vivid and grounded that your eyes are glued to the pages. Farris really spent a long time researching military culture, voodoo, and the post-war South, all in the days before the Internet, to create an experience that is as authentic and engrossing as possible.

I can see why this has received so much acclaim, but I don't understand why this has not maintained a steady buzz among the horror community. I haven't seen this pop up alongside "The Elementals", "The Auctioneer", and "Maynard's House" on BookTube lists of recommended underrated vintage horrors, but it should be.

If you are a fan of horror, this is one you should at least try soon. You might just discover a new favorite.

SCORE: 4 fetishes out of 5

[Angus McKeogh · Rating 1 out of 5]

I feel I’ve given this one sufficient time. Sitting on page 239 and I’m so confused, disinterested, and bored. The story is just stupid. Some sorta alternate history where the South maybe won the Civil War and slavery was therafter abolished. It starts with some moronic wedding massacre; it’s chock-full of offensive and ridiculous names, and the characters are doing absolutely nothing for long stretches of the exposition. This book was favorably reviewed in Paperbacks from Hell but I’ve found it to be nothing but drudgery. I’m tossing this collection of garbage in the resale pile.

[Phil · Rating 2 out of 5]

Despite the glowing Stephen King blurb on the cover, and many positive reviews here on GR, AHTWTHGB did not do much for me. The book starts off with a military wedding in 1942 that goes way wrong, with the groom ('Clipper') using his dress sword to kill his new wife and his father ('Boss') among others while the chapel falls apart around the guests. Why did Clipper perform such an act? Why did the chapel self destruct? Very strange events to be sure. We then flash forward a few years to England, where another strange event happens-- and old missionary doctor is killed by a strange bomb-like force that rips his genitals off.

Farris tries to weave a Southern Gothic story here, spiced with voodoo, but the execution does not really work (albeit YMMV). It seems the military family from the beginning and the old missionary doctor's family have a strange connection with Africa, in that the missionary's family was there and Boss's new wife was in part raised very nearby there as well. The wife (Nhora) was kidnapped by a strange and hostile tribe and held for years by the same tribe that kidnapped the missionary doctor! What did the tribe do to these people?

AHTWTHGB has some interesting ideas and set ups, so why did not it not work for me? I have read several Farris novels, and none of them really appealed to me, so maybe it is just an author/reader thing. The typos permeating this book were really annoying-- hard to believe this passed some copyeditor's desk in a major publishing house-- but that is an aside. I think Farris tried too hard here to build a mystery here, and none of the characters had many redeeming features. Also, there were some major flaws/contriditions. For instance, Jackson becomes deathly ill from his tryst with Nhora due to her latent poison, but why did this not impact Boss? It also felt really dated; I treated it as historical fiction, but still. Farris does wrap things up with a bow at the end, so I will give him that. 2 stars.

[Bibliophile · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well this was different. A review would hardly do this 70's horror classic justice, so I'll just leave you with a quote from the first sex scene. If your first impulse is to retroactively nominate it for Bad Sex in Fiction Award, you should probably skip it. If you're squealing with delight, go ahead and read it. There's much more where that came from.

"Nhora swayed in the tree house of my manly trunk, eyes like caged deathbirds brightly tuning, her hair let down to drape my thighs, navel coming unraveled as it gave suck, viny limbs arustle and wrapping me to the bed...hands cold but neat oval nails colder still and whitening out my brain like fish gleam in heavy ice, like stopped comets".

That's right. I for one can't wait for an opportunity to say: "Babe, lemme sway in the tree house of your manly trunk".

[Tero Kuittinen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sizzling voodoo horror from the Seventies - one of those pre-King novels that have become largely forgotten. One fascinating thing about this book is that it shows what horror was before it became formulaic during the Eighties. The structure and character development are interesting and somewhat odd, the atmosphere of the book is unique.

"All Head Turn..." has one obvious structural problem - the second half cannot sustain the heady pace of the first one. But the quality of the writing sustains the story. Horror elements are carefully developed, mostly oblique and effectively woven into the narrative. The slow pacing is a tonic for readers exhausted by the mechanical Spielberg pacing of modern horror.

[Charles · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good book. An ambitious book. Beautifully written. Gory in places. There were a few moments when I was confused about the turn of events but for the most part I sailed through it easily enough. The ending is right on track for the rest of the story.

[Cheryl · Rating 2 out of 5]

Abandoned at 57%, due to boredom. This book has not held up well. It's basically a cross between She by H. Rider Haggard and The Beetle by Richard Marsh (substituting a snake for a beetle), but not nearly as interesting. Not scary, and not campy enough to be a fun read. Disappointing.

[Heidi Ward · Rating 4 out of 5]

Holy cats, this book is a page-turner! I think I read it faster than any 350+ pages in a very long time. Something about it took me right back to my childhood, lazing in bed all day with nothing to do but read a fat book. Also, I got a used first edition hardback from 1977 and it smells like my childhood, too. Weird.

AHTWtHGB has pretty much everything a good horror novel needs, from the gobsmackingly violent and unexpected opening to its hallucinogenic lightning and storm-ridden closing pages. That's a win so far. It also has a complex, somewhat experimental narrative structure with lots of twists (some expected genre standards, others not so much), and is beautifully, if a little floridly, written. But floridity suits a tale set in the 1940s in the swampy American South, a creeping nightmare narrative of a family cursed, deeply embedded racism, lust, PTSD and black magic. Farris clearly did his homework, too. His careful depictions of military, cultural and religious rites build a world whose veracity is never in doubt, even in the midst of uncanny goings-on. The tale pulls the reader slowly but undeniably into its coils right along with our hero.

If you hear about AHTWtHGB, it's labelled a "horror classic," and mostly when name-checked by other authors as a favorite. But it gets little wider attention, possibly because it's been out of print for a long time (and the available e-book is apparently riddled with errors). I think it's equally likely that contemporary readers might find the blunt depiction of the post-WWII Jim Crow South difficult to take. (I saw one reviewer who thought it was an alternate history where slavery was still legal.) It is difficult to read, and it should be. I have no doubt, however, that it's an accurate representation of the milieu.

I do think it's interesting to note that even as his story relies on its dark side, Farris is careful in his depiction of Afro-Caribbean religion - "voodoo" - including a satisfying amount of accurate information and respect, taking care with history and ritual detail, showing it holistically as a tradition and way of life, rather than only exploiting its darker elements as horror often does.

That being said, I can't go quite 5 stars on AHTWtHGB. It starts with quite a bang (seriously, try to go in as unspoiled as possible for full impact), but then confounds somewhat by introducing a wide range of characters in different locations as background to the main narrative. (You won't actually meet the book's protagonist until after the first hundred pages!) But if you're patient, everything begins to fall into place and gallop forward, even if some of the connective tissue seems a little thin.

Action-packed and ultimately quite satisfying, if occasionally confusing and often brutal (and not only in a standard horror way). A solid, 4-star Southern Gothic.

[Cody | CodysBookshelf · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read for Classic Horror in Halloween Bingo!

This was my first experience with John Farris, and it won’t be my last. I was blown away by the sheer beauty of the writing, the quality of his prose—quality prose isn’t something easily found in ‘70s horror.

I also appreciated the pacing: Farris allows his story to grow, slowly, and answers aren’t given right away. Patience is required.

I am docking a star simply because I found myself struggling to really ‘connect’ with most of the characters, as well written as they are, so I had a harder time sympathizing with them when things got bad.

Interesting subject matter and an oozing southern gothic atmosphere make me give this a solid 4 stars. I am so glad I enjoyed this and can’t wait to read more from this author. I have several of his other books already: Wildwood, Son of the Endless Night, The Fury…

[Ben Loory · Rating 3 out of 5]

really strange and grandly ambitious southern gothic / val lewton-style horror. interesting amalgamation of characters and settings. great opening scene in the church. never actually scary, though-- and gets less scary as it goes. by the end it's like, yeah, okay, let's just kill this snake lady and get on with it.

[Joanna · Rating 2 out of 5]

⭐2.5

What started out promising, quickly turned into mediocrity. “All Heads Turn When the Hunt Goes By” has to have one of the most shocking and gruesome openings ever written. The first 20 pages are freakin’ bananas - during the wedding ceremony the groom goes apeshit and starts killing his wedding guests with - you would never guess! - a stable. He also cuts his wife-to-be’s throat with it. So like in Hitchcock movies Farris’ novel starts with an earthquake. Unfortunately, is not followed by rising tension - quite the opposite. It’s not that it’s awfully bad to the very last page, it just never manages to recover that craziness and creepiness it established early on. Although never living up to its masterful beginning Farris’ book still manages to offer the readers some pretty good and sultry in atmosphere scenes. All the fragments that take place in Africa - about voodoo, ghoulish ancient tribes and their eerie rituals - these are gold. Unfortunately, when the book turns full southern gothic in the next chapters it is then when it loses all its originality and weirdness and turns out to be a total mess. Too many threads and too many characters result in plot holes and a significant amount of absurdity. If you've always thought that there is no such thing as boring southern gothic novel, then I can bet you haven’t read “All Heads Turn” yet. Despite its only being 300 pages long (for me, that’s a short book), it's still succeeded in making me bored quite a few times. Apparently, the more you expect the more disappointed you get. There are so many better southern gothic horror books that wasting your precious time on reading this festival-of-yawns seem pointless to me.

[Jon Von · Rating 3 out of 5]

The American south is imagined as a gothic, somewhat mystical land of secrets, voodoo rituals and oddball characters. It's a moody novel about a British ex-pat, returning from WWII, like many soldiers, confused and tortured, only to find an insidious curse and some kind of evil entity had taken hold of the backwoods Louisiana he once called home.

The concept is strong and there are some very striking moments. The conclusion is satisfying. But the execution tends towards the tedious. It seems like over half the book is melancholy ruminations of some memory or another. Weird characters show up and share their private pains and our sort of tragic romantic doctor figure beats himself up about his inability to help them and it all continues again. Until he meets a woman, that is.

The pastiche approach evokes a mood, and there's something about capturing the feeling of soldiers returning home from war the book does very well, but I swear to god, the story barely starts until about 80% of the way through the book and by then it's like, we might as well put a ribbon on it.

It kind of reminded me of Gone South by Robert McCammon but not as good, and more old timey. In a gothic sort of swampy way, and in that sense I kind of liked it.

[Nicholas Kaufmann · Rating 4 out of 5]

This novel is kind of crazy, but in that great, over the top, 1970s horror way! Part Southern Gothic family drama, part supernatural horror tale, ALL HEADS TURN WHEN THE HUNT GOES BY is exceptionally well written. Farris is an accomplished and talented author with a deft hand at characterization and an impressive ability to conjure terrifying images without explicitly describing what you're seeing. Other parts are more explicit: the violence, the sex, and particularly the racial politics. A great deal of the novel takes place on a Southern plantation in the 1940s, and the N-word is used frequently and cavalierly. As a writer, Farris is interested in the horrific legacy of slavery and the Jim Crow laws that replaced it, but that kind of language might be enough to turn some modern readers away.

The first half of the novel confused me a little -- a deliberate structural choice on Farris's part -- by presenting several seemingly unrelated events that occur over the course of two years to seemingly unrelated characters, but by the end Farris manages to tie it all together quite well. The prose can be dense at times, and the pacing lackadaisical, but it all leads up to a climax that's so creepy and satisfying that the reader's patience is rewarded tenfold.

If you're looking for something to read from the glory days of the horror paperback, from a time before Stephen King's complete domination of the field, I would definitely recommend Farris's ALL HEADS TURN WHEN THE HUNT GOES BY, so long as you don't mind its unhurried pace and can stomach its warts-and-all exploration of abhorrent racial bigotry.

[N N · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not my usual cup of tea, but the title was too baroque to pass up. The book is a good example of an American author floundering out of his depth. The first part, set in the US, is competent and establishes the right kind of southern gothic atmosphere. Then for some perverse reason (the plot does not demand it) the second part takes the action over to Britain and strips the author of all credibility. Characters start talking as if they were Hollywood Englishmen played by Ronald Colman or Dame May Whitty (the former explicitly mentioned). The author believes, bizarrely, that an English earl can be styled 'sir' and be an M.P., and that a military officer must salute a civilian if the latter is a lord. The point of view is all over the place (sometimes shifting twice on the same page), as are 'his lordships' and 'mylords'. You start referring to a character as 'his lordship' and you know you are lost. For part of the time, the narrative is taken up in the authorial voice by an English spinster who took no part in the events she (floridly) describes. Sloppiness like this destroys not only the atmosphere, but also the narrative authority without which fiction is just a random tale, randomly told. Although the book then returns to the US, it never recovers. The plot degenerates into mumbo jumbo, and mumbo jumbo is neither scary nor really conducive to metaphysical insight - and what's the use of horror that does not transcend the physical plane? Robert Aickman was contemptuously dismissive of horror as a genre; this is not the book to prove him wrong.

[Matthew Bielawa · Rating 4 out of 5]

John Farris weaves an intricate dark story that I just loved. The first third and last third have so much action, I was practically falling off the chair! It's quite an involved story with so many interesting characters spanning three continents. I have to admit that the middle third did throw me a bit, requiring me to read a little slower (I'm already a careful and slow paced reader) and repeating pages at a time. But I write this only for those who might feel bogged down and a little....dare I say it.....bored. But Farris gets really deep in the story and characters for a reason....and a big one, that comes together so fast and furious at the end, that it's worth every page! Really, I mean it! (I can't believe that at one point I almost put the book down in the middle. So glad I didn't and just kept up with it).

I really enjoyed all the characters so much. For me, they're what make the novel so good. And of course, the story is so wild with many surprises.

[Alex (The Bookubus) · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is full-on Southern Gothic...with voodoo! The story opens at a military wedding which ends in bloodshed. This event has changed the family forever and we follow the brother, Champ, in the aftermath.

If I had to describe this novel in one word it would be sultry. The writing evokes such an atmosphere and there were times that I had to reread passages because they were so good. I loved how the different threads of the story came together. Plus there were plenty of unsettling scenes and chilling moments.

One thing I do want to mention about this Kindle edition is that there are a lot of typos and punctuation errors. This doesn't affect my rating of the book but it did take me out of the story a few times while I was reading it which is a shame.