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Gideon's Curse
Just after the Civil War, a preacher named Gideon Swayne journeyed south from Random, Illinois to minister to the newly freed slaves. In the bitter prejudice of North Carolina, and the magic of the Great Dismal Swamp, he made a home... that home was taken from him in hatred, and in violence.
" migrants work The Pope plantation is mired in the "old ways,their land so they don't have to get their hands too dirty. There are older ways than the Pope family, built on slave-labor and mired in their own past can imagine. Their farm hand, Gideon has seen his mother’s reflection in the slime-pools of the bog. He’s heard his grandfather, the first Gideon at Preacher’s Marsh, chanting on the night breeze. He has seen eyes, glowing green and glittering with hatred, lining the trees along the fields and peering from the trees. He has heard voices like drumbeats chanting in the night. The dead are rising, and they are coming. Soon.
Gideon's curse is a novel of history. It's a novel of freedom, slavery, magic and romance. It's a glance into the violent past of the deep south, and the hope of a better future.
" migrants work The Pope plantation is mired in the "old ways,their land so they don't have to get their hands too dirty. There are older ways than the Pope family, built on slave-labor and mired in their own past can imagine. Their farm hand, Gideon has seen his mother’s reflection in the slime-pools of the bog. He’s heard his grandfather, the first Gideon at Preacher’s Marsh, chanting on the night breeze. He has seen eyes, glowing green and glittering with hatred, lining the trees along the fields and peering from the trees. He has heard voices like drumbeats chanting in the night. The dead are rising, and they are coming. Soon.
Gideon's curse is a novel of history. It's a novel of freedom, slavery, magic and romance. It's a glance into the violent past of the deep south, and the hope of a better future.
- GenresHorror
196 pages, Paperback
Published April 11, 2017
1 person is currently reading
296 people want to read
About the author
David Niall Wilson
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David Niall Wilson has been writing and publishing horror, dark fantasy, and science fiction since the mid-eighties. An ordained minister, once President of the Horror Writer 's Association and multiple recipient of the Bram Stoker Award. He lives outside Hertford, NC with the love of his life, Patricia Lee Macomber, His children Zane and Katie, occasionally their older siblings, Stephanie, who is in college, and Bill and Zach who are in the Navy, and an ever-changing assortment of pets.
David is CEO and founder of Crossroad Press, a cutting edge digital publishing company specializing in electronic novels, collections, and nonfiction, as well as unabridged audiobooks and print titles.
Join my street team on Facebook to win prizes, discuss my work with others, and get exclusive content and offers
David Niall Wilson has been writing and publishing horror, dark fantasy, and science fiction since the mid-eighties. An ordained minister, once President of the Horror Writer 's Association and multiple recipient of the Bram Stoker Award. He lives outside Hertford, NC with the love of his life, Patricia Lee Macomber, His children Zane and Katie, occasionally their older siblings, Stephanie, who is in college, and Bill and Zach who are in the Navy, and an ever-changing assortment of pets.
David is CEO and founder of Crossroad Press, a cutting edge digital publishing company specializing in electronic novels, collections, and nonfiction, as well as unabridged audiobooks and print titles.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
April 5, 2023
I've long been a fan of David Niall Wilson, since the days when he was a writer for Vampire: The Dark Ages. I've read many of his books and enjoyed all of them. However, I think it's fair to say while he works in a variety of genres that his deftest skill is at horror. Gideon's Curse is a pure horror novel and probably his best work yet because it's it pulls no punches and deals with a dark chapter of American history.
It is a novel about the horrors of slavery as told with the caveat of also being a zombie and ghost story. I'm glad for the latter because, disturbingly, the book might not have been able to be read without the level of the supernatural to make the truly disturbing elements more palatable. There's also a layer of reality to what is being talked about which makes the fictional events all the more disturbing and I don't just mean the fact America's Peculiar Institution is not Gone with the Wind or even Django but something infinitely worse.
The framing device of the book is that the Pope Plantation is an anachronism in the modern day. A haunted spooky place with only a few descendants of its former slave lords still using human trafficking, albeit migrant workers, to keep planting even as the woods are full of unnatural things.
A curse akin to the one in Silent Hill hangs over the place where the population continues to labor despite they'd probably be better off anywhere else on Earth. When the last two men of the accursed family kidnap a teenage girl to rape, the terrible curse comes to fruition with a man named Gideon relaying the terrible history of the place to the girl's family. A curse about a preacher who came to the plantation in the aftermath of the Civil War in hopes of missioning to the former slaves and who ends up bringing down the wrath of God or at least his distant cousins.
The heart of the book is the story of Reverend Gideon and his relationship with the former slave Desdemona, who is a sort of shaman or priestess to the locals. It's a love story but the kind of which Stephen King would tell as Gideon finds himself losing his Christian faith (or perhaps expanding it) as he finds himself confronted with the reality of the supernatural. This, however, layered against the fact he is acting upon a empathy and desire to touch the divine which is innate to how the religion should work.
This isn't a fuzzy feel good story about a white man and a black woman overcoming the odds, however, but how something good gets destroyed. The locals don't take well to Gideon, his ideas, being in a relationship with a black woman, or the fact he's organizing the locals even under the auspices of ministering. The idea a terrible thing happens is not a spoiler as we know it will happen but how it does is extremely well-handled with the climax being extraordinarily well-written.
It's difficult really to describe what kind of horror this book embodies since it's a kind of weird morality play that exists in the penumbra between Twilight Zone Christian morality along with Lovecraftian maltheist malevolence. The supernatural is real, arguably impersonal, and God's power seems limited to how it makes his followers feel. Yet, it is the humans who are the monsters and who bring down their doom on themselves.
I heartily recommend this book for fans who are interested in Southern Gothic horror stories.
9/10
It is a novel about the horrors of slavery as told with the caveat of also being a zombie and ghost story. I'm glad for the latter because, disturbingly, the book might not have been able to be read without the level of the supernatural to make the truly disturbing elements more palatable. There's also a layer of reality to what is being talked about which makes the fictional events all the more disturbing and I don't just mean the fact America's Peculiar Institution is not Gone with the Wind or even Django but something infinitely worse.
The framing device of the book is that the Pope Plantation is an anachronism in the modern day. A haunted spooky place with only a few descendants of its former slave lords still using human trafficking, albeit migrant workers, to keep planting even as the woods are full of unnatural things.
A curse akin to the one in Silent Hill hangs over the place where the population continues to labor despite they'd probably be better off anywhere else on Earth. When the last two men of the accursed family kidnap a teenage girl to rape, the terrible curse comes to fruition with a man named Gideon relaying the terrible history of the place to the girl's family. A curse about a preacher who came to the plantation in the aftermath of the Civil War in hopes of missioning to the former slaves and who ends up bringing down the wrath of God or at least his distant cousins.
The heart of the book is the story of Reverend Gideon and his relationship with the former slave Desdemona, who is a sort of shaman or priestess to the locals. It's a love story but the kind of which Stephen King would tell as Gideon finds himself losing his Christian faith (or perhaps expanding it) as he finds himself confronted with the reality of the supernatural. This, however, layered against the fact he is acting upon a empathy and desire to touch the divine which is innate to how the religion should work.
This isn't a fuzzy feel good story about a white man and a black woman overcoming the odds, however, but how something good gets destroyed. The locals don't take well to Gideon, his ideas, being in a relationship with a black woman, or the fact he's organizing the locals even under the auspices of ministering. The idea a terrible thing happens is not a spoiler as we know it will happen but how it does is extremely well-handled with the climax being extraordinarily well-written.
It's difficult really to describe what kind of horror this book embodies since it's a kind of weird morality play that exists in the penumbra between Twilight Zone Christian morality along with Lovecraftian maltheist malevolence. The supernatural is real, arguably impersonal, and God's power seems limited to how it makes his followers feel. Yet, it is the humans who are the monsters and who bring down their doom on themselves.
I heartily recommend this book for fans who are interested in Southern Gothic horror stories.
9/10
November 25, 2024
I've long been a fan of David Niall Wilson, since the days when he was a writer for Vampire: The Dark Ages. I've read many of his books and enjoyed all of them. However, I think it's fair to say while he works in a variety of genres that his deftest skill is at horror. Gideon's Curse is a pure horror novel and probably his best work yet because it's it pulls no punches and deals with a dark chapter of American history.
It is a novel about the horrors of slavery as told with the caveat of also being a zombie and ghost story. I'm glad for the latter because, disturbingly, the book might not have been able to be read without the level of the supernatural to make the truly disturbing elements more palatable. There's also a layer of reality to what is being talked about which makes the fictional events all the more disturbing and I don't just mean the fact America's Peculiar Institution is not Gone with the Wind or even Django but something infinitely worse.
The framing device of the book is that the Pope Plantation is an anachronism in the modern day. A haunted spooky place with only a few descendants of its former slave lords still using human trafficking, albeit migrant workers, to keep planting even as the woods are full of unnatural things.
A curse akin to the one in Silent Hill hangs over the place where the population continues to labor despite they'd probably be better off anywhere else on Earth. When the last two men of the accursed family kidnap a teenage girl to rape, the terrible curse comes to fruition with a man named Gideon relaying the terrible history of the place to the girl's family. A curse about a preacher who came to the plantation in the aftermath of the Civil War in hopes of missioning to the former slaves and who ends up bringing down the wrath of God or at least his distant cousins.
The heart of the book is the story of Reverend Gideon and his relationship with the former slave Desdemona, who is a sort of shaman or priestess to the locals. It's a love story but the kind of which Stephen King would tell as Gideon finds himself losing his Christian faith (or perhaps expanding it) as he finds himself confronted with the reality of the supernatural. This, however, layered against the fact he is acting upon a empathy and desire to touch the divine which is innate to how the religion should work.
This isn't a fuzzy feel good story about a white man and a black woman overcoming the odds, however, but how something good gets destroyed. The locals don't take well to Gideon, his ideas, being in a relationship with a black woman, or the fact he's organizing the locals even under the auspices of ministering. The idea a terrible thing happens is not a spoiler as we know it will happen but how it does is extremely well-handled with the climax being extraordinarily well-written.
It's difficult really to describe what kind of horror this book embodies since it's a kind of weird morality play that exists in the penumbra between Twilight Zone Christian morality along with Lovecraftian maltheist malevolence. The supernatural is real, arguably impersonal, and God's power seems limited to how it makes his followers feel. Yet, it is the humans who are the monsters and who bring down their doom on themselves.
I heartily recommend this book for fans who are interested in Southern Gothic horror stories.
It is a novel about the horrors of slavery as told with the caveat of also being a zombie and ghost story. I'm glad for the latter because, disturbingly, the book might not have been able to be read without the level of the supernatural to make the truly disturbing elements more palatable. There's also a layer of reality to what is being talked about which makes the fictional events all the more disturbing and I don't just mean the fact America's Peculiar Institution is not Gone with the Wind or even Django but something infinitely worse.
The framing device of the book is that the Pope Plantation is an anachronism in the modern day. A haunted spooky place with only a few descendants of its former slave lords still using human trafficking, albeit migrant workers, to keep planting even as the woods are full of unnatural things.
A curse akin to the one in Silent Hill hangs over the place where the population continues to labor despite they'd probably be better off anywhere else on Earth. When the last two men of the accursed family kidnap a teenage girl to rape, the terrible curse comes to fruition with a man named Gideon relaying the terrible history of the place to the girl's family. A curse about a preacher who came to the plantation in the aftermath of the Civil War in hopes of missioning to the former slaves and who ends up bringing down the wrath of God or at least his distant cousins.
The heart of the book is the story of Reverend Gideon and his relationship with the former slave Desdemona, who is a sort of shaman or priestess to the locals. It's a love story but the kind of which Stephen King would tell as Gideon finds himself losing his Christian faith (or perhaps expanding it) as he finds himself confronted with the reality of the supernatural. This, however, layered against the fact he is acting upon a empathy and desire to touch the divine which is innate to how the religion should work.
This isn't a fuzzy feel good story about a white man and a black woman overcoming the odds, however, but how something good gets destroyed. The locals don't take well to Gideon, his ideas, being in a relationship with a black woman, or the fact he's organizing the locals even under the auspices of ministering. The idea a terrible thing happens is not a spoiler as we know it will happen but how it does is extremely well-handled with the climax being extraordinarily well-written.
It's difficult really to describe what kind of horror this book embodies since it's a kind of weird morality play that exists in the penumbra between Twilight Zone Christian morality along with Lovecraftian maltheist malevolence. The supernatural is real, arguably impersonal, and God's power seems limited to how it makes his followers feel. Yet, it is the humans who are the monsters and who bring down their doom on themselves.
I heartily recommend this book for fans who are interested in Southern Gothic horror stories.
November 20, 2022
3 AND 1/2 STARS
This book was well researched with consistently good writing by underrated veteran David Niall Wilson. Fantastically detailed characters and locations will have the reader hooked early on. While not as much horror or atmosphere as I would have liked, I did appreciate some of the revelations and connections Wilson surprised me with. I felt there could have been some additional chapters here and there to smooth out the time transitions. With the quick passage of time, I would have liked to get to know the children more, and not just told they are the son and daughter of our protagonists and therefore we should automatically care for them. That fact should be earned. Other than that and a too convenient and quick ending, I enjoyed this short novel.
This book was well researched with consistently good writing by underrated veteran David Niall Wilson. Fantastically detailed characters and locations will have the reader hooked early on. While not as much horror or atmosphere as I would have liked, I did appreciate some of the revelations and connections Wilson surprised me with. I felt there could have been some additional chapters here and there to smooth out the time transitions. With the quick passage of time, I would have liked to get to know the children more, and not just told they are the son and daughter of our protagonists and therefore we should automatically care for them. That fact should be earned. Other than that and a too convenient and quick ending, I enjoyed this short novel.
June 26, 2017
Reading Gideon’s Curse felt more like reading folklore. As the novel unfolded more of the past was revealed and that history was added to the current crisis until the two became one. History is filled with prejudices against each other, and the desire to dominate people and rise in power has cause untold damage.
Minority groups are the backbone to the plantations and large farms in our earlier generations. David Wilson wrote an excellent story of our country after the Civil War and the turmoil the farmers and workers faced when freedom was given to all men. Farmers didn’t see their workers as free men yet and the workers had nowhere else to go. Families, like the Popes, continued to mistreat their workers until the supernatural stepped in and demanded justice.
This novel will surprise you with the integrity of one man who stood, though he regretted the times he did not. It will also make you grieve for the inhuman ways people were treated.
Minority groups are the backbone to the plantations and large farms in our earlier generations. David Wilson wrote an excellent story of our country after the Civil War and the turmoil the farmers and workers faced when freedom was given to all men. Farmers didn’t see their workers as free men yet and the workers had nowhere else to go. Families, like the Popes, continued to mistreat their workers until the supernatural stepped in and demanded justice.
This novel will surprise you with the integrity of one man who stood, though he regretted the times he did not. It will also make you grieve for the inhuman ways people were treated.
May 27, 2017
Gideon is the foreman on the Pope Plantation. Although Gideon is not a slave, little has changed on the Pope Plantation. Gideon keeps his head down and keeps the migrant workers picking cotton. When Enoch Pope's sons Bobby and Earl come home drunk one night they decide to go from some migrant girl to fulfill their fleshly desires. Gideon wanted to step in and stop the boys but he knew that would have meant serious trouble for him. Gideon started to see lights coming from the swamp and decided it was time to go to bed.
Desdemona is Gideon's grandmother. She has lived in the swamp off of the Pope Plantation for a long time. She has often been called a witch, and for good reason. She is a healer. Gideon probably would have left the plantation if not for his grandmother.
In this book, you learn of Gideon's grandfather. He was a white preach who came down from Random, Illinois. He came down to Old Mill, NC a little too soon after the Civil War and folks still treated the workers as slaves and really didn't like that a white man built them a church and even married one of them. After an altercation with the elder Gideon's son and Bart Pope, the then Pope's come for retribution. The church gets burned down and Gideon dies. Fast forward some years.
Fast forward some years. Enoch Pope who is the father of Bobby and Earl was a child when the church was burned down. He did not carry the same hatred of blacks that the rest of his family did. He always looked out for the young Gideon who was the foreman for the now failing plantation. Enoch is old and tired. He has let his boys run rampant and when the killed the migrant girl all hell breaks loose. Desdemona warns Gideon because there is a force coming that she can no longer hold back.
Desdemona is Gideon's grandmother. She has lived in the swamp off of the Pope Plantation for a long time. She has often been called a witch, and for good reason. She is a healer. Gideon probably would have left the plantation if not for his grandmother.
In this book, you learn of Gideon's grandfather. He was a white preach who came down from Random, Illinois. He came down to Old Mill, NC a little too soon after the Civil War and folks still treated the workers as slaves and really didn't like that a white man built them a church and even married one of them. After an altercation with the elder Gideon's son and Bart Pope, the then Pope's come for retribution. The church gets burned down and Gideon dies. Fast forward some years.
Fast forward some years. Enoch Pope who is the father of Bobby and Earl was a child when the church was burned down. He did not carry the same hatred of blacks that the rest of his family did. He always looked out for the young Gideon who was the foreman for the now failing plantation. Enoch is old and tired. He has let his boys run rampant and when the killed the migrant girl all hell breaks loose. Desdemona warns Gideon because there is a force coming that she can no longer hold back.
June 25, 2017
Gideon's Curse is a great novel that seems to seamlessly blend different genres together to create a cohesive, coherent novel that will have you staying up all night just to finish them. This novel is a combination of thriller, historical fiction, and horror that somehow stands as a shining example of all three. Not for the faint of heart, the horror here is extreme and dark, but it is told in a way that is almost scarily real - because it was.
Slavery is a huge part of America's culture, and it doesn't get sugarcoated at all. Instead, Wilson pulls back the curtain and shows some of the truly horrible and disturbing things that happened during that time - these are not the stories that you typically hear. These are the stories that will have your hair standing up on the back of your neck and your stomach working into knots.
The plotline itself focuses on Pope Plantation, a haunted plantation that still has some highly illegal activity occurring throughout its halls. A former slave holder is the main antagonist (and a sort of protagonist as well). Everyone in this plantation continues to work as hard as they ever have, even though it isn't clear if they would have to continue. Reverend Gideon is a central point of the store, and it focuses on his relationship with his former slave, Desdemona. This isn't a story that is rare, though you don't see a romanticized version of it.
There is a lot here that is hard to swallow and digest, with some vivid imagery of truly horrible things. It is well written and meaningful but tough at times, because we start to question human morality.
Slavery is a huge part of America's culture, and it doesn't get sugarcoated at all. Instead, Wilson pulls back the curtain and shows some of the truly horrible and disturbing things that happened during that time - these are not the stories that you typically hear. These are the stories that will have your hair standing up on the back of your neck and your stomach working into knots.
The plotline itself focuses on Pope Plantation, a haunted plantation that still has some highly illegal activity occurring throughout its halls. A former slave holder is the main antagonist (and a sort of protagonist as well). Everyone in this plantation continues to work as hard as they ever have, even though it isn't clear if they would have to continue. Reverend Gideon is a central point of the store, and it focuses on his relationship with his former slave, Desdemona. This isn't a story that is rare, though you don't see a romanticized version of it.
There is a lot here that is hard to swallow and digest, with some vivid imagery of truly horrible things. It is well written and meaningful but tough at times, because we start to question human morality.
July 7, 2017
I was provided with a kindle copy of this book by the author for review purposes. I’ll be reviewing this spoiler free, as it’s a story that is best told by the author.
The story is firmly rooted in the setting and attitudes of the time (a Southern plantation, exploited workers, entitled owners and an indifferent yet guilty town), which are portrayed without falling into stereotypes and provide a vivid atmosphere for a gripping story.
Part one sets the scene with the pivotal character, caught in an impossible position with a history he can only guess at.
Part two bursts off the page, revealing a terrible history around a fantastic protagonist which as a reader you can see coming but you cannot help get caught up in.
Part three brings past and present together in an explosive conclusion. Horror, drama and revenge are all served in an ending that I would love to see get a quality film treatment.
A horror story without the gore where the setting and story take centre stage, I’d highly recommend this to anyone looking to get absorbed into a gripping story firmly rooted in a troubled history.
The story is firmly rooted in the setting and attitudes of the time (a Southern plantation, exploited workers, entitled owners and an indifferent yet guilty town), which are portrayed without falling into stereotypes and provide a vivid atmosphere for a gripping story.
Part one sets the scene with the pivotal character, caught in an impossible position with a history he can only guess at.
Part two bursts off the page, revealing a terrible history around a fantastic protagonist which as a reader you can see coming but you cannot help get caught up in.
Part three brings past and present together in an explosive conclusion. Horror, drama and revenge are all served in an ending that I would love to see get a quality film treatment.
A horror story without the gore where the setting and story take centre stage, I’d highly recommend this to anyone looking to get absorbed into a gripping story firmly rooted in a troubled history.
September 17, 2020
Another great read from David Niall Wilson. Horror at it best, with real-life horror, and supernatural horror together. Basically told in three parts, with an introduction, flash back to prior events, and then the two coming together. Some tough subjects, but a really great read. Tough to put down.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews