Did you ever read a book or watch a film where you could just tell that something awful was going to happen? You dreaded the turn of every page in anticipation of the imminent horror. And yet you just had to keep reading, to find out what actually happens.
This short novella is like that. It’s just a childhood reminiscence, but a vague air of menace and foreboding builds throughout. I knew what was going to happen almost from the beginning, but I didn’t know when. The anticipation was such that even when another horrible thing happened, I just shook my head because I knew that wasn’t The Thing.
I enjoyed the writing in the story despite the oppressive atmosphere. The book is as long as it needs to be — Gunn could easily have made it longer, but that would have made it less good.