My rating: 2 of 5 stars
An interesting premise marred by one-dimensional characters, half-baked ideas, a lack of horror/suspense, and an ending that falls flat.
In John Saul’s Nathaniel, Janet Hill and her son Michael move to her husband’s farm town following his death.
Everyone is friendly, but Janet and Michael soon learn things aren’t as they seem.
Michael begins hearing the voice of Nathaniel, a local boogeyman, and Janet learns the women in her husband’s family have a disturbing number of stillbirths that they blame Nathaniel for.
Nathaniel then tells Michael his grandfather and Doctor Potter have been killing the babies.
Whether this is true, and if Nathaniel is real, drives the story. However, Saul stretches out these mysteries way too long and the ending doesn’t give a clear answer to either.
If this weren’t bad enough, the story moves at a glacial pace, doesn’t pick up until two-thirds in and lacks any sense of horror or suspense. I kept waiting for it to get scary and it never did.
I’ve read and enjoyed other books by John Saul, but this isn’t his best work. Nathaniel reads like a first or second draft. He doesn’t develop any of the characters at all and they are instantly forgettable.
As for the plot, what little there is, isn’t fleshed out.
Saul introduces ideas and plot points without fully developing them, and then drops them. Was Shadow, the stray dog Michael adopted, just a regular mutt, or was he supernatural? Did Michael wish Ames Hill, his grandfather, dead, or was it an ordinary heart attack? Was Nathaniel real, a ghost/demon, or a figment of Michael’s troubled mind? Did Ames Hill kill Janet’s husband and try to kill Michael, or were they accidents? Is Michael the new Nathaniel?
Your guess is as good as mine as Saul never tells the reader one way or another, which I found infuriating.
Overall, I didn’t enjoy this book and don’t recommend it. I give Nathaniel 2.0 out of 5.0 stars.