Locus Award nominee 1993.
In Lost Boys, an acknowledged master storyteller weaves a powerful, uplifting tale
of loss and redemption around an ordinary American family's bittersweet triumph
over a welter of dark forces, both natural and supernatural.
Step Fletcher, his wife, DeAnne, and their three children move to Steuben,
North Carolina, thinking – hoping – it might be just the right place for them. Its
traditional values coincide with theirs, and Step has the promise of a good job at
a hot software company. But Steuben is definitely not right for their oldest child,
eight-year-old Stevie.
Introspective even in the most comfortable surroundings,
Stevie becomes progressively more withdrawn from this alien place. Soon he
is animated only by computer games and a troop of fictitious playmates. The
Fletchers' concern for Stevie turns to terror when they discover that other young
boys have disappeared from Steuben – and someone seems to be stalking Stevie.
As they struggle to keep their son from joining the "lost boys," the Fletchers
battle a bevy of more conventional torments as well. Their new house is an
insect-ridden matchbox dependent on the attentions of an eccentric old
handyman. Step seems to be the only sane man at his snake pit of a job.
DeAnne must acclimate herself and the three children to a new world while she is
hugely pregnant with a fourth. A woman at their church believes God has given
her an insight into Stevie's best interests that his parents lack.
Evil hides in
myriad mundane corners, threatening the Fletchers and their children. One of
these threats, or maybe all of them, or maybe something else besides, may take
Stevie away. But, though evil is all around them, goodness is within them, and
that goodness will bind them together with a strength no force can break.
Orson Scott Card's forthright, moving prose, his remarkable gift for chronicling
everyday tragedies and triumphs, and his uncanny ability to conjure up
emotions – his characters' and his readers' – all blend together in a poignant,
masterful novel.
