Summer of Night
It's the summer of 1960 in Elm Haven, Illinois, and five 12-year old boys are forming the bonds that a lifetime of changes will never erase. But then a dark cloud threatens the bright promise of summer vacation: on the last day of school, their classmate Tubby Cooke vanishes. Soon, the group discovers stories of other children who once disappeared from Elm Haven. And there are other strange things happening in town: unexplained holes in the ground, a stranger dressed as a World War I soldier, and a rendering-plant truck that seems to be following the five boys. The friends realize that there is a terrible evil lurking in Elm Haven...and they must be the ones to stop it.
Themes & atmosphere
Also by Dan Simmons
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What you might want to know about Summer of Night
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
On the last day of school in Elm Haven, Illinois in 1960, a sixth-grade boy disappears, and the bell from the old school's tower starts ringing on its own. Five friends form the Bike Patrol to fight what is waking up.
Yes. Summer of Night (1991) is widely cited as one of Dan Simmons's strongest horror novels, often paired with Stephen King's It and Robert McCammon's Boy's Life. The 1960 Illinois small-town setting and child protagonists are classic small-town horror.
Yes, loosely. Dan Simmons revisited the surviving characters in A Winter Haunting, Children of the Night, and Fires of Eden. Each can be read as a standalone, but Summer of Night is the foundational entry.
Summer of Night was written by Dan Simmons, published in 1991 by LGF.
Summer of Night is 576 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, Summer of Night takes most readers 9 to 12 hours to finish.
Summer of Night is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.