Tryon, who had been a working actor, retired from his Hollywood career to become a novelist. Upon its release, the novel received wide critical acclaim and became a surprise bestseller.[1][2]The Other was adapted into a 1972 film of the same name directed by Robert Mulligan and starring Uta Hagen. The novel was reprinted in a commemorative edition in 2012 by New York Review Books with an afterword by Dan Chaon.[3]
Plot
Set in 1935, the novel focuses on the sadistic relationship between two 13-year-old, identical twin boys: one of whom is well behaved while the other is a sociopath[citation needed] who wreaks havoc on his family's rural New England farm property.
Reception
The Los Angeles Times described the book as "beautifully, even poetically, wrought.".[4] The book spent more than six months on the New York Times best-seller list and sold more than 3.5 million copies.[5]
^"Thomas Tryon's bestselling novel The Other (1971), which also received a cinematic tribute in 1972". Renner, Karen J., Evil Children in the Popular Imagination. London, Palgrave Macmillian. ISBN9781137599636 (p.4)
^Tryon, Thomas (2012). The Other (New York Review Books Classics). New York Review of Books. ISBN978-1590175835.
^Hughes, Dorothy. "Murder through a glass darkly." Los Angeles Times, 23 May 1971
^Cohen, Noam S. "Thomas Tryon, Who Quit Acting For a Writing Career, Dies at 65." New York Times, 5 Sep 1991
