The October Country

THE OCTOBER COUNTRY …that country where it is always turning late in the year. That country where the hills are fog and the rivers are mist; where noons go quickly, dusks and twilights linger, and midnights stay. That country composed in the main of cellars, sub-cellars, coal-bins, closets, attics, and pantries faced away from the sun. That country whose people are autumn people, thinking only autumn thoughts. Whose people passing at night on the empty walks sound like rain…”

- Ray Bradbury, The October Country

Several of the works of Ray Bradbury for many people are quintessential picks for Autumn. A title you may recognize of his is Something Wicked This Way Comes.

I had always heard of his books, but never read any, I didn’t even know much about them. Which is strange by how classic they are and how obsessed I am with the Fall season and the author’s genres. 

It wasn’t until I had coincidentally moved halfway across the country and ended up living 25 minutes away from his childhood home that one night I bought one of his ebooks. The story there being I moved to Southeastern Wisconsin and resided there for the past two years.

But…

 Last October I was on my couch in the living room of my Wisconsin home. The weather and feeling was falling completely short of what I thought the spooky Fall evening ‘should’ feel like. There was nothing wrong with the evening, it just wasn’t New England is what it was.

New England, the heart of seasonal pilgrimages and a touchstone of all things old, spooky, and Autumnal... I was used to all the classics being set close to home.

I purchased Something Wicked this was comes digitally, I needed it and I needed it NOW. For some reason I thought like most other books like it, it would be set somewhere on the East Coast. By being set back home, I thought it would give me some nostalgia and “vibes” of where I would rather be. I was quite wrong, it was set in my immediate area of the Midwest…

It was so interesting to soak up the imagery and setting of Ray Bradbury’s book. A written classic, set close to “home” once again, but to a my newfound home, far far away from my old one. A whole new world to steep myself in with the spooky world of the Midwest Gothic aesthetic. I was grateful to find this book exactly when I did. It helped me establish a sense of home and romanticize a place I wasn’t connecting with at all.

I’m back in New England once again, she sang her siren song, what can I say. But I was grateful to be able to immerse myself into his book’s little world and know the geography more intimately than I would have if I grew up reading it. Good things come to those who wait.

Do you have a favorite Autumnal book or movie?