The Mad Cook of Pymatuning
Categories: Literature & Fiction
The Mad Cook of Pymatuning is a 2005 novel by Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, the longtime daily book critic of The New York Times. It was his first published novel. Set in the 1950s, it follows a boy's summers at a camp near Pymatuning Lake on the Pennsylvania-Ohio border, where the adult in charge of the campers gradually reveals a cruel and sadistic streak. What begins as a warm, nostalgic coming-of-age story turns into a tense psychological thriller.
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- Stephen King: “Warm ’50s nostalgia gives way to cold chills in this tale of a summer camp gone bad. Very bad. Think Lake Lord-of-the-Flies.”