''The Haunted Storm'' (1972) is the debut novel of English author

Philip Pullman Sir Philip Nicholas Outram Pullman (born 19 October 1946) is an English writer. His books include the fantasy trilogy '' His Dark Materials'' and '' The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ'', a fictionalised biography of Jesus. In 2008, ''T ...

. It was a joint winner of the

New English Library The New English Library was a United Kingdom book publishing company, which became an imprint of Hodder Headline. History New English Library (NEL) was created in 1961 by the Times Mirror Company of Los Angeles, with the takeover of two small ...

's Young Writer's Award in 1972. Pullman later distanced himself from the work, saying "it was published by a publisher who didn't realise it wasn't a very good book", and , he omits it from his entry in '' Who's Who''.

Characters

*Matthew Cortez. *Elizabeth Cole.

Plot summary

Unease and suspicion divide a small village following violence and death. Matthew Cortez is physically involved in the investigation, finding his spiritual problems have a greater depth of reality. Only in the final disastrous confrontation in a ruined Mithraic temple does he, at last, glimpse the possibility of peace. The book was described by

Antonia Fraser Lady Antonia Margaret Caroline Fraser, (' Pakenham; born 27 August 1932) is a British author of history, novels, biographies and detective fiction. She is the widow of the 2005 Nobel Laureate in Literature, Harold Pinter (1930–2008), and p ...

as an "honest and enterprising attempt to interweave the eternal and immortal longings of youth into the texture of a contemporary story".

Themes

Gnosticism Gnosticism (from grc, γνωστικός, gnōstikós, , 'having knowledge') is a collection of religious ideas and systems which coalesced in the late 1st century AD among Jewish and early Christian sects. These various groups emphasized pe ...

References

1972 British novels Novels by Philip Pullman 1972 debut novels New English Library books {{1970s-specf-novel-stub