The Night of the Hunter is a 1953 novel by American author Davis Grubb. The book was a national bestseller and was voted a finalist for the 1955 National Book Award. In 1955 the book was adapted by Charles Laughton and James Agee as the film The Night of the Hunter. (film noir) . The story concerns an ex-convict Harry Powell who, acting on a story told to him by his now-dead cellmate, cons the cellmate's widow into marrying him in hopes that her children will tell him where their father hid the money from his last robbery. After killing their mother, he embarks on a hunt for the children, who have sensed his evil and are running from him.. The plot was based on the true story of Harry Powers, who was hanged in 1932 for the murders of two widows and three children in Moundsville, West Virginia.
Grubb explores the presentation of the American South in the aftermath of the American Civil War. He uses tropes of the Southern Gothic genre to explore issues such as social corruption and instability. The figure of the Preacher is a symbol of the corruptive social force of religion in the American South. While the disruption of the family unit emphasises the broken sense of Southern identity after the War. (less info)