The Other (novel)

The Other is the 1971 debut novel by Thomas Tryon. Set in 1935, the novel focuses on the sadistic relationship between two thirteen-year-old identical twin boys, one who is well-behaved, and the other, a sociopath who wreaks havoc on his family's rural New England farm property.

Tryon, who had been a working actor prior, retired from his Hollywood career to become a novelist. Upon its release, the novel received wide critical acclaim, and 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.