Lost Boys by Orson Scott Card, Paperback published by Harper Paperbacks, December 1993. 528 pages
In Lost Boys, an acknowledged master storyteller weaves a powerful, uplifting tale of loss and redemption around an ordinary American family's bittersweet triumph over a welter of dark forces, both natural and supernatural. Step Fletcher, his wife, DeAnne, and their three children move to Steuben, North Carolina, thinking - hoping - it might be just the right place for them. Its traditional values coincide with theirs, and Step has the promise of a good job at a hot software company. But Steuben is definitely not right for their oldest child, eight-year-old Stevie. Introspective even in the most comfortable surroundings, Stevie becomes progressively more withdrawn from this alien place. Soon he is animated only by computer games and a troop of fictitious playmates. The Fletchers' concern for Stevie turns to terror when they discover that other young boys have disappeared from Steuben - and someone seems to be stalking Stevie. As they struggle to keep their son from joining the "lost boys, " the Fletchers battle a bevy of more conventional torments as well. Their new house is an insect-ridden matchbox dependent on the attentions of an eccentric old handyman. Step seems to be the only sane man at his snake pit of a job. DeAnne must acclimate herself and the three children to a new world while she is hugely pregnant with a fourth. A woman at their church believes God has given her an insight into Stevie's best interests that his parents lack. Evil hides in myriad mundane corners, threatening the Fletchers and their children. One of these threats, or maybe all of them, or maybe something else besides, may take Stevie away. But, though evil is all around them, goodness is within them, andt hat goodness will bind them together with a strength no force can break.