In the woods of New Jersey, there sits a summer camp that was abandoned after a child drowned and two counselors were subsequently murdered.  Now, nearly 20 years later, Steve Christy is determined to reopen Camp Crystal Lake, the summer camp that his family started and lost their fortune trying to save.  Steve has a group of young and enthusiastic camp counselors helping him to get the camp ready to go and, as they soon discover, Steve is a tough taskmaster.  He’s so tough that even his occasional girlfriend Alice is thinking about abandoning her job at the camp and returning home.

Of course, it’s not just Steve’s temper that the  counselors have to watch out for.  There’s also someone else lurking around the camp, someone who is determined to kill everyone involved in trying to reopen it.  One-by-one, the counselors fall victim to the killer until finally, only one survivor is left to fight for her life….

Interestingly enough, the novelization of Friday the 13th was first published in 1987, seven years after the film came out.  The novelization follows the plot of the film, with each of the murders happening in the same order and in the same way.  In many places, the dialogue is recreated verbatim.  The same person is the murderer in both the book and the film and the book ends with the same twist as the film.

The most interesting thing about the book — really, the only interesting thing about it — is that the book goes into a bit more detail about everyone’s backstory before they ended up at Crystal Lake.  As such, we witness Mrs. Voorhees actions right after the drowning of her son, Jason, in which she begs the Christy family to rehire her as their cook.  We also learn about the background of each of the victims, who are a bit less generic in this book than in the movie.  We especially learn a lot about Jack and Marcie’s relationship, though I have to say that it’s hard to imagine the confident movie version of Jack having much in common with the more insecure Jack who shows up in the novel.

I was a bit disappointed by the book’s backstory for Steve Christy.  My personal theory has always been that Steve Christy, with his glasses and his mustache and his ascot and his air of superiority, was a former member of the SDS who later became a Weatherman and helped in the abduction of Patty Hearst.  I always assumed that he was working so hard at Camp Crystal Lake because he was on the FBI’s Most Wanted List and he needed a place to hide out.  The book, however, portrays Steve as someone who just feels like he has to redeem his family’s name.  I think my theory was a bit more interesting.

The novelization of Friday the 13th is probably something that will be best appreciated by Friday the 13th completists.  (There’s really not much reason to read it otherwise.)  A copy can be found at the Internet Archive.