Short Story Review: “Invisible” by Nancy Kilpatrick

“Invisible” by Nancy Kilpatrick
From The Devil’s Coattails edited by Jason Brock and William F. Nolan
Cycatrix Press, 2011

Horror stories are more often than not filled with things unseen. Ghosts, the past, regrets, the threat just around the corner – these are things with no tangible presence, yet they can have a very tangible effect on people.

In “Invisible,” Nancy Kilpatrick examines the ways we find to make the people around us disappear, reducing them to an intangible presence in the hopes of minimizing their impact on us. Sometimes it’s someone considered “beneath us,” a person performing some menial task for us like bringing our food to the table and refilling our coffee cup. Other times it’s someone who needs – or needed – our help.

“Invisible” is also a story about the staggering weight of grief and loss, two other things we might wish we could make disappear. Perhaps we can deny it attention, just as we look away from some people, but these  are things that won’t be denied. Grief and loss have a way of weighing you down whether you acknowledge it or not.

“Invisible” is a quiet, contemplative piece. Kilpatrick teases us through the story with a mounting sense of dread that builds to a subdued but effective payoff. It’s easily one of the most memorable and effective stories in this collection.

More reviews from The Devil’s Coattails.

*A little background on Short Story Reviews, and why I’m doing them this way*

Hill and Rodriguez to bring the Keyhouse down with two-part ‘Locke & Key’ finale

Over the past six years or so, writer Joe Hill and artist Gabriel Rodriguez have been crafting one of the finest comic series on the shelves - Locke & Key. I’ve not been shy about professing my appreciation for their work in the past, and I’m anxious to see how they wrap up this intricate, intimate story of a family haunted by demons of both the internal and hellishly external natures.

The series is currently in the middle of its concluding arc, Locke & Key: Omega, and it’s killing me because I wait for the nice hardback collections to come out so I have no idea at this point what’s going on. And now comes along this news, which is great because it means we get just a little bit more Locke & Key than was originally planned, but awful because now we have to wait just a bit longer to see how everything plays out.

While adding an extra issue may scream “cash grab” to some, it’s clearly not the case here. Hill gives me the impression of being a guy who is all about the integrity of the story, first, last and always, so if this is the space they need to tell the ending, then I’m glad they are getting it.

Hill has also promised that, while this is the definitive end to the story of the Locke family, there are still more stories to tell involving the rambling Victorian mansion known as Keyhouse.

Can. Not. Wait.

Vincent’s new Dark Tower book is a worthy ‘Companion’

Bev Vincent had a double-tough job in front of him when tackling the writing of The Dark Tower Companion. He had to find compelling new material that would be of value to readers who’ve been reading and studying the series for years, and who’ve had already had access to a comprehensive guidebook in Robin Furth’s The Dark Tower: The Complete Concordance. He also had to find ways to separate this new project from his own book The Road to the Dark Tower.

Fortunately, a lot has happened in the world of the Dark Tower since Stephen King published what was then thought to be the final volume in the series in 2004. Marvel Comics produced several series adapting and expanding material found in King’s Dark Tower books. Hollywood powerhouses Ron Howard and Akiva Goldsman hatched an ambitious plan to adapt the material in a series of movies and television programs. And King himself revisited the series with an eighth novel, The Wind Through the Keyhole, a story set between the fourth (Wizard and Glass) and fifth (Wolves of the Calla) books in the series.

This flurry of creative activity provides plenty of fodder for Vincent’s new book, due out on April 2nd from New American Library (and in special editions later this year from Cemetery Dance). Vincent conducted a number of new interviews with the creators behind these new Dark Tower side projects, from artists and writers involved in the comics;  to Howard and Goldsman giving separate interviews on their movie-making plans; to King himself, who discusses these new projects, sheds additional light on several key Dark Tower characters, and touches on his own relationship and approach to the series.

In addition to these interviews, Vincent provides a synopsis of each Dark Tower book, discussing events and characters while saving the major spoilers for a clearly-marked section at the end of each chapter. There’s also a wealth of information on the important “people, places and things” in the series, handily divided into “Mid-World” and “Our World.” Maps, timelines, Mid-World history…you’ll be hard-pressed to find any corner of the Dark Tower mythology that Vincent hasn’t shined a light on.

Books like this are made to be perused, dipped into here and there when a question or confusion about something Dark Tower-related arises. However, Vincent’s open, thoughtful approach to the writing makes it a book that you could easily read cover-to-cover. The material flows in a way that most guidebooks don’t. Vincent’s knowledge of the material is encyclopedic, but his writing style reads nothing like an encyclopedia. It’s incredibly readable, packed with detail and information and insight, and completely approachable. Vincent set out to write something that would appeal to Dark Tower junkies and newbies alike, and in that he has succeeded handily.

Oh, and one more thing – after reading a few pages of material, I was fired up and ready to dive headfirst back into the Dark Tower series again. So, if you pick this book up, make sure your reading schedule is clear – not only are you going to want to absorb every word of Vincent’s book, you’ll likely be stacking up those eight Dark Tower novels right behind it.

Interview: Bev Vincent on ‘The Dark Tower Companion’

Much like Roland Deschain does in the second Dark Tower book, The Drawing of the Three, Stephen King has drawn various individuals into his strange and captivating world as his long journey in Roland’s world has progressed. These people have become part of King’s own ka-tet, a group united in purpose. King’s purpose was to create the journey; these others have been brought in to enrich it.

Among them I count Michael Whelan, whose art graced the first Dark Tower book (The Gunslinger) as well as the last (The Dark Tower). I count Robin Furth, who came on as a research assistant when King began work on the what was then the final three volumes of the series, and has gone on to contribute much to this ever-expanding world. And I count Bev Vincent, who has now written two books about the Dark Tower series, each of them providing valuable insight into King’s complex masterpiece.

In this exclusive interview, we talk some about Vincent’s first book, The Road to the Dark Tower, but concentrate mainly on his new project: The Dark Tower Companion, due out on April 2 from New American Library (with special limited editions forthcoming from Cemetery Dance). We also talk about many of the topics Vincent covers in his new book, from proposed film versions of the Dark Tower story to the compelling, divisive way in which King ended the series. (Don’t worry, there’s a large SPOILER ALERT in place before you get there!)

How did The Dark Tower Companion come about?

I’ve been asked a number of times whether I planned to update The Road to the Dark Tower to include The Wind Through the Keyhole and other material that has been released since my first book came out in 2004. When a Dark Tower film was announced for 2013, I pitched this idea to my agent. He suggested that something totally new would be better than an update so that’s what I did. I went back to ground zero and wrote a completely new book—it’s 50% longer than The Road to the Dark Tower, but it uses none of the previous material.

What sets this new book apart from The Road to the Dark Tower?

The Road to the Dark Tower was intended for people who had finished the series and wanted to explore it in greater depth. After the first chapter, there was no safe ground—it was spoilers all the way down. The only way to discuss the ultimate significance of things was to reveal future events.

When it came time to write The Dark Tower Companion, I thought about readers who might be introduced to the Dark Tower series from sources other than the books themselves. For example, the Marvel graphic novels were very popular and some people who had read them but not the books might be curious about certain details. Also, when the movies are produced, there will be viewers who may want to know more about a particular character or event. The Dark Tower Companion was written with these people in mind. I’m careful about what I reveal about the series ending, for example.

However, it’s also a handy reference guide for people who have read — or are reading — the series. It has an extensive glossary of people, places and things, which wasn’t in The Road to the Dark Tower, as well as chapters on Mid-World history and geography, including maps of Manhattan and Mid-World. It’s less analytical than my first book and more expansive. It’s also the first book to explore the Marvel adaptations and how they relate to King’s novels.

What sets it apart from Robin Furth’s The Dark Tower: The Complete Concordance?

Robin’s book is structured like a Biblical concordance, hence the name. People associated with a particular event or location are grouped together. So, if you want to look up Allie, you first have to find the section on people from Tull. There’s a logic and a benefit to this approach, but I used a different one. My glossary is divided into two sections — Mid-World people, places and things, and those from “our” world. Beyond that, it’s all alphabetical.

Also, my book contains plot synopses of the books and essays on various topics, including a few at the end in which I contemplate the significance of certain things, (such as) “Who was Roland’s greatest adversary?” And, of course, “What does the ending mean?”

Also, The Dark Tower Companion contains interviews with King, Ron Howard, Akiva Goldsman, Brian Stark, Robin Furth, Peter David, Richard Isanove, Jae Lee and several other Marvel artists. These pieces all reveal never-before-disclosed details about various aspects of the Dark Tower universe.

What is it about this series that has prompted you to write two in-depth books about it? Are there other series that you’d like to examine in a similar fashion?

As much as the Dark Tower series has been a constant in King’s life—he’s been working on it since 1970 — it’s been a constant in mine since 1984, when I read The Gunslinger for the first time. I’ve lived with the series in real time, waiting for the next installment to come out at 4-6 year intervals. When I heard that the final three books were done in manuscript, I proposed The Road to the Dark Tower as a way of exploring King’s work and themes without having to tackle everything he’s ever written, a daunting task. I treat the series as a microcosm of his literary world. That first book was my way of solidifying my thoughts and starting a conversation about them.

Having spent so much time deep inside the Dark Tower universe, I find myself thinking about it a lot and discussing it with a wide variety of people, so the second book came naturally. It was probably the backwards way of doing things — in depth first and then more expansive but less analytical second, but I’m glad I did it that way because I was able to cover the newer material in the more expansive book, The Dark Tower Companion.

There are other series that I’ve considered exploring, but the ones I’m most eager to tackle aren’t yet complete, so I have to bide my time if I want to do something with them.

What is your working relationship with Stephen King like on these books? Does he have final approval over what goes in them?

First off, The Road to the Dark Tower couldn’t have happened the way it did without King’s cooperation. He showed a great deal of faith and trust by giving me copies of the first draft manuscripts of Wolves of the Calla, Song of Susannah and The Dark Tower two years before they were published. I had so many secrets to keep for such a long time!

When I was writing that book, I asked King questions from time to time, but he’s a very busy guy as you might imagine, so I tried not to bother him too much. Mostly I bounced observations off him to see if I was on target or off the mark about something.

When it was going into production, my editor said they wanted to put “Authorized by Stephen King” on the cover. I asked King for his opinion about this and he said he was okay with it, but was that something I wanted? It implied, he said, that he had control over what I’d written, which wasn’t the case, and might weaken people’s perception of the book’s integrity. He did ask to see the manuscript prior to publication, primarily to fact check since I was working from the unedited manuscripts of the last three books, but he didn’t request any changes.

For The Dark Tower Companion, I decided to bother him just the once, for the interview.

Were there significant differences between the first draft manuscripts of the last Dark Tower books and the versions that were published?

There were some substantial changes between the first draft and the copy edited versions and the final published books. I had to verify every quote that I used (a couple of times!) and fact check with each new version. There are a couple of “mistakes” in my chapter on the seventh book in The Road to the Dark Tower because King changed some details in the final version, which I didn’t have access to until after my book was done.

There’s been talk in the past of King going back and revising some of the Dark Tower books, similar to what he’s already done with The Gunslinger. Is that something you’d like to see happen?

I asked him about that in the interview in The Dark Tower Companion and he replied that it would be good, rewarding work for him, but that the differences would be so subtle that only the most dedicated Dark Tower fans would notice. Some readers might be upset to think that they’d bought something new only to discover that it was substantially the same.

I would much rather see him write new material than go back and tinker with books that are already finished and ingrained in my mind. I appreciate what he did with The Gunslinger but, though I treat the revised edition as the “true” version for the purposes of The Dark Tower Companion, I still prefer the original because I’ve read it so many times over the years.

After talking with Ron Howard in preparation for this book, do you feel like his approach to adapting the series for film and TV would work?

Ron Howard and Akiva Goldsman are passionate about this series. Goldsman read it in much the same way that I did, starting with The Gunslinger in the mid ’80s. He was the one who brought the project to Howard when they were working on A Beautiful Mind, so it’s something they’ve been thinking about for years. They were disappointed when it looked like J.J. Abrams might tackle it first and elated when the rights freed up again.

I talked to them at length about their approach and it is both unique and logical. Though they’ve made a few general comments about their plan in the past, they discuss it at much greater length in The Dark Tower Companion. They’ve identified certain things that would work well on the big screen and others that would be better served by the more intimate platform television provides — the more character-based elements.

They have revolutionary ideas about how to tackle such a huge story that may not sit well with purists, but people who are willing to treat the film as something different from the books and not as a straight adaptation should be in for an adventure when the project is launched.

The most recent Dark Tower book, The Wind Through the Keyhole, as well as the Dark Tower graphic novels that Marvel has published, have demonstrated that there is a lot of room to tell tales outside of the original ka-tet’s mission. Who are some of the writers and artists you’d like to see take on the series, either in comics or prose?

I don’t think I’d like to see anyone else take on the Dark Tower universe. Robin Furth is an exception because she knows Mid-World better than just about anyone. Besides the Marvel adaptations, the only other “expanded universe” Dark Tower material is the Discordia game on King’s website, where Phase II should launch soon. Though there are occasional mentions of characters from the books, this interactive game primarily uses settings as its basis: the Dixie Pig and the passageway to Fedic in the first adventure and the Rotunda in Phase II. They are free (with King’s approval) to introduce new characters and scenarios to take the story in a different direction. That’s about the extent of what I’d like to see with the Dark Tower, though. I wouldn’t like to see it handed off to other writers. King suggests in his interview that he might return to Mid-World in the future. That’s enough for me.

How many times have you read the Dark Tower books?

My flippant answer to this question is “delah,” that unique Mid-World word that means “many” or “too many to count.” Because I’ve been with the series since the start, I’ve read some books more than others. I read The Gunslinger several times. Then when The Drawing of the Three came out, I read it again. Then when The Waste Lands came out, I read The Gunslinger and The Drawing of the Three again, and so on.

While working on The Road to the Dark Tower, I probably read the entire series five or six times, often for different reasons. Armed with colored highlighters, I looked for timeline details, character descriptions and characterization details, cross-references, etc. I read it once more while working on The Dark Tower Companion, as well as reading The Wind Through the Keyhole a few times.

Which is your favorite, and why?

For a variety of reasons, The Gunslinger is my favorite. When I first read it, I considered it a mood piece more than a character- or plot-driven novel. I had no idea at the time what it would blossom into. I know it’s a difficult book for some, but I must have read it four or five times before there were other books in the series. I was less interested at the time in its convoluted structure — flashbacks upon flashbacks — though I became more intrigued by that later, especially when I had to unravel it all into a linear narrative.

Who is your favorite character from the series, and why?

It’s hard to pick anyone other than Roland as a favorite character. It’s all about him. He’s there, alone, in the beginning and alone again at the end. He’s a tough guy to like at times, but I think I understand him better than any of the other characters. I don’t generally participate in the casting games people play, but I have the ideal actor in mind for Roland. I even mentioned the name to Akiva Goldsman when I interviewed him, though I doubt it will come to anything: Timothy Olyphant from Justified. I think he’d be perfect. The problem is that he’s probably not a big enough name to be at the center of an expensive project like this.

Let’s talk about the ending of the series. Personally, I think it was a perfect, logical end to the series, but not everyone agrees. Where do you stand on the ending – did it work for you? Why, or why not?

I read the last 100-150 manuscript pages of The Dark Tower early one morning. As I told King later that day, he made me late for work, because I couldn’t stop. I reached the “false ending” and then continued on to the real conclusion. I set the pages aside, stunned and somewhat wrung out, but satisfied.

Since we’re getting into spoiler territory here, let’s warn away people who haven’t gotten to the final page yet.

SPOILER ALERT!

The ending worked perfectly for me. I couldn’t think of another way to encapsulate the nature of Roland’s existence. The closing line had to be the opening line. Everything in the series pointed toward it. Roland had to face a day of reckoning for many of the things he did during his journey, and his punishment was to be forced to try again.

I discuss the ending at length in The Dark Tower Companion. We know this is Roland’s nth iteration through his tortured existence. Some people believe it is his second-to-last journey to the Tower, but King believes otherwise: Roland has a long way to go until he achieves the perfection that will allow him to break free. I asked him about the “Butterfingers” episode of Kingdom Hospital, in which a baseball player is given a chance to do one thing from his past differently to break out of his private hell, wondering if that was an indicator that the next time might see Roland’s salvation, but King said, no, that was just television. In reality it takes a lot longer.

The big question is: what does salvation look like for Roland? What does he need to do and change? I have an opinion about that, which I lay out in The Dark Tower Companion, but that’s just my view. King hints at his own thoughts on the matter in the interview in the book. There is no right or wrong answer, though.

Outside of the Dark Tower/Stephen King world, what other projects do you have in the works?

I always have a lot of things going on at the same time. I write an essay on writing every month for Storytellers Unplugged; keep up a regular blog that deals with writing projects, books, TV and movies; and review books at Onyx Reviews. I usually have at least one short story underway and it takes quite a bit of time to keep them in circulation with the various markets. I’m currently writing an afterword for an upcoming book (I can’t say more—it hasn’t been announced yet).

However, I’m hoping to clear my plate as much as possible to turn my attention to a novel I’ve wanted to write for a while. I thought I was going to get to that on April 1, but it now looks like it will be either mid-April or May before I can start.

Ryan Clark on the making of ‘The Making of Carrie’

Carrie was Stephen King’s first book, but it wan’t my first Stephen King book – that honor belongs to Pet Semetary. After I devoured that book I set out to find and read everything King had read up to that point. I really envy that version of me, getting to read stuff like ‘Salem’s Lot and The Shining and Night Shift for the very first time. At some point in there I read Carrie, and it just didn’t grab me like the others did. I re-read it many years later to see how it held up, and while there are bits that I like, there is much that hasn’t aged well. (The fake news articles are a particular problem for me – as a former journalist, I can’t ignore how far off they are from the way real news articles read. Even now, when King writes fake news articles in his books and stories, they don’t ring true to me.)

The movie, on the other hand, has aged quite well. Oh, yeah, the music is dated and the prom fashions are laughable (of course, every generation’s prom fashions are laughable, aren’t they?), but there’s not a damn thing off about the performances by Sissy Spacek (as the tortured ugly duckling Carrie) and Piper Laurie (the fanatically religious and clinically insane Mrs. White). Look at that image to the right, with Spacek covered in pig’s blood – there, in that instant, you can see that she’s accepted her own fate, and decided the fate of her tormentors. And it ain’t going to be pretty.

Ryan Clark is a man who agrees with me on the continued impact of Brian De Palma’s adaptation of Carrie. It’s a movie that means a lot to him, and his love for it spurred him to begin work on a book about it. Blood Among the Stars: The Making of ‘Carrie’ is deep into production now, and Clark (along with co-writer Lee Gambin) has assembled an amazing list of interviews with the film’s cast and crew, including Spacek, Laurie, De Palma and the man who started it all – Stephen King. As soon as I heard about the book I wanted to know more – and I figured you would, too. I reached out to Ryan and he was kind enough to answer a few questions for October Country.

Tell us a little bit about how the project was conceived. Why devote so much time to Carrie?

Well, I’ve been obsessed with Carrie – in a good way – ever since I can remember.  I used to play the soundtrack album in my CD walkman every morning on the long bus ride to middle school.  The film really began to resonate with me starting then, and after so many years I thought maybe I should use this fascination constructively.  In my own small way, I wanted to add to the legacy of a film that means so much to me and always will.  I began chatting on Facebook with Terry Bolo, who was an extra in Carrie and many other films, and she gave me that push I needed to move forward with the book.  The first thing I did was start a Facebook page to make people aware of this project, and I got some of my friends to “like” it.

On your website you state that Carrie is your “all-time favorite movie.” What about it resonates with you?

There are many reasons that Carrie resonates so deeply with me, but a big reason I think the film has lasted so long and has become timeless is that it’s a story that covers pretty much all aspects of teenage behavior.  To expound on something that Nancy Allen said to me, and I’m paraphrasing, the characters in Carrie are very much like real teenagers in that they are somewhat two-dimensional.  They either love you or they hate you, everything is about them, and they’re very self-absorbed.  There’s no in-between.  I really connected with that in a big way when I was that age, because everyone I knew was like that and I myself was like that, and my fascination with this classical story continues even though I have matured.  The characters in Carrie are very divided and simplistic; they’re either good guys or bad guys.  I’m not putting down the story in any way – it’s brilliant – but that’s how it is.  It’s like a western.  High school, and middle school, often feels like a western!  And yet there’s room for nuances.  Tommy Ross, for instance, as played by William Katt, is not your typical jock.  He’s a lot more sensitive and self-aware than that.

What are your thoughts of the novel it’s based on? Many feel that it’s one of King’s weaker efforts (which is only natural, given it was his first published novel).

The novel does have weak spots, which King himself often admits, but Carrie is a really solid psychological/paranormal thriller.  It’s especially impressive as a first novel, though we now know it wasn’t the first one he wrote.  Contrary to popular belief, the 1976 film is relatively faithful to it, and I think that the changes screenwriter Lawrence D. Cohen and Brian De Palma made from the novel were perfect.  As I’ve always said, unless you’re Roman Polanski adaptingRosemary’s Baby word-for-word, you cannot take everything from a novel and put it up on the screen.  It just will not work.  You’ve got to change some things.  Now, some of those changes were done for budgetary reasons – the $1.8 million budget did not allow for Carrie to destroy the entire town, but you don’t really need that for the movie.  Destroying the high school is sufficient, because, to paraphrase an old interview with Brian De Palma, when you’re in high school, that is your world.  I think focusing on the town’s destruction is a trap the remakes fall into.  It works in the book, because you can use your imagination, but to me, that’s never been what Carrie is all about.

You seem to have gotten lots of cooperation on putting this book together from the people involved with the film. What is your take on why this film was such a good experience for those who worked on it?

Well, Carrie was a first for a lot of people.  For many of the cast members, it was their first film.  For Brian De Palma, it was his first major hit.  I think people tend to look back fondly on things that came first in their lives.  They were young, and, despite minor tensions (and some major face-slappage), it was a pretty pleasant experience for everyone.

How did Lee Gambin get involved, and how has he helped you in making this idea a reality?

Lee has been amazing.  I could not have come this far without him.  He ended up on the Facebook page I had created for the book, and I was aware that he had interviewed Sissy Spacek for Fangoria.  He offered to help out with the book, and I decided to ask if he’d like to co-write it with me.  He seemed like the best person to do it, and I was right!  Because of his connections, we have been able to interview almost all of the major cast and crew members, though there are many I was able to get myself.  We share an equal amount of the work.  It’s nice to work with a partner, because you have someone to prod you when you start to slow down.

What can you tell us about the book itself? Is a release date set? A publisher? Are we talking oversized coffee table book, hardcover, softcover…?

I’m afraid we can’t reveal any such details at this time, but if you subscribe via email to our website or keep up with our Facebook and Twitter pages, rest assured you will remain up to date on our progress and you will know when the book is coming out.

There have really been some excellent examples in the “Making of…” genre of books over the last few years: Crystal Lake Memories (covering the Friday the 13th series), Memories from Martha’s Vineyard (JAWS), the books devoted to Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back, for example. Why do you think there is such a hunger for this kind of material?

I think it’s the same reason that DVD documentaries are so popular – fans love to hear the cast and crew talk about their memories.  Making-of books have an advantage over feature-length documentaries in that books are much more informative.  You can only pack so many facts into an hour-and-a-half long documentary.

What are your thoughts on the remakes of Carrie that we’ve already seen? What about the upcoming Chloe Moretz version? Will you touch on any of those in the book?

The various versions of Carrie all have their points of interest, and we will be covering all of them to some extent.  I feelThe Rage: Carrie 2 is the best of them so far, and it’s unfairly maligned.  It’s really not bad, especially when you consider how terrible ’90s horror films typically were.  I’m not going to say much right now about the upcoming remake, because I don’t want to judge the film sight unseen.  I love Julianne Moore, and Kimberly Peirce is a really good director, so I think there’s a decent chance the new Carrie will surprise people.

I know you can’t give away all of your good stuff, but is there a little something you learned in the process of putting this book together that you can tease us with?

Yes, one thing I learned – and I’m revealing this to you because it was already published in a book of Stephen King interviews, Feast of Fear – is that United Artists originally wanted John Travolta to sing one of the songs that Katie Irving eventually did – I think “Born to Have It All” – over the opening credits and the shower scene.  De Palma and Lawrence D. Cohen fought against this, and producer Paul Monash called up Stephen King for his opinion.  King said that it would be ridiculous to have Travolta, who played the heavy in the film, sing a love song to the girl he will dump pig’s blood on.  Then Monash asked, “Well, how about the Bee Gees?”  And King said, “No, I really don’t think so.”

Review: ‘Seduction of the Innocent’ by Max Allan Collins

From its lurid cover (another stellar effort by Hard Case Crime regular Glen Orbik) to its over-the-top title and scandalous premise, Seduction of the Innocent would appear to be a book as extreme as the comics that figure heavily in its plot.

It’s not. And while that may be something of a letdown it’s a forgivable one, because what you get instead is a solid murder mystery and a fascinating peek into one of the most controversial and misguided smear campaigns in American history.

Author Max Allan Collins uses Dr. Fredric Wertham’s 1954 crusade against comics as the framework for this novel, which he named after Wertham’s own book. (That book, mocked for decades, was recently thoroughly debunked and discredited.) Many of the more sensational elements of Collins’s story – congressional hearings on the evils of comics, mob ties to the funnybook business, drunken brawls and suicidal creators – are based on actual events that took place during that time, and many of its characters are based on real-life players in that saga.

In addition to these historical figures, Collins brings in a couple of his own creations – Jack Starr and his stepmother, Maggie, previously featured in the novels A Killing in Comics and Strip for Murder. Like Seduction, the previous Starr books lift their plots from real stories of the early days of comics (think ripped-off artists and feuding creators), making this the third chapter in a loose history of the medium.

The Starrs aren’t in the comic book business; rather, their company, Starr Syndicate, places comic strips in newspapers all over the country. Maggie runs the company, but Jack’s job may be the more difficult one – given that the artists are a moody lot, it’s Jack’s job to head off trouble when he can, and to extricate his talent from their messes when he can’t.

The Starrs’ comic strip business is deeply intertwined with the comic book business, so when a prominent player in the growing controversy stirred by Dr. Werner Frederick’s book Ravage the Lambs ends up dead, Jack finds himself embroiled in an investigation that encompasses several of his associates. The death doesn’t occur until halfway through the book, but Collins uses the ample lead time to flesh out the characters and lay out some of the fascinating and complicated inner workings of the comic book industry. The rest of the novel is spent shadowing Jack as he tries to find out who committed the murder and how he might minimize the effect it has on his company and the business overall.

While you don’t have to be a fan of comics or a student of that particular era of the business to enjoy Seduction, those who meet that criteria are going to find an extra layer of goodness in its pages. It’s hard to imagine society reaching that level of hysteria in today’s climate (well, in relation to comics, anyway, since comics, like all things geek, are in vogue these days), but Collins draws a vivid portrait of the uproar the country was in at the time – an uproar efficiently whipped up by one man and a handful of carefully manipulated “facts.” Into this he mixes an intriguing murder mystery and a colorful cast of characters. The result is thoroughly entertaining page-turner, and another win for Hard Case Crime.

Review: ‘Femme’ by Bill Pronzini

Bill Pronzini’s Femme is the latest pitch-black entry in his Nameless Detective series, a series that encompasses more than 30 books and spans over 40 years. This is only my second encounter with Nameless (the first being Kinsmen, which Cemetery Dance released simultaneously with Femme earlier this year), but the one-two punch of these releases is enough to send me scrounging for the rest of the books.

The “Nameless Detective” moniker comes from the fact that Pronzini never refers to the character by name. I don’t know how or why Pronzini made this decision, but it works because the author hasn’t allowed it to become a gimmick that overshadows the story. He doesn’t get cute in hiding the name, doesn’t cover over it with a black line or anything like that. It just doesn’t get mentioned to us, even when given to other characters in the story. Regardless, I’ve already got a strong sense of who Nameless is after reading only a couple of his adventures.

In Femme, Nameless becomes embroiled with a woman named Cory Beckett through what seems on its surface to be a simple bail jumping case. Nameless is retained to track down Cory’s brother, Kenneth, who’s taken to the hills to avoid robbery charges. In their initial meeting, Cory is sugar and spice and everything nice, but her demeanor proves to be a thin veneer covering an evil that stuns Nameless with its completeness and ferocity.

Working alongside Nameless is Jake Runyon, an associate often tasked with the tedious legwork of the agency’s cases. In between the interrogations, car chases and shootouts, there’s usually copious amounts of doorbell ringing and phone calls – work that Runyon enjoys and even thrives on. It’s Runyon who first realizes Kenneth’s predicament isn’t entirely what it seems, and it’s his tentative relationship with the hapless young man that pulls him (and Nameless) deeper into Cory Beckett’s madness.

Cory is a young woman of insatiable appetites – for money, yes, but also for power. She thrives on manipulation and deception, and she’s absolutely fearless in the way she’ll throw her body at anyone she thinks she can use to advance her own objectives.

Pronzini’s prose, honed over a career that’s closing in on 50 years, is as streamlined as any you’re likely to find. Femme is an effortless read, pure storytelling that’s as clean and uncluttered as a mountain stream. Clocking in at a lean 175 pages (a page count boosted by the smaller design and format of the book), Femme delivers a compelling story punctuated with subtle character work that brings its characters to vivid life. I hope Cemetery Dance continues to bring us more of the Nameless Detective, and I look forward to tracking down the rest of the series in the meantime.

Review: ‘More Than Midnight’ by Brian James Freeman

Brian James Freeman is one of those writers that someone, some day, is going to call an “overnight success,” completely ignorant of the fact that the guy has been pounding a keyboard for years, honing his craft and developing his voice the way all good writers do.

I say this because Freeman’s 2010 novella The Painted Darkness brought him all kinds of attention, and he seems poised to be one of those “next big things.” That’s what happens when guys like Richard Matheson and David Morrell rave about your stuff – people start looking to see what you’re going to do next. What Freeman has done is offer us a peek at the earlier stages of his career with More Than Midnight, a collection of five previously-published short stories now available from Cemetery Dance. While the stories themselves may not be as transcendent as The Painted Darkness, they’re full of the kind of pulpy goodness that we just don’t get enough of these days.

Take, for example, “Pulled Into Darkness,” my personal favorite of the collection. Freeman gives us the classic setup of a stalk-n-slash movie: A man and his young daughter in an isolated house on a stormy night. On the television, news of a riot at a nearby mental health facility, the very same facility where the man’s wife (the daughter’s mother) has been locked up for allegedly trying to kill her family. Now she’s on the loose, leaving a trail of bodies behind her…and the power just went out…

Think you know where it’s going? Think again. Freeman takes the obvious conclusion and deftly twists it on its head. Granted, seasoned readers of horror fiction will likely spot the twist coming, but by giving us two possible scenarios Freeman keeps us guessing right up to the last page.

You get the sense that Freeman was having a ball writing these, telling his own little campfire tales and hoping they’d find an audience. His enjoyment is infectious – just try reading the scene in “Among Us” when the mysterious bosses of a giant law firm begin undressing and intoning “Join Us!” in front of a batch of newly-minted partners without relishing the realization that things are about to go bad for someone. These stories are full of little moments like that, and if you’re like me you’ll enjoy every one.

I have one suggestion for those able to snag a copy – don’t read these stories in the order they are presented in the book. Take a look instead at the copyright page and read them in the order they were originally published. What you’ll get is a glimpse of a young writer gleefully playing with everything the genre has to offer while laying the foundation for what’s likely to be a highly successful career.

I can’t let the review end without giving a tip of the hat to the illustrations of Glenn Chadbourne, whose insanely detailed black-and-white drawings serve as the perfect punctuation marks at the end of these stories. Top it all off with a mesmerizing cover by Vincent Chong and you’ve got a total package that’s well worth hunting up.

Short Story Review: “Getting It Wrong” by Ramsey Campbell

“Getting It Wrong” by Ramsey Campbell
From A Book of Horrors edited by Stephen Jones
Cemetery Dance/PS Publishing, 2012

This is one of those stories that immediately gets tagged with the Twilight Zone comparison because of the way it takes something ordinary and mundane and gives it a dark little twist. There are stacks of such stories to be found throughout the abundance of horror anthologies that have been published, and yet that sense of familiarity voracious horror readers are bound to feel when encountering one usually doesn’t mean the good ones aren’t still treasured.

“Getting It Wrong” is one of the good ones. Ramsey Campbell introduces us to a man named Eric Edgeworth, a self-professed cinephile with a failed video store in his rearview mirror. These days he supports himself with a job at a local cinema, where he lords his movie knowledge over the crew of much younger and far less interested employees who view him as an annoyance and little else. So, when one of them calls him up, asking that he help her answer a movie trivia question for a game show he’s never heard of, he assumes she (and the pompous sounding guy acting as the show’s host) are simply pulling a prank on him. When he’s warned that he’s only got three chances to answer a question correctly, he gleefully and deliberately gets it wrong. The fallout from his decision turns out to be terrible for his coworker and, eventually, for Eric himself.

Campbell’s story is entertaining, and could serve as an object lesson in how to efficiently set up a premise, flesh out the main characters, and bring the whole thing to a satisfying conclusion. “Getting It Wrong” is exactly as long as it needs to be – no fluff, no filler. It’s not a classic by any means, but it is an enjoyable addition to Book of Horrors.

More reviews from A Book of Horrors

*A little background on Short Story Reviews, and why I’m doing them this way*

Short Story Review: “On the First Day” by James Robert Smith

“On the First Day” by James Robert Smith
From The Devil’s Coattails edited by Jason Brock and William F. Nolan
Cycatrix Press, 2011

Norris Atwell is a Defense Intelligence Agency assassin with the peculiar hobby of collecting “last lines,” or the final words of his targets. Most recently he successfully took down a man named Terrence Thackery, a pseudo-philosopher whose work graced the self-help shelves in the bookstores and the late-night infomercials on cable TV. This was not the kind of guy Atwell’s bosses usually targeted, but Thackery’s teachings of late had drawn a huge following, and his end-time prophecies were beginning to have a serious impact on society and, more importantly, the economy.

Atwell, the consummate professional, did his job, but not before taking in Thackery’s last lines – words that have resonated with him more than he expected. Those words continue to haunt him as his daughter wakes one morning with an ominous declaration: “No one can go outside.”

As you can see, “On the First Day” has an intriguing premise, and I was excited about its potential. However, while the idea is good, the execution left me a little wanting. Smith’s style is a little too formal and stiff for me, and the dry prose really kept me from engaging with the story and the characters like I wanted to. Smith has written and published a great deal, but this is my first encounter with his work so I’m not sure if this is his usual style or something he felt best suited this particular story. Either way, the stilted dialogue and matter-of-fact descriptions didn’t work for me at all, making this particular story a hard one to recommend.

More reviews from The Devil’s Coattails.

*A little background on Short Story Reviews, and why I’m doing them this way*