Lovecraft, Spinning in Grave

Arthur Machen Born Today, 1863

A towering figure in weird fiction, Arthur Machen (who died in 1947) was an influence and an inspiration for many of the writers I've covered here at TMHF: Lovecraft of course, and the whole circle of Weird Tales folks like Clark Ashton Smith and Frank Belknap Long, on up to King, Straub, Campbell, T.E.D. Klein and Karl Edward Wagner. And while Machen's output is out of my self-defined era of "vintage" horror fiction, these wonderful paperback covers most certainly are not! These collections date from the 1960s to the early '80s, American and British editions, with covers highlighting various lurid and sensational aspects of the Welshman's superb tales. They're are all highly collectible paperbacks as well; I've lost one or two over the years and have not yet replaced them.

These top four paperbacks are from Pinnacle in the 1970s, two reprints of two volumes. Robert LoGrippo is responsible for the garish, blood-drippy covers from 1976. The fifth Pinnacle paperback is from 1983 and contains all the stories from the two-volume set. Can't even recall which one(s) I owned, and I haven't reread even "The Great God Pan" in over 15 years. Surely it is one of the seminal tales of classic horror.

In 1972 the highly-regarded Ballantine Adult Fantasy line published The Three Imposters (1895). This novel - with Boschian art again by LoGrippo - in episode form includes two of his most influential stories, "The Novel of the Black Seal" and "The Novel of the White Powder." Below you can see the British paperbacks with those titles, from Corgi in the mid-'60s; love the covers by Josh Kirby.

 

Two more British paperbacks from Panther - a publisher known for putting out lots of horror fiction - dated 1975, with eye-catching occult cover art from Bruce Pennington.

The Witching Night by C.S. Cody (1953): She Comes on the Eve of Dusk

Seems I totally overlooked one fairly well-regarded novel of witchery written under a pseudonym, C.S. Cody, of an author I've never heard of named Leslie Waller. So I give you The Witching Night in all its paperback (and hardcover) glory! Some very excellent and evocative art on these. The Bantam edition from 1974 above features groovy satanic hullaballoo by artist unknown, alas. I've seen lots of post-Exorcist paperbacks from Bantam with the same cover design/font, it was a whole thing I guess.Totally cool.

This is the original '53 hardcover, art by John Hall, all boobs and sultry eyes; then below is the Lancer 1968 edition with simply marvelous witchy art by Jerome Podwil. Love the lady, love the bats, poor dude in suit and tie besieged by supernatural forces. Some of my fave horror fiction cover art of late.

Finally, the Dell 1953 first paperback, looking quite a bit like those famous pulp noir paperbacks of the day. Doesn't look too satanic, really, does it? But dig on this quote from the book I found:

Abbie brought the body of the slaughtered kitten to her mouth. I could see the lips curl and her teeth gleam fiercely until the furry black corpse masked her face. But I could see her throat, that long, smooth white column, so soft, so delicately modeled in sweeping lines. I saw it pulse as a regular muscular motion within it drew up and down in measured rhythm. I knew what Abbie was doing. She was drinking the kitten's blood.

And many thanks to Sara from My Love-Haunted Heart, who sent me the 1963 UK paperback cover, from Corgi Books.

RIP Ray Bradbury (1920 - 2012): Something Wonderful That Way Goes

The incomparable Ray Bradbury has died today at age 91. Who can count the hours of wisdom and joy and invention he gave us? I tried to do justice to two of his incredible books, The October Country and The Halloween Tree. Mr. Bradbury, the 20th and 21st centuries needed your imagination, and you came through. Autumns won't be the same without you. 

(And thanks to my pal Scott Ross, whose charming quote gave me the title for this post!)

 

 

 

 

Blackwater I: The Flood by Michael McDowell (1983): When You're Lost in the Rain and It's Eastertime Too

What Easter but that first in Jerusalem had dawned so bleakly, or stirred less hope in the breasts of those who had witnessed the rising of that morning's sun?

It is the early morning of Easter Sunday, 1919, and the Perdido and Blackwater rivers of Perdido, Alabama have flooded the small town - leaving only the spires and roofs and chimneys of the town's buildings to be seen above the foul and debris-choked waters. But a small boat containing Oscar Caskey and his black servant Bray Sugarwhite, two men rowing through the wreckage looking for anyone who may not have fled to higher ground days before when the rains began. Suddenly, in an upper-story room of the Osceola Hotel, Oscar catches sight of a redheaded woman - whom he had not seen when he first glanced inside the room. She seems to appear instantaneously, out of nowhere. Upon pulling her into the boat, she says she has survived in this room since the flood began, having apparently slept through the warnings several days before. Bray is suspicious of this survivor, Elinor Dammert, while Oscar is awkwardly intrigued. And Elinor will bring suspicion and intrigue to Perdido; especially indeed to all the ladies of Perdido.

And so begins The Flood (Avon, Jan 1983), the first book of Blackwater, a serialized Southern gothic/horror saga from cult paperback horror writer Michael McDowell. The second chapter is simply titled "The Ladies of Perdido," and we meet them all, from every age and class and color, but at the top is not, as one might expect, Annie Bell Driver, the Baptist Hard-Shell minister, but Mary-Love Caskey, Oscar's mother and part owner of the Caskey sawmill fortune. There's also Sister Caskey, Mary-Love's young spinster daughter, and other women whose husbands run the two other sawmills in town. Gossip flies about Elinor and her burgeoning relationship with Oscar, Perdido's "first gentleman," a kind and courtly man employed by his uncle James, Mary-Love's brother-in-law, at the family lumber mill. Unsurprisingly he is perplexed by Elinor's mysterious arrival: 

"Why did you come to Perdido? Perdido is at the end of the earth. Who comes to Perdido but to write me a check for lumber?"
"I guess the flood brought me," Elinor laughed.
"Have you experienced a flood before this?"
"Lots," she replied. "Lots and lots..."

At 189 pages, The Flood is a solid read with McDowell's sure hand settling us into this genteel sawmill town now besieged by natural, and perhaps unnatural, tragedy. The machinations and manipulations of the Caskeys are fascinating as McDowell develops them economically, without getting bogged down in psych 101 or a backstory of neuroses. Mary-Love has a house built for the not-so-surprising marriage of Oscar and now-schoolteacher Elinor, but will not sign the deed over to them; Mary-Love keeps Sister always under her thumb in a contradictory position; Mary-Love attempts to sully James's erstwhile wife Genevieve's reputation as that of a selfish drunk. McDowell well understands Southern life: how the land and the rain and the flood stain lives, and how family power predominates, especially matriarchal power (which features strongly also in his The Amulet (1979) and The Elementals (1981)):

Oscar knew that Elinor was very much like his mother: strong-willed and dominant, wielding power in a fashion he could never hope to emulate. That was the great misconception about men... there were blinds to disguise the fact of men's real powerlessness in life. Men controlled the legislatures, but when it came down to it, they didn't control themselves... Oscar knew that Mary-Love and Elinor could think and scheme rings around him. They got what they wanted. In fact, every female on the census rolls of Perdido, Alabama got what she wanted. Of course no man admitted this; in fact, didn't even know it. But Oscar did...

If this makes Blackwater sound more like a soap opera than a horror novel, I can see why you'd think so. But fear not: the creeps come, oh do they. Quietly McDowell stacks mystery upon mystery in a precisely calculated manner that keeps the reader turning pages, without straining credibility. Mary Bell Driver discovers Elinor naked submerged in the muddy red waters of the Perdido, undergoing some transformation. A young boy is swept up into the powerful junction between the Blackwater and Perdido and drowns, perhaps by something that lives at the bottom of the whirlpool, where it grabbed you so tight your arms got broken and then it licked the eyeballs right out of your head. There are those things and more. The foreboding black, gray, and red menace of gloom and doom on the cover are no cheat; you get what's promised there. 

Michael McDowell (1950 - 1999)

So far, McDowell's got me hooked. In cheaper paperback originals - and some hardcover bestsellers - chapters end with ridiculous cliffhangers, but McDowell ends his on some oblique note of unease or flat statement of uncomfortable fact, whether it be death, dismemberment, or a stand of water oak trees planted by Elinor that seem to grow overnight. Unassumingly soap operatic in its human conflicts, it does not hammer home horror; it insinuates and alludes and caresses. I know I can trust him as an author. The situations and the characters drive the narrative, not the other way around, which makes The Flood so readable.

Don't know why I was never interested in the books when I used to see countless copies of them in my old used bookstore; besides those unique covers I guess I thought they were cheap. Without the guilt or cheapness, without falsity or contrivance, this first volume in the uniquely serialized Blackwater saga bodes very, very well for the rest of the series... and bodes very, very grimly for all of Perdido's drowning souls.

The Psycho Paperback Covers: We All Go a Little Mad Sometimes

Today is the 112th birthday of Sir Alfred Hitchcock. I just wanted an excuse to feature some of the many paperback editions of Robert Bloch's immortal Psycho that have appeared over the years since its original publication in 1959. Now, if you're rather desperate to obtain some of these lovely paperback editions, why, I just know none of you would even hurt a fly. Enjoy...

The edition at the top is from Tor 1989, with cover art by Joe Devito. The one above is from Bantam 1969.

Warner Books 1982

Corgi UK 1962, 1977 and 1982

Crest Books 1960 and movie tie-in 1963
Don't be late...

The I Am Legend Book Archive

Richard Matheson's 1954 I Am Legend is probably the most influential horror novel of the 20th century. Over the years I've owned various paperback editions of it, having first read it during summer break in high school. I had this Omega Man tie-in version from the early '70s.

So I started thinking about other editions of it, and while looking I came across The I Am Legend Book Archive. I love finding other horror obsessives who catalog their mania in minute detail, but I don't think I've ever seen a blog that focuses solely on one book. Pretty cool. Check it out.