Forgotten Books Friday: Shadow on the Sun by Richard Matheson

If Elmore Leonard and Joe Lansdale were to collaborate on a western, the result might be something like Richard Matheson's Shadow on the Sun. Though best known for horror classics like I Am Legend and Hell House, Matheson is no slouch when it comes to western tales.

In Shadow on the Sun, we meet Billjohn Finley, an Indian Agent who has negotiated a new treaty between the U.S. government and a band of Apaches led by Braided Feather. The situation is tense, with the white townsfolk of Picture City doubting the natives will keep their word and the soldiers of Fort Apache ready for any excuse to wipe out the band. When the bodies of two men are found horribly mutilated outside of town, their brother demands that Finley send for the cavalry to attack Braided Feather's people. But what about the dark, oddly scarred stranger who has come to Picture City asking for archaeologist Albert Dodge and the Apache known only as the Night Doctor? Finley refuses to the believe that the Apaches are behind the killings, but he's the only white man interested in uncovering the truth.

Shadow on the Sun was originally published by Berkely in 1994. Tor has recently brought it back into print as a $13.99 trade paperback. Go get it.

Fridays: Forgotten Books

John the Balladeer (1988)
By Manly Wade Wellman (1903-1986)

It’s hard to categorize the stories in Manly Wade Wellman’s John the Balladeer. They are at once works of dark fantasy, horror and an entirely original kind of American folklore. Haunts, witches, demons, familiars and other fell creatures skulk through the forest-shrouded mountains and valleys of Wellman’s Appalachia. Some seek only to waylay and devour travelers in lonely places; some are vengeful ghosts; others would spread their malice across the world…if not for John.

John (a.k.a. “Silver John” or just plain old “John”) wanders through the countryside, playing songs on his silver-strung guitar, learning new tunes and bits of lore wherever they come. The guitar and the clothes on his back are all he owns, and he’s happy with that. We know little of John’s past, except that he is a veteran of the Korean War. Quick with his wits and good with his fists, he is a loyal friend to any who need him and just as determined an enemy of evil.

Besides the ever-present darkness, Wellman’s writing is alive with old-time music, memorable characters and a strong sense of place. These twenty-five stories and vignettes are meant to be savored like down-home cooking, and rereading them is always a pleasure. My favorites are “Call Me from the Valley,” “Shiver in the Pines,” “Walk Like a Mountain,” “The Spring” and “Owls Hoot in the Daytime.” Wellman also wrote five Silver John novels—The Old Gods Waken (1979), After Dark (1980), The Lost and the Lurking (1981), The Hanging Stones (1982) and The Voice of the Mountain (1984). They aren’t bad, but I prefer the short stories.

Wellman immersed himself in the culture and folkways of rural North Carolina. His love for the music and the landscape are a great contrast to the sense of menace and fear running through the Silver John stories. John the Balladeer is out-of-print, but Night Shade Books has reissued many of these stories and novels in hardcover editions. They’re expensive but worth it.

The complete list of this week's Forgotten Books picks is on Patti Abbott’s blog.

Forgotten Books Friday

Hell House
by Richard Matheson (1971)

Fall is my favorite season and Halloween is the best holiday of them all. To get into the spirit, I’ll devote my next couple of Fridays posts to rereading some novels that I consider overlooked classics of horror. I can’t think of a better way to kick off the Halloween season than by visiting Richard Matheson’s Hell House.

The Belasco House in Caribou Falls, Maine is the “Mt. Everest of haunted houses.” For years a haven for acts so depraved they would have made Caligula lose his lunch, the mansion earned its title of Hell House after all of Belasco’s guests were found dead of various nasty causes. The body of Emeric Belasco was never discovered, though some believe that he or his spirit still haunts the house forty-three years later. An aging bazillionaire has recently bought the house, and he offers one hundred thousand dollars for proof (one way or the other) of life after death.

Enter Professor Lionel Barrett and the best anti-spook technology that 1970 has to offer. Barrett, who makes Egon from Ghostbusters look like a wannabe, is out to prove once and for all that ghosts are merely a form of electromagnetic radiation left behind when a person dies. His Reversor is designed to set up a countercharge that will “clear the house.”

Barrett is accompanied by his wife Edith—a woman with more repressed desires than the priest at an all-boys parochial school—and a pair of mediums. Florence Tanner is the leader of the Temple of Spiritual Harmony. She hopes to commune with and free the spirits trapped within the house; the big paycheck will also make it possible for she and her followers to build a real church. Benjamin Franklin Fischer is known as one of the most powerful mediums in the world. He is also the sole survivor of an earlier attempt at uncovering the mystery of Belasco House. Fischer has spent years trying to drown his power in alcohol and hide from the past, but events in the house force him to fight back.

Hell House is one of the best works by the true master of horror. Fear oozes from its pages. Richard Matheson’s other books include I Am Legend, What Dreams May Come, A Stir of Echoes and The Beardless Warriors. He was also one of the writers for the original Twilight Zone series and huge influence on some guy named Stephen King.

As always, you can check out the full list of today’s forgotten books recommendations on Patti Abbott’s blog.

Stuff

Last week, I interviewed for a job that interested me and paid decent money (a rare combination around here). I thought the interview went well, but I got a “thanks but no thanks” letter in Saturday’s mail. I’m just finishing up a freelance copyediting assignment and I’ve picked up some freelance writing work with a monthly paper, but a job with regular hours and steady pay would have helped solve a couple of money problems.

The high point of the weekend was receiving a signed copy of Kelly Link’s latest collection, Pretty Monsters. The inscription reads “For Patrick from a fan. Love, Kelly.” How cool is that? If you haven’t experienced Kelly’s slipstreamy genius, then you’re missing out on some beautifully disturbing stories.

I wrote the opening scene of the new novel yesterday. Felt damn good.

It was difficult not to turn last Thursday night’s class into a lecture on James Crumley. I settled for reading aloud the opening line of The Last Good Kiss and talking briefly about its place in the crime fiction canon.

A couple of things coming up on the blog this week: my review of Tony Black’s debut novel, Paying for It; my review of Sandra Ruttan’s The Frailty of Flesh; my contribution to Forgotten Books Friday will be Hell House by the great Richard Matheson.

Joan Jett turned 50 yesterday. I remember buying “I Love Rock and Roll” as a 45 in 1982. That was twenty-six years ago? Jesus.

Fridays: Cruisers by Craig Nova

Cruisers (2004)
By Craig Nova

Russell Boyd and Frank Kohler are haunted men. Boyd is a Vermont state trooper who patrols the highways by night, where he wrestles with literal and figurative darkness while trying to come to grips with events from his childhood. Kohler is a computer repairman living in the home of his murdered mother. Their lives, unconnected at first, converge to a point that is violent and inevitable.

Nova is a writer’s writer, which means he produces amazing work in relative (and unjust) obscurity. The structure of Cruisers is a work of art in itself. Then there are the haunting and haunted characters that move through the starkly distilled rural setting. Cruisers works as both a “literary” novel and a country noir. If you’re a fan of Wolven, Woodrell or Gay, you’ll find a lot to like here.

I have to give a shout-out to Brad Barkley and David Anthony Durham, both of whom recommended this book when I attended their workshops at Stonecoast. David took it a step further when he became my mentor and made me read Cruisers. I’m glad he did because I might have missed it otherwise.

Tune in Tomorrow

On tap for Thursday: a quick review of Laura Lippman's forthcoming short story collection, Hardly Knew Her.

On Friday, I'll continue my sporadic participation in Patti Abbott's Forgotten Books project with my take on Craig Nova's Cruisers.

Don't want to miss out on any of that, now do you?

Forgotten Books Friday

Gunsights by Elmore Leonard (1979)

Except for Lonesome Dove and Blood Meridian, I had not read a western since my freshman year of high school. Back then, I read a lot of Louis L’Amour and Zane Grey; not because I was a huge fan of the genre, but because westerns and the Bible were all the Jesus freaks with whom I lived would allow. Why were westerns acceptable? Beats me. Sometimes it’s best not to probe too deeply into the workings of twisted minds.

I was writing, too. I found an old manual typewriter at a yard sale. Five bucks. I had no money, got no allowance. So I asked Mr. and Mrs. Jesusfreak to buy it for me. They said, “We’ll pray about it.” I knew what that meant. They would pretend to clear it with God first, but in the end I’d have to crawl for it. So I crawled. Don’t ask for details. I got the typewriter, though, and my bottled-up anger ensured I always hit those sticky keys hard enough. Fifteen years old and already growing bitter about the things I had to do to learn my craft.

Since I was reading westerns, I tried my hand at writing one. My memory of the story is positive, though the details are sketchy. It was full of worn-out western tropes: a range war, the lone-wolf hero, the tough but vulnerable woman who falls in love with him and the evil railroad baron who wanted all the land and the girl. I was happy with it and started writing another.

Then Mrs. Jesusfreak read that first story. Before the day was over, she had burned the manuscript in the woodstove and confiscated my typewriter. What did I do wrong? I had used the word “virgin” when referring to a fresh snowfall. Mrs. J. declared the story “obscene” because of that. Obscene? Clichéd, sure, I'll confess to that. But obscene? Fuck.

Oh yeah, they also forbade me from reading more westerns. From then until I finally got to move out several months later, I was only allowed to read the Bible (they didn’t know that I spent every study hall in the high school library, finding shelter in books by Stephen King, Robert E. Howard and H.P. Lovecraft). For some reason, I never did get back into westerns. I’ve always liked western movies, but the novelists stayed off my radar.

Now jump ahead almost twenty-five years to this spring.

I watched the DVD of 3:10 to Yuma (the new version) and decided it was time I read some of Elmore Leonard’s westerns. On the surface, Gunsights is the story of a copper war in Arizona. It has plenty of action and works just fine on that level. Beneath that, though, it is about people who have been driven to a certain point and refuse to give up any more ground. It is also about two unlikely friends, by chance on opposite sides, who everyone expects to shoot it out any minute. The plot twists and twists again, just as in Leonard’s crime novels. Nothing is certain, right up to the last page. Fans of Get Shorty (1993) will enjoy seeing Bo Catlett’s namesake ancestor in action, too. I can’t say Gunsights ranks up there with Leonard’s best, but it’s gotten me interested in his other westerns. I’ll also have to check out some of the books that James Reasoner has been recommending.

As always, you can find links to the rest of this week's selections (and a master list of all books so far) at Patti Abbott's blog. This is, I think, the fourteenth week of Forgotten Books Friday.

Fridays: Forgotten Children’s Books

The Great Brain by John D. Fitzgerald (1967)
Illustrated by Mercer Mayer

Tom is the smartest kid in town. He’s smarter than most of the adults, too (which ain’t saying much, since this is Utah in 1896, but still…). Tom uses his great brain to run short cons on the other kids and get revenge on anyone who crosses him. He’s like Encyclopedia Brown without the civic-mindedness. He’s like Roy Dillon with chores and a bedtime. Now and then, his conscience or his mother force him to put his great brain to work helping others. I was probably ten years old when I first read this book, and it still holds up.

Don't forget to check Patti Abbott’s blog for a complete list of this week’s participants.

Where the Rivers Flow North (Fridays: The Books You Must Read)

It’s time once again to talk about some great books that you might have missed. You can find the complete list of this week’s participants at the blog of mastermind Patti Abbott.

Where the Rivers Flow North by Howard Frank Mosher (1978)

In this collection of six short stories and the title novella set between the 1920s and the 1970s, Howard Frank Mosher explores the hardships and small victories of life (and death) in Kingdom County, Vermont. Mosher has an eye for describing northeastern Vermont’s stark beauty while at the same time plumbing the depths of characters shaped and hardened by that same landscape.

In “Alabama Jones,” twenty year-old Bill is offered a chance—possibly the only one he’ll ever get—to leave Kingdom County when a girl who sings on the fair circuit spends a few days with him. He wishes he’d never met her because he knows he will never leave.

“First Snow” is the story of two half-brothers with conflicting notions of a man’s responsibility to his family, society and the land he owns. It’s also one my favorites of all Mosher’s stories.

In “Kingdom County Come,” Henry Coville is an old man who grew up working in lumber camps until he went to fight in France during World War One, where he lost a lung during a gas attack. When he got home, the lumber boom had fallen and he took to running bootleg whiskey and working as a hunting guide. “Fifty years went by, went somewhere, and for some reason or perhaps no reason his remaining lung was suddenly decaying like the diseased elms on the village green.” A self-reliant man his entire life, Henry becomes increasingly frail, “annoyed with himself for what he couldn’t help.” But he knows what he has to do while he still has the strength to do it.

There there’s the title novella. “Where the Rivers Flow North” brings us Noël Lord and his “housekeeper,” a Penobscot Indian named Bangor. Noël is another man who talks about leaving his land. In his case, it’s because the Northern Vermont Power Company is building a dam on the river that runs through Noël’s property. He and other old-timers like him will be flooded out if they do not move. Noël takes the power company’s money and makes plans to relocate in Oregon, but he is too closely tied to his land. He has left several times over the years, but has always returned. With the completion of the dam, that will no longer be an option. Bangor is one of Mosher’s greatest characters, and a perfect foil for the taciturn Noël Lord.

Mosher has won many awards over the years and “Where the Rivers Flow North” was made into a movie starring Rip Torn, Tantoo Cardinal and Michael J. Fox. Like Mosher’s books, the film did well with critics but did not gain a wide audience. That’s too bad, because his work is accessible, enjoyable and significant.

I had originally planned to write about Ernest Hebert’s 1979 novel The Dogs of March for this week’s installment. However, Lisa Kenney has already done so (and better than I would have) on her blog. I hope you’ll go there and read what she has to say. The Dogs of March was the first of Hebert’s beautifully dark novels set in his fictional town of Darby, New Hampshire. It’s as good and valuable as anything by Annie Proulx, William Gay, Howard Frank Mosher, the late Ruth Moore, Ivan Doig, Richard Russo or William Kennedy.

Like Where the Rivers Flow North, The Dogs of March was originally published by Penguin, but is currently available from Hardscrabble Press/University Press of New England.

Fridays: The Book You Have to Read

Patti Abbott asked me to take part in a new blog project she’s calling Fridays: The Book You Have to Read. Here’s Patti: “I’m worried that we are letting some great books of the recent past slide out of print and out of our consciousness. Not the first-tier classics we can all name perhaps, but that group of books that comes next.” It’s a great idea that we hope will get people to read books they have somehow overlooked. Not lost classics, exactly; more like missed classics by living authors.

This week’s participating writers are Bill Crider, Josephine Damian, Clair Dickson, Travis Erwin, Sandra Ruttan, Sandra Scoppettone, Anthony Neil Smith, Patti and me. Visit their blogs today, and you're sure to find something good. Patti also asked each of us to tag someone to recommend a book next Friday. So, Declan Burke: consider yourself tagged.

My recommendation is:
The Dog of the South by Charles Portis

Ray Midge’s wife Norma has left him for her ex-husband, a weirdo by the name of Guy Dupree. That wouldn’t be so bad—Ray is a quiet, peace-loving guy and Norma was always badgering him to take her out—if not for the fact that they ran off with Ray’s credit cards, a .410 shotgun he’d had since he was a boy, and his meticulously maintained Ford Torino. Ray waits for the credit card bills to come in so he can track Dupree and Norma.

Driving Dupree’s Buick, which has four mismatched tires, a hole in the floor and engine problems, Ray follows their trail through Texas, then on down to Mexico and eventually to Dupree’s father’s farm in British Honduras. Along the way, Ray runs into a string of delightfully strange characters, not the least of whom is Dr. Reo Symes. On the run himself, Symes is a disgraced physician living in an old broken-down school bus called The Dog of the South. Things go from bad to disastrous for Ray: he runs out of money, a border guard confiscates his pistol, he discovers his beloved Torino in a junkyard and, when he finally gets to the farm, Dupree is crazier than ever and Norma is gone. But it doesn’t end there…

Charles Portis (1933- ) is the author of five novels: Norwood (1965), True Grit (1968), The Dog of the South (1979), Masters of Atlantis (1985) and Gringos (1991). I recommend them all, and I wish the man were more prolific.