Paperback Rack Flashback Attack! THE RACK, (ed. Tom Deady)

 

                                                                               

       

I'm excited about this one! I love vintage paperback horror, and I've been glad to see it getting the attention it deserves over the last decade or so. Many of my favorite summer memories involve having a mass-market horror paperback at the beach or on the porch and happily reading away while demons or bobcats or whatever the fiend du jour is eviscerate a small community.

Before we jump into the book, I want to talk about my ideas of floors and ceilings in terms of quality. I don't think this is a new concept, and I think it's one that comes up in business a decent amount. But, anyway: When I talk about floors and ceilings in the context of books, and short story collections in particular, this is what I'm thinking.

The Floor: This is the lower bound of quality for a collection. What's the minimum level of quality going to be? Low quality means, well, low quality. High quality means that even if I personally don't love, or even like, the story, it clearly demonstrates good craftsmanship and probably appeals to someone. 

The Ceiling: The upper bound of quality--how good are the best stories in here? If it's a high ceiling, they're going to be stories that stick with me. Generally, the ceiling is more subjective than the floor: It is easier to say that a story "works" or doesn't work as a functional piece of writing (at the level of basic mechanics and logic) than there is to say how good it is. Which is not to say that the floor can't be subjective, especially with more experimental types of writing (for example, I think Richard Christian Matheson's "Vampire" is a masterpiece, but some people think it's barely a story at all).

How does that break down?

Low Floor, Low Ceiling: This is the worst; there's not much guarantee of anything, except that it's probably an exercise in frustration.  We probably won't see many of these on this blog, because I have little enough time to read and write about the books I actually like. 

Low Floor, High Ceiling: The real grab bag. Not every story is going to work, but there are diamonds in the rough. A lot of the later volumes of the Hot Blood series are like this for me. Many of the stories were trash, but the ones that were good were really, really good. 

High Floor, Low Ceiling: Spoiler alert--this is where I'm putting The Rack, and it's where I think most anthologies go. This is one of the more subjective ones vs. High Floor, High Ceiling, because it depends largely on what makes the "best" stories stand out. A book like this will have a uniformly minimum competent quality of writing, and some stories that are really very good, but because everything's good, it takes a lot to stand out. 

For example, I find the first volume of Charles Grant's Shadows series falls into this category. The stories are all classy and well-written, but none of them really stuck with me months later. That doesn't mean they aren't enjoyable in the reading, though, or that the book is somehow not worthwhile! 

High Floor, High Ceiling: The best of the best. Few if any bad stories, and lots of memorable and great ones. Silver Scream is one example--not a single story in there, as I recall, is 'bad' and many of them are classics. 

Anyway, that's enough review theory. We've finished our homework, let's get to the fun stuff!

Black Pages by Cynthia Pelayo

Synopsis: A woman learns about a mysterious, all-black paperback horror novel and its sinister secret.

Does It Carry On The Paperback Horror Tradition? 2 out of 5 Hordes of Rats. The story itself isn't very 'paperbacks from hell'-y. Instead, it's taking place in "our" world where all of the classic 'paperbacks from hell' are beloved by many.

Thoughts: Good, strong opening. This is a delicate, understated fantasy. It isn't the most immediately satisfying when you're going into a book looking for monsters with too many teeth and not enough kindness, but it's like a tall cold glass of water when you need it most: It's not as tasty as soda or as fun as beer, but it hits right. 

Other Things Have Happened by Ronald Malfi

Synopsis: An unhappy man returns to the movie theater of his youth--now abandoned--to escape his unhappy home life. 

Does It Carry On The Paperback Horror Tradition? 2 out of 5 Evocative Steve Crisp Cover Paintings: We have several elements of traditional paperback horror, but remixed and swirled around in unfamiliar ways.

Thoughts: If the synopsis makes it sound like a rehash of nostalgia-bait and the same stuff you've already seen in stories like David Schow's "One for the Horrors," don't worry. There's very little that's sweet about this story. Malfi has a lot of different elements going on here, but instead of it being unfocused on distracting, it makes the story unpredictable and edgy and unsettling. That's tribute to Malfi's skill.

You feel like you might need, oh, I don't know...a spider's compound eye to keep track of everything going on. 

Fuzzy Slippers by Jeff Strand

Synopsis: Agnes' present for this birthday (fuzzy slippers) may jeopardize her seeing her next birthday.

Does It Carry On The Paperback Horror Tradition? 2.5 out of 5 Skeleton Bunny Rabbits. Broadly speaking, yes in that basically every object you can buy at a big-box store became rebellious, haunted, possessed, or otherwise threatening over the course of the paperback horror boom (Stephen King alone is probably responsible for a quarter of those). In terms of execution, Strand is doing his own weird thing. And, while some of the late-period mass market superstars paved the way for stuff like Strand's (this story is no stranger than anything in a Bentley Little novel, for instance), this is a bit more contemporary.

Thoughts: "Funny" ironic horror puts me on edge immediately, especially if it has that sort of Spencer's Gifts canned zaniness. And "Fuzzy Slippers of D00m!" does feel like something that you'd put on the shelves there (or maybe in Hot Topic circa 2005, right next to the Invader Zim hoodies and striped socks).  But Strand is too funny and good for that. Reading 3 or 4 Strand short-shorts in rapid succession especially is the best way to snap out of a funk I can think of, because you'll be too busy laughing/squirming with discomfort/vomiting in disgust to think about whatever is bothering you. Sadly, we only get one story from him here, but it's classic Strand stuff. 

The Raft by Stephen King

Synopsis: Two college couples head to their favorite swimming hole to bid summer farewell, and wind up stranded on a raft by a bizarre monster.

Does It Carry On The Paperback Horror Tradition? 5 Homicidal Self-Repairing 1958 Plymouth Fury Girlfriends out of 5.  This is vintage horror! It's King, without whom we wouldn't have the paperback horror boom as we know it (and without whom, many of us wouldn't be reading and writing this stuff today). More specifically, though, this is classic horror at its best: A gooey creature feature on top with subtext and emotional heft down below. 

Thoughts: I'm sure plenty of ink (digital and otherwise) has been spilled on this story, so I'll keep it brief. What struck me most about "The Raft" this time around is the sense that the kids are being punished. Not the way they are in the Creepshow 2 adaptation, where they're unpleasant people who generally deserve (according to EC Comics logic) what happens to them.  

No, here the punishment is a cruel tragedy. They're going after more summer they're supposed to have, the "little bit of summer that someone forgot to clean up and put away" (and, talk all you want about "The Reach," but this phrase to me is more effective and moving than just about anything King wrote in the '80s) and they pay for it. It's not that they deserve it, but they try to take a season out of turn, and the blob (which is maybe less malicious and more of an implacable, immoral enforcer, a force of supernature like the Langoliers or like the psychopomps in The Dark Half) shows up. Where's the caretaker? The BLOB is the caretaker. 

I'm not the only one to have thought of this--Googling around just now I found an elegant exegesis of the same, although I'm not as convinced of that author's reading (a lot of it hinges on the idea that the characters are transitioning from high school to college, but the fall semester is already well underway if you read the story closely, and I get the sense that they may be sophomores, not freshmen in any event). Regardless, there's a lot going on here. 

It's a nice, sunny October day where I am here right now. Makes me want to go outside, crack a beer, put on "Boys of Summer" and read this farewell to summer one last time. Why not do the same? Just...don't go in the water. 

That Chemical Glow by Larry Hinkle

Synopsis: Two brothers go from the frying pan (the dangerous drug dealers they've just ripped off) into the fire (seeking shelter in a neighborhood blighted by a chemical spill).

Does It Carry On The Paperback Horror Tradition? 3.5 out of 5 Barrels of 2-4-5 Trioxin. Shoot, I hope nothing bad happened with the other barrel and a half. . . Yes! We have toxic waste, one of my favorite elements of vintage horror. Guy N. Smith's Thirst, Skipp & Spector's The Bridge, Straub's Floating Dragon (kinda). So much fun!

Thoughts: Anyone who follows an early '80s King story has a hard act to follow. That's especially the case here, where Hinkle's story has the super-specific element "chemical spill that can talk to you (and is persuasive). Hinkle does a good job, though. I really liked this story. It's fun, it ticks the boxes, it has fun world building. I'm often skeptical when people come away from a short story or a web video or something and go "THIS NEEDS TO BE A WHOLE SERIES" (no, it usually doesn't, and that's okay), but I would have liked to spend some more time here.

I Am a House Demanding to Be Haunted by Mercedes M. Yardley

Synopsis: A young woman has a complicated relationship with the haunted house that loves her. 

Does It Carry On The Paperback Horror Tradition? 1 out of 5 Inappropriate Skeleton-Based Covers for a Grueling Work of Extreme Horror Fiction. Haunted houses were of course a core component of the paperback horror boom, but they've been around before and since.

Thoughts: Beginning with a reference to being in love with a boy made of seawater made my instinctive "ewww fantasy" hackles rise but I liked this. It's funny, clever, and follows an Addams Family sort of macabre logic. Is it particularly vintage paperback-y? Maybe; parts of this reminded me of Shirley Jackson (in very broad strokes); Will Errickson mentions something similar in his introduction.

My problem with this story is that it's not very focused. I think there could have been space for all the lunatic bits that make this story pop, like the house throwing our narrator a birthday party but going far too over the top, or a paramedic getting killed by the house and then examining his own body.  But we still wind up bopping around a lot. I do wonder if it has to trace our protagonist's whole life: That's the part that makes it seem a little overstuffed to me) although I think that's part of the point of some of Yardley's themes. 

Ursa Diruo by Kristin Dearborn

Synopsis: A big angry bear ruins a day at the swimming hole.

Does It Carry On The Paperback Horror Tradition? 5 out of 5 Ill-Fated Killer Bear Movies.

Thoughts: Tons of fun. Essentially a slasher movie with a giant bear, except the teenagers here are more realistic than those in any slasher flick. I like this story a lot. . . except for the last page or so. I'll be vague to avoid spoilers, but I think the deus ex machina that comes in at the end isn't set up well enough. I think there's a way to easily set this up by leaning a little harder into a certain character's backstory, and playing up some parts of their background that are already hinting at things. Without that, the end feels more arbitrary than satisfying.  

A Devil We Used to Know by Johnny Compton

Synopsis: The changing fortunes of a monster that lures people to their doom. 

Does It Carry On The Paperback Horror Tradition? 4 out of 5 Very Fierce Rabbits. It expands and builds on what's come before without over revisionism. It's similar to the Malfi and Pelayo stories that way.

Thoughts: Just a good story. Monsters' eye view stuff can be groundbreaking or it can be sort of tiresome revisionism. This isn't' either of those, but it's closer to the former. Compton has a good story from an interesting point of view. I particularly like the ending, which reminds me a little of the horror celebrations found in something like Octoberland. I don't just see this as a single monster preparing for a new feasting season--this story feels like the monster that is classic trash horror getting ready to engage a secretly willing audience for the first time in decades. Hell yeah. Let's do this!

Irish Eyes by Brigett Nelson

Synopsis: A man has his life ruined by a very sexy succubus. 

Does It Carry On The Paperback Horror Tradition? 3 out of 5 Gratuitous Sex Scenes. The smut is very in keeping with the great pulp horror tradition, and this could have easily slipped inside a later volume of the Hot Blood series.

Thoughts: Incubi/Succubi stories are fun because you get to combine the fun of outrageously sexy set pieces with vampire horror and, as an option, some canned commentary on male/female relationships. And this delivers the naughty goods. It doesn't do much more than that, but "trash, competently executed" is a valid calling in itself. Nothing very new here, but for no frills titillation and a little bit of shock, it works. This is a paperback horror tribute anthology, after all.  

They Look Back by Candace Nola

Synopsis: The grandparents are gone, but the horde of creepy dolls lives on. 

Does It Carry On The Paperback Horror Tradition? 5 out of 5 Scary Dolls. Creepy dolls were a mainstay of old horror books and their cover art, so yes. Very much in the good old tradition.

Thoughts: A solid story. There isn't very much that's new here, but it's hard to go wrong with creepy dolls. And Nola adds in another element (won't say what) that places this firmly in the paperback horror camp. High floor, low ceiling, but a lower basement and it's stocked with creepy dolls and sundry nasties. Good stuff.

Blood of My Blood by Christa Carmen

Synopsis: Addie Aldrich's wedding takes a gory turn when her groom and his friends discover the source of the Aldrich family's wealth.

Does It Carry On The Paperback Horror Tradition?  2 out of 5 Stepback Covers. We have some vampire and gothic elements, and a good deal of gore. 

Thoughts: Carmen takes the notion of Alan Ryan's classic story "Baby's Blood" and runs with it, imagining a billion-dollar industry based on blood bottling and distribution. It's a great idea, and feels like something you might have seen in Under the Fang (although Carmen is more coy about whether there's actual vampirism involved--I don't think there is). There's also fun elements of Ready or Not here.

All that said, the story just doesn't quite click for me. I like all of the elements, but it doesn't do it for me. Maybe it's personal preference? I'm not sure. Still, there's nothing wrong with the story--and the fact that I think a story this well=written and clever is only "okay" speaks more to the high floor of the anthology. I think of stories like this and the Nola story before it as "glue stories": They're the rank and file stories in an anthology that are competent and satisfactory but don't necessarily stick in the mind. However, they contribute to the overall quality of the book, and some people will find that they enjoy them more than others (at which point those stories can become subjective high-scorers). 

The Keeper of Taswomet by Errick Nunnally

Synopsis: An animal control officer and a cop search for something that butchered a couple and took their son. 

Does It Carry On The Paperback Horror Tradition? 5 out of 5 Giant Praying Mantises!! Classic creature feature mayhem, we love to see it. 

Thoughts: I have mixed thoughts about this one. In terms of the good column: This is a good old fashioned creature feature that's well written and has a helluva monster. Nunnally is deft at writing action sequences (the bulk of the story) and his character work is good. But...it leaves me a little cold. What's the problem?

Well, I think some of it has to do with writing in a series. This is (I'm afraid) the first of Errick's stories I've read, so I can't say whether or not Nora is a recurring character.  There's a lot of evidence that she is, though--references to a previous case pursuing genetically modified dogs chewing their way through Roxbury and Dorchester, and some of the Boston cops she worked with then. That's cool and all, but we're not in that story, we're in this one. I understand that you need to keep enough of a throughline for stories in a series (or if you're trying to set up a new character), but I feel like there's maybe a little too much of it here. 

It's no coincidence that the parts of her character I think are the most interesting are the ones that stand alone: For example, Nora feels naked without her field pack, even though the gear within isn't helpful for the situation. Later on, she goes out of her way to pick up the relatively useless equipment just so she feels I get that. I can imagine that. Who doesn't love having their tools even if they can't do anything? That's the stuff I'm interested in. 

This all sounds maybe more critical than I mean it to be because the core of this story is the sort of monster mash that I was expecting going into this book and that I'm getting here. And it is good. But I feel like there's some obligatory "connective tissue" for a possible recurring character here that interferes. 

The Last Call of the Cicada by Gwendolyn Kiste

Synopsis: The 17-year cicadas come to town, to the dismay of all but three residents.

Does It Carry On The Paperback Horror Tradition? 4 out of 5 Over-Enthusiastic Stephen King Cover Blurbs. Yes! we have a classic paperback nasty set-up (infestation of creepy crawlies), with additional elements of Shirley Jackson (although they're more focused and effective here than in Yardley's story).

Thoughts: Here's a phrase you'll hear a bunch on this blog when it comes to people who are active in the horror field today: "I've heard of so and so, but don't know if I've actually read anything by them." That was the case with me for Kiste, until today. This absolutely won't be the last of her work I read, though. 

I liked this story a lot. Kiste throws a wrinkle on the 'animal attack' theme that was so popular in the wake of The Rats and Jaws: Instead of focusing on the insect mayhem, we get indirect looks at it through the lens of our outcasts. This sounds like it could be disappointing--wasn't the appeal of those old books that they cut to the chase and served up endless amounts of animal carnage?

However, the oblique view at the usual goings-on makes this story stand out from stuff like Devil's Coach-Horse or Slugs or Abomination. That's a great subgenre, and I'll read every one of those sorts of books I can acquire, but they are a one-trick pony. There's something different and new here, that respects the appeal of the old while bringing something fresh.

Mightier than Bullets by Laurel Hightower

Synopsis: An elementary school class responds to a school shooter with a weapon of its own.

Does It Carry On The Paperback Horror Tradition? 3 out of 5 Copies of the Same John Saul Book Making Up A Used Bookstore's Anemic 'Horror' Section. More or less, yeah. The creepy kids and psychic powers are in keeping with that era. And, had school violence been mor prevalent during the horror boom, I'm sure we would have seen plenty of stories dealing with the same issue (mostly less tastefully). Can you imagine William Johnstone incorporating school shootings into his sleazy satanic panic books?

Thoughts: I mostly like this one. I think Hightower does an excellent job for the most part of addressing a hot-button topical issue (school shootings) in a way that's tasteful but doesn't pull punches. I also very much like the central idea--"drawings are reality and protect a kid from bad stuff" isn't a new idea. It's one of the segments in the still underrated Tales from the Hood, and it crops up in Michael Marshall Smith's great "The Man Who Drew Cats." Overall, I think this is a good story.

I do have one big problem with it, though. Hightower clearly has strong feelings about school violence and, well, that's about as good an issue to have strong feelings about as has or ever will be. But there's a point in the story where the teacher stalls for time by insulting the shooter's masculinity, and they have an exchange of crude insults, and it rings exceedingly false to me. I get it: Hightower wants (through the proxy of the teacher character) to assail the pieces of shit who become the arbiter of death based on the gun they clutch in their hands. No argument here. But, the way it's framed comes off as an artificial piece of catharsis that is less true to reality than almost anything else in the story. I get why Hightower put it in there. I do. But it doesn't work for the story.

Loud and Clear by Max Booth, III

Synopsis: In the aftermath of a drunken row with her sister, a woman uncovers a relic, and a repressed memory, from her youth.

Does It Carry On The Paperback Horror Tradition? 2.5 out of 5 Hologram Book Covers: There's strong '80s vibes to the 'joke gone wrong' set up as well as the "evil inanimate object popping up again." 

Thoughts: This is a story I liked a lot more in the reading than I do in the having read. There are two strong elements here: The first is Booth's strong sense of character. Our main character is well drawn--sympathetic but stupid. In other words, human. The second are the King-esque "horror in a mundane object" themes. 

However, I don't dig the ending. Our main character is a piece of crap (I know I said she was sympathetic, but you can be sympathetic and still unlikable) and I don't really care if she reconciles with her sister or not. I'm much more interested in her comeuppance from the dead guy from the lake. Booth is yadda yaddaing the interesting part--horror from the grave--in favor of "family trauma." Once again, the floor on the story is high, but in this case, the ceiling is lower than it should have been. 

But, this is the hard thing about grading on a curve--you wind up being harder on otherwise good stories than you'd like. Because this is fundamentally a good story, and makes me want to read more of Booth's stuff. 

Better by You, Better than Me by Rebecca Rowland

Synopsis: A teacher deals with the suicide of his girlfriend after they break up.

Does It Carry On The Paperback Horror Tradition? 1 out of 5 PMRC "Tipper Stickers". The Judas Priest backward masking reference gives us a little bit of '80s flavor, but this doesn't play out like a paperback nasty.

Thoughts: This was one of the first ones I went to because I figured it would have some Judas Priest content. I was right about that, but I don't love it.

Rowland's writing is strong, and the twist is well executed. However, I just don't get the point of the story. I've reread it several times, on the (often well-justified) theory that my mind is the missing link, but I don't think so in this case. I think there's something key missing that keeps this story from going to the next level. 

A Nightmare on Elm Lane by Richard Chizmar

Synopsis: A kid's summer vacation gets sidetracked when his dad's DIY project reveals buried remains.

Does It Carry On The Paperback Horror Tradition? 3 out of 5 Insane Paperback Covers That Get a Peter Straub Title Wrong. The "kids on bikes" vibe was never not nostalgic, but it gave us some solid paperback horror touchstones: *It*, one-quarter of Different Seasons, Boy's Life, and Summer of Night (and there are probably others). One important difference is that exciting things actually happened in those stories.

Thoughts: The weakest story in the book, although even that bespeaks a high floor for this collection. The picture of childhood Chizmar paints here is convincing and engaging, and in keeping with the sort of story any horror kid could imagine growing up with. However, nothing happens until the final page, sort of, at which point there starts to be some nastiness, but it's too little, too late. This story has all the parts of a story that aren't interesting and few of those that are. Chapman's story covers similar ground and eats this for lunch (before heading out on its bike to hang out with friends). 

The Visitor by Philip Fracassi

Synopsis: Father Jonathan is the diocesan 'go-to' guy when certain...irregularities occur. Tonight, that means a house call to some parishioners who claim they're being plagued by an evil spirit.

Does It Carry On The Paperback Horror Tradition? 5 out of 5 Killer Crabs. Exorcists helped kick-start the horror boom back in the day, and it's only proper to have one represented here. The style and the gore here also have the matter of fact character of a good paperback nasty.

Thoughts: Some of the stories in here play around with paperback horror tropes or comment on them, which is good, but it's nice to have stories that are straightforward executions of classic premises.  This is a story that could have slotted into any number of classic horror paperbacks, except it's better written than most of them. There's very little set-up--the story launches us right into the creepy house along with the priest, and everything is immediately 'wrong'. This is tense and scary in a way I don't usually experience when I read horror and has a disturbing payoff. This one is like Hinkle's: I wish I could read the whole book this feels like a chapter from.

Lips Like a Scythe by Steve Van Samson

Synopsis: A scientific experiment gone wrong unleashes a new dangerous insect on a national forest. 

Does It Carry On The Paperback Horror Tradition? 5 out of 5 James Herbert-ish Well Observed Character Vignettes About Doomed Pieces of Expendable Meat. I love these characters; they're vivid and funny enough to make you care about them. 

Thoughts: This is the best of the 'straightforward' creature feature tales in the book, matching exciting creature action with well-observed and funny character work. Every element of the story is satisfying. I feel like this story deserves more writing from me because it's so damn good, but why gild the lily? This is one of the better stories in a good book of fun horror stories. Go buy the book and read this story (and the rest of them too!). 

White Pages by Clay McLeod Chapman

Synopsis: Sean and Connor love making prank calls, the longer and more elaborate the better. But now they face permanent disconnection.

Does It Carry On The Paperback Horror Tradition? 3 out of 5 Point Horror Paperbacks Selling For Exorbitant eBay Prices. The YA horror market also swelled in the late 80s through the 90s, as RL Stine and Christopher Pike and others pumped out (usually) tamer versions of the slasher flicks that were scaring kids at slumber parties. This story fits nicely into that niche.

Thoughts: This is a fun, sort of Laymon-ish story about youthful hijinks gone wrong. This renders the Chizmar story entirely irrelevant (since it's the same story except something actually happens), and it's fun in its own right. This is something of a slight story but it's a solid ending to the book (and I dig the black pages/white pages framing device).   

---

Conclusions: This book is a lot of fun; it's a good themed anthology but with the theme vague enough to support a lot of different approaches. One thing I wish Deady & co. might do in the future (although it's not in Vol. 2 either) is encourage the authors to provide a little blurb about what aspect of classic paperback horror inspired them. In some cases it's obvious, but it would be fun to hear what this diverse and talented set of writers think about the trashy patrimony they (and we) have inherited from Zebra, Pinnacle, Leisure, NEL, and the other paperback horror greats. 

Come back next week for The Rack II!!!