John Linwood Grant writes occult detective and dark fantasy stories, in between running his beloved lurchers and baking far too many kinds of bread. Apart from that, he enjoys growing unusual fruit and reading rejection slips. He is six foot tall, ageing at an alarming rate, and has his own beard.
We do book reviews, and we don’t. We’re interested in undercurrents, themes and interconnections, though we do appreciate good prose in its own right. So it’s easy enough to state that the debut collection by Laura Mauro, Sing Your Sadness Deep (Undertow), is a work of fine and accomplished writing, as near to flawless in its execution as you might wish for. Her language is evocative but clear; her characterisation is compelling. And…
We almost want to stop there, not because we have some wormy criticism to add – this is simply an excellent collection- but because it’s often more difficult to put down quite what captures the imagination, and explain why some stories reverberate. Also, Laura Mauro is young, clever and interesting, qualities which really annoy crumpled old writers like greydog. But we shall be brave…
SING YOUR SADNESS DEEP
Laura Mauro, Undertow Press 2019
customer notice: colour of hair may vary
There is a mythic quality to many of the tales included here. It’s a quality you see in a number of contemporary female writers – Priya Sharma and Gwendolyn Kiste immediately spring to mind, along with others – and suggests the creation of new myths which ought to be old. Themes which you feel are timeless, applied to, and acted out by, genuine people rather than vaguely sketched archetypes.
Being mythic, sacrifice and transformation therefore abound in Laura Mauro’s stories. Characters make sacrifices for love, for family (‘Obsidian’) and also for understanding (‘Letters from Elodie’). ‘Obsidian’ could easily be a genuine Finnish or Scandinavian folk story, painted afresh to apply to real life. People do things which are unwise; they do things which have an inevitability about them. The sacrifice of a former existence or of a degree of security in favour of an unknown future; the willingness to embrace change.
Transformation is everywhere – any minute you expect a troubled young woman to mutate into a huge swan and soar into the night, free of natural restraints at last. Possibly a tattooed, risk-taking swan, though, not a self-satisfied princess. Matters of the body corporeal are not stinted on. From ‘Sundogs’ to ‘Strange as Angels’, physical change is as important as any psychological shift, and the two interact on a number of levels. And the transformative aspects of medical syndromes and illnesses are also represented in a number of stories – birth conditions, disease, and leukaemia (‘In the Marrow’) amongst them. Mauro ‘gets’ bodies.
Our other reflection, which sometimes seems to get skipped in reviews, is about the reader. Not ‘Is the collection inventive?’ or ‘Has it literary merit?’ (that’s a Yes to both in this case), but ‘Is it basically a good read?’ Contemporary weird fiction (which we love, by the way) can occasionally be – how shall we put it? – liminal, multi-layered and slightly incomprehensible. Stuff happens, and it happens intriguingly, even amazingly, but you may have to suspend any yearning for clarity. We often look at a new collection and ask – if the reader isn’t already an enthusiast of the field, will they get anything out of it?
This particular collection is absolutely a good read. That’s not only down to Mauro’s evident command of her craft, but also down to her presentation of stories which hold up in different ways. ‘Looking for Laika’, for example, is a tale for anyone. It’s sad, moving – and accessible. ‘When Charlie Sleeps’ is what we might call weird horror – not graphic but strange and satisfying; ‘In the Marrow’ harks back to a particular folk belief, but executed almost perfectly; reality, myth and delusion are beautifully entwined until you can’t be absolutely sure – but it still has a ‘completeness’ about it. ‘The Grey Men’ explores an utterly weird occurrence, but acts as both a strong story and a question about ourselves; ‘The Looking Glass Girl’ is – well, it’s a ghost story.
Laura Mauro is also an internationalist – an added bonus is the wide range of settings, and the varying feel of tales in different geographies, from the States to Siberia.
Just to end on a contrary note, we rather liked ‘Red Rabbit’, which doesn’t quite end, doesn’t necessarily make any sense, but where the ride for the reader is worth it, even if the ride for the characters involved is rather less satisfying. So we’re probably not consistent – weird fiction does that to you – and you can ignore us.
Except that we think you should pick up a copy of Sing Your Sadness Deep by Laura Mauro. Don’t ignore that bit.
And… something different again. Do keep up – if it’s odd, we like it. Today, best beloved, we have the writers Fritz Leiber, Joe Lansdale and Philip José Farmer, doyens of speculative and dark fiction, but probably not as you know them. For we venture, surprisingly, into the world of Tarzan novels, with editor Dave Brzeski – beating his chest manfully – as our guide…
Tarzan Novels after Edgar Rice Burroughs
by Dave Brzeski
Like so many people, Tarzan was my introduction to the work of Edgar Rice Burroughs. I was lucky enough to be given a small collection of hardcovers that belonged to my uncle when he was a child, and this included a copy of Tarzan of the Apes. I’d seen several of the films by then and, don’t get me wrong, I loved them, but the book was a revelation! From that point on, I devoured everything ERB that I could lay my hands on.
In 1974 everything changed. I came across the UK paperback edition of Tarzan Alive by Philip José Farmer. Not only did this book cost me a fortune, as I tracked down the appearances of all those cool characters in the Wold Newton family, but it was a new Tarzan book, albeit not by Edgar Rice Burroughs. I should mention here that I had actually picked up several of the unauthorised Tarzan novels by Barton Werper, but let’s not pull punches – these were utter crap!
Anyway, I digress… My thirst for more Tarzan had been rekindled—and it never really went away.
Fast forward to 2018 and I realised that there’s suddenly a lot more Tarzan material out there. I already had plans to review the new edition of Philip José Farmer’s Tarzan and the Dark Heart of Time, but I had this great idea—What if I wrote an overview of all the worthwhile post ERB Tarzan novels?
A year later reality set in. If I actually held back until I’d read all of the books, it was going to take years before the overview was finished—not to mention the possibility of new publications appearing as I worked on it between other projects. Two things became clear to me…
1) There was no way I would ever get around to everything.
2) The only practical approach would be a series of articles/reviews.
So, here is Part One, covering the three earliest, important non ERB Tarzan novels. The next part, whenever I find the time to read them, will focus on the Tarzan novels of Will Murray, who has already produced another book since I came up with this plan of action.
LIEBER, LANSDALE AND FARMER DO TARZAN
1) Tarzan and the Valley of Gold
Author: Fritz Leiber
Publisher: Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. & Gollancz/SF Gateway
I admit to some trepidation in approaching this book. Not because I had any concerns about the skills of the author, far from it, but simply due to the fact that it’s a film novelization. I decided it might be best to view the film first, better to see how and where Leiber might have fleshed the story out.
Thankfully, Sy Weintraub decided to go back to Burroughs’ original concept for the films he produced, which meant Tarzan no longer spoke pidgin English. In fact Weintraub made quite a big thing of this approach, stating in an interview for The Sunday Times in 1965 that:
“Tarzan is no longer the monosyllabic ape-man but the embodiment of culture, suavity and style. He’s equally at home in a posh nightclub or the densest jungle.”
Tarzan and the Valley of Gold may well be one of the best of the many Tarzan movies, but it’s still far from perfect. For one thing it’s only 90 minutes or so long and the setting of modern day Mexico wasn’t all that convincing. It transpires that the original treatment had it set in Brazilian Amazonia, which works much better, and that’s the setting Leiber uses. Leiber also restores several scenes from Clair Huffaker’s original script that were not used in the film version.
The novel, first published in 1966, opens with Tarzan taking part in a bullfight of all things, in Central Mexico. Naturally, Tarzan doesn’t approve of such things and finds a way to create a relatively bloodless display. This is, in fact, one of the weaker parts of the book, as it elevates Tarzan’s ability to communicate with animals to an almost Dr Doolittle level.
It will be no surprise to anyone that the book really starts to gain momentum as soon as Tarzan sets off into the Amazonian jungle in pursuit of the villains. From that point it just keeps getting better and better.
I have no way of knowing exactly how the late Fritz Leiber approached the job, but I can easily imagine him watching the movie over and over, along with reading the original script treatment, making copious notes on what did and didn’t work. Frankly, he did an astonishing job of it. I was recently reliably informed that Philip José Farmer considered this to be one of the best Tarzan novels he ever read. I can’t disagree with that appraisal.
I list two publishers above. I actually read the SF Gateway Kindle edition of the novel (not available in the USA), but when I heard that Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. were about to issue the first ever hardcover edition, I had to acquire a copy. The fabulous cover by Richard Hescox, and the internal black and white illustrations by Douglas Klauba, alone made it worth the cost.
Unusually for a prose story, this one was originally published by Dark Horse in 1995 in a four issue mini-series—Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan: The Lost Adventure—along with reprints of some John Carter comic strips. Having proven to be a good seller, this was quickly followed by a hardcover book version without the comic strips. A Ballantine Books paperback edition (with a truly horrible cover in my opinion) was also published in 1997.
Again, I felt some trepidation in reading this book, This time it was because I’d gleaned some hints online that it wasn’t particularly well thought of. I later was informed that Lansdale had to complete the novel – from the unfinished eighty-three page typescript that had been discovered in ERB’s safe after he died – under severe time constraints, and this may be one reason that it wasn’t as good as it could have been. Being a great fan of Lansdale’s work, I really didn’t relish being forced to be less than complimentary.
I needn’t have worried at all. In fact I really enjoyed it. It has a lost city, evil men, a few good people, Jal-Bal-Ja the lion, Nkima the monkey, a particularly nasty monster—in fact everything you could really ask of a Tarzan novel. My only complaint is that it leaves Tarzan in a tricky situation awaiting a sequel.
I later found out that the open ending was very likely at the request of the publisher, Dark Horse, as they had plans for more stories. Oddly, the 1996 Dark Horse comics miniseries, Tarzan vs Predator at the Earth’s Core refers to the ending of Tarzan: The Lost Adventure, stating that Tarzan’s escape route was blocked, so he had no choice but to follow the underground caves which may have eventually led to Pelucidar. But the extremes of heat and cold forced him to turn back, so now he was back with Jane at the start of this series. Unless I managed to miss a bridging story between the two somewhere, this seems a bit of a cop-out on the part of Dark Horse to say the least.
It’s a shame if it is true that Lansdale wasn’t given enough time to complete the book to his own satisfaction, let alone anyone else’s.
The hardback is odd, in that it’s only guillotined on the top and bottom edges, leaving the outside edge very rough—like a pulp magazine—which was possibly the point. The beautiful cover painting is by Dean Williams and the book is profusely illustrated by Studley O. Burroughs, Gary Gianni. Michael Kaluta. Charles Vess and Thomas Yeates.
This overview is strictly limited to Tarzan novels. However, I could not resist checking out Joe Lansdale’s short story in Worlds of Edgar Rice Burroughs (Baen 2013) edited by Mike Resnick and Robert T. Garcia.
I admit that this was partly because I’d wondered if it might be a sequel of sorts to Tarzan: The Lost Adventure, but sadly not. However, ‘Tarzan and the Land That Time Forgot’ is an excellent story, well worth seeking out. It is also just one of three Tarzan tales included in that collection.
It was, in fact, the reprinting of this particular book that initially sparked my interest in writing a feature on post-ERB Tarzan novels.
Tarzan and the Dark Heart of Time was originally published as The Dark Heart of Time: A Tarzan Novel by Del Rey/Ballantine in 1999. Apart from a second printing a few months later, that was the only English Language version until this 2018 Meteor House edition.
Along with a gorgeous cover and a couple of internal black and white illustrations by noted artist, Mark Wheatley, this edition also adds a new foreword by Robert R. Barrett and editor’s introduction by Win Scott Eckert.
Robert R. Barrett tells us the history of how the book came to be and how he, himself was involved in the process. Interestingly, he tells of one scene the editor at ERB Inc. wasn’t keen on “in which Tarzan was captured and bound and used a near-unbelievable method of escape.” With the support of Danton Burroughs, Barrett and Farmer managed to keep the scene. I quoted his actual words above, because in this particular case, I actually agree with that editor that it does stretch credibility a bit further than even “near unbelievable” would cover.
Win Scott Eckert, in his Editor’s Introduction, gives us much more detail on how and where this book fits in with the accepted Tarzan chronology. That task is somewhat hampered by the fact that discrepancies in ERB’s own writing result in a seemingly insurmountable disagreement between ERB scholars as to Tarzan’s birth date.
Unlike the Joe Lansdale book, this one is an inserted novel, rather than a completion of an unfinished ERB manuscript. As such I would definitely recommend reading it between the two ERB novels it bridges. If anything, the fact that it wasn’t directly based on notes for a never finished Burroughs work allowed Farmer more freedom to inject more of his own personality and style into the book than he might otherwise have done. Indeed, while remaining true to ERB’s character, it’s very much a Philip José Farmer book. This is absolutely no bad thing in my opinion.
Tarzan discovered that Jane is still alive at the end of Tarzan The Untamed and is en route to find her, which he does in Tarzan the Terrible. The events of this story (apart from the final chapter) occur between those two ERB novels. In Tarzan The Untamed, Tarzan comes across an ancient map laying by the body of a sixteenth century Spanish soldier. He puts the map in the bottom of his quiver, to peruse at a later date, but for now he has a wife to find. One has to assume that Burroughs intended to use this map as the springboard for another novel at some point, but he never did, which was a gift for Farmer, as no one was ever better than he at crafting stories to fit a few flimsy unresolved details in a character’s narrative.
One of the other more obvious strengths in Farmer’s writing of the Ape Man is the pragmatic approach Tarzan takes concerning death in the jungle. Tarzan kills to eat; he eats creatures that would disgust civilised people and he eats them raw. He may feel some small regret at the death of another human, or animal, but he doesn’t feel any guilt about it. If it would inconvenience him, or his mission to prevent it, he won’t bother.
The book is currently available in hardcover and paperback from Meteor House and other booksellers. A Kindle edition was recently made available from Amazon.
The really cool thing is that Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. announced at the ERB panel at San Diego Comic-Con on July 19, 2019 that certain previously published authorized Burroughs novels by other writers—specifically Philip José Farmer’s Tarzan and the Dark Heart of Time and Fritz Leiber’s Tarzan and the Valley of Gold—are considered official canonical novels in terms of the Edgar Rice Burroughs Universe™ (ERBU), and granted Meteor House permission to add the official logo to the current hardcover and future paperback printings of this book.
Now if only they could come to an arrangement with Dark Horse and let Joe Lansdale write the Tarzan novel he might have written, had he been given sufficient time and freedom to do so.
A small heap of inter-connected detective trivia today, dear listener. We offer the full text of a classic tale of the supernatural related to the Whitechapel murders of 1888, by period author Hume Nisbet (if you just want to read the story, you can always skip down); a note on the literary roots of Sherlock Holmes, via the world’s best-selling crime novel, by Fergus Hume – and an ill-fated Victorian wheelbarrow. Two and a half Humes for the price of one.
Many have discussed the inspiration for Arthur Conan Doyle’s consulting detective – both real life characters who might have inspired Doyle, and Holmes’s fictional antecedents. We shall not confuse you with reams of references – others with far better credentials and more time have done so elsewhere. But we do enjoy one particular line of enquiry, which relates to Doyle’s book A Study in Scarlet (1887), where Watson mentions two fictional detectives, and has them soundly dismissed by Holmes:
“It is simple enough as you explain it,” I said, smiling. “You remind me of Edgar Allen Poe’s Dupin. I had no idea that such individuals did exist outside of stories.”
Sherlock Holmes rose and lit his pipe. “No doubt you think that you are complimenting me in comparing me to Dupin,” he observed. “Now, in my opinion, Dupin was a very inferior fellow. That trick of his of breaking in on his friends’ thoughts with an apropos remark after a quarter of an hour’s silence is really very showy and superficial. He had some analytical genius, no doubt; but he was by no means such a phenomenon as Poe appeared to imagine.”
“Have you read Gaboriau’s works?” I asked. “Does Lecoq come up to your idea of a detective?”
Sherlock Holmes sniffed sardonically. “Lecoq was a miserable bungler,” he said, in an angry voice; “he had only one thing to recommend him, and that was his energy. That book made me positively ill. The question was how to identify an unknown prisoner. I could have done it in twenty-four hours. Lecoq took six months or so. It might be made a text-book for detectives to teach them what to avoid.”
I felt rather indignant at having two characters whom I had admired treated in this cavalier style. I walked over to the window, and stood looking out into the busy street. “This fellow may be very clever,” I said to myself, “but he is certainly very conceited.”
A number of listeners may know of Poe and Dupin, but how many know of Gaboriau and Lecoq. Read on…
Fergus Hume
fergus hume
Fond of such Victorian trivia trails, we were browsing the works of Fergus Hume (1859-1932) the other day, and were reminded again of Gaboriau. Ferguson Wright Hume was an Englishman whose family emigrated to Australasia in 1862, and who later became a hugely prolific author. In his early days, having failed to find a publisher, he self-published his detective novel The Mystery of a Hansom Cab in 1886 – the year before A Study in Scarlet was published.
It was a resounding success, first in Australia, then in Britain and the United States – outselling A Study in Scarlet, by the way. It is probably the only one of his many, many works which is still known reasonably well today. Most are utterly forgotten.
In the preface to The Mystery of a Hansom Cab, Hume wrote:
I enquired of a leading Melbourne bookseller what style of book he sold most of. He replied that the detective stories of Gaboriau had a large sale; and as, at this time, I had never even heard of this author, I bought all his works—eleven or thereabouts—and read them carefully. The style of these stories attracted me, and I determined to write a book of the same class; containing a mystery, a murder, and a description of low life in Melbourne. This was the origin of the “Cab.”
The French writer, Emile Gaboriau (1832-1873) wrote five novels which included his methodical detective Monsieur Lecoq (Mister Rooster), beginning with L’Affaire Lerouge (1866). Lecoq was also a master of disguise, an area in which Holmes prided himself. In fact, Conan Doyle admitted being influenced, and said of the French writer:
‘Gaboriau had rather attracted me by the neat dovetailing of his plots, and Poe’s masterful detective, M. Dupin, had from boyhood been one of my heroes. But could I bring an addition of my own?’
Gaboriau has been described as the first writer to invent a true procedural detective, a man making careful observation of the crime scene and then attempting logical deductions from his reading of the scene.
monsieur lecoq
Anyway, back in Australia, such was the impact made by The Mystery of a Hansom Cab that it was even parodied, particularly in a novel written by unknown hand in 1888 – The Mystery of a Wheelbarrow, or Gaboriau Gaborooed, an Idealistic Story of a Great and Rising Colony, by ‘W. Humer Ferguson’.
“On the —th day of 18 —(anno domini one thousand eight hundred and a dash), at the hour of twenty minutes to two o’clock in the morning (our contemporaries will, doubtless, be less precise in their chronology), a wheel-barrow was being propelled along Grey Street, St. Kilda, by a biped in a condition of ‘modified sobriety.’ The vehicle was stopped at the police station, where the propellor solicited the favour of being provided with a ‘drop o’ Scosh ‘ot.’ This being politely but firmly refused him, the man cursorily observed that ‘corpses wasn’t particular pleasant articles to (hic) cart about in an adjectived wheel-barrer,’ and requested the pleasure of an introduction to the inspector.
The vehicle in question stands in, naturally, for the hansom cab in Fergus Hume’s original story:
Several hours were pleasantly whiled away in the discussion of the engrossing subject, but Fitzdoodle O’Brier sat moodily cracking nuts, seemingly bent on finding the whole mystery in a nut-shell. The veracious Leo now fetched from the backyard the wheel-barrow kept for the convenience of over-festive habitués of the “Kilted Opossum.”
NB. It’s also tempting to think that the Irish poet and suspect in the book, Fitzdoodle O’Brier, bears some relationship to the widely-published Irish-American author and playwright Fitz James O’Brien (1826-1862), who was noted for his weird and speculative stories.
You can have a look at the parody here – it has its amusing moments:
There’s a lot more that could be said about Fergus Hume – he was homosexual, which caused him problems – and his writing, such his novel A Son of Perdition (1912), dedicated to the theosophist Annie Besant. This one is described as an occult romance! However, space forbids for the moment. A number of Hume’s books can be found free on-line, should you wish to pursue him.
We are not done with Humes and Australias, however, because there is another writer worth noting, and one who was also on our radar for their occult or supernatural works…
The Second Hume
(James) Hume Nisbet (1849-1923) was a Scot who similarly left for Australasia, though he was more of a wanderer, and returned to Britain for long periods. In the ghostly tales field, he may be best known for his outback story ‘The Haunted Station.’ Nisbet was familiar with Melbourne, and was touring Australia and New Guinea in the year in which The Mystery of a Hansom Cab was published. Alas we do not know if the two Humes ever met.
Returning to Britain in financial difficulties, he proceed to write a number of novels, adding collections of ghost stories such as The Haunted Station (1894). The piece which follows, ‘The Demon Spell’ is from that book, and was therefore written within five or so years of the Autumn of Terror, when the killer some call Jack the Ripper, murdered and mutilated street-working women in London’s Whitechapel.
‘The Demon Spell’ is thus an early example of fiction reflecting on the events of autumn 1888, and seeking a less mundane explanation than a human murderer. Nisbet employs the same bloody crime and type of victim, the name Polly (reminiscent of ‘Polly’ Nichols), and the same location, Whitechapel. He also features the use of a medium through which the ‘Ripper’ victim speaks – there were a number of claimed events like this at the time.
It’s a strange story, what you might call early weird fiction rather than simple horror, with an ambiguous resolution, but well worth a read.
It was about the time when spiritualism was all the craze in England, and no party was reckoned complete without a spirit-rapping séance being included amongst the other entertainments. One night I had been invited to the house of a friend, who was a great believer in the manifestations from the unseen world, and who had asked for my special edification a well–known trance medium. ‘A pretty as well as heaven-gifted girl, whom you will be sure to like, I know’ he said as he asked me.
I did not believe in the return of spirits, yet, thinking to be amused, consented to attend at the hour appointed. At that time I had just returned from a long sojourn abroad, and was in a very delicate state of health, easily impressed by outward influences, and nervous to a most extraordinary extent.
To the hour appointed I found myself at my friend’s house, and was then introduced to the sitters who had assembled to witness the phenomena. Some were strangers like myself to the rules of the table, others who were adepts took their places at once in the order to which they had in former meetings attended. The trance medium had not yet arrived, and while waiting upon her coming we sat down and opened the seance with a hymn.
We had just furnished(sic) the second verse when the door opened and the medium glided in, and took her place on a vacant set by my side, joining in with the others in the last verse, after which we all sat motionless with our hands resting upon the table, waiting upon the first manifestation from the unseen world.
Now, although I thought all this performance very ridiculous, there was something in the silence and the dim light, for the gas had been turned low down, and the room seemed filled with shadows; something about the fragile figure at my side, with her drooping head, which thrilled me with a curious sense of fear and icy horror such as I had never felt before.
I am not by nature imaginative or inclined to superstition, but, from the moment that young girl had entered the room, I felt as if a hand had been laid upon my heart, a cold iron hand, that was compressing it, and causing it to stop throbbing. My sense of hearing also had grown more acute and sensitive, so that the beating of the watch in my vest pocket sounded like the thumping of a quartz-crushing machine, and the measured breathing of those about me as loud and nerve disturbing as the snorting of a steam engine. Only when I turned to look upon the trance medium did I become soothed; then it seemed as if a cold-air wave had passed through my brain, subduing, for the time-being, those awful sounds.
‘She is possessed,’ whispered my host on the other side of me. ‘Wait, and she will speak presently, and tell us whom we have got beside us.’ As we sat and waited the table moved several times under our hands, while knockings at intervals took place in the table and all round the room, a most weird and blood-curdling, yet ridiculous performance, which made me feel half inclined to run out with fear, and half inclined to sit still and laugh; on the whole, I think, however, that horror had the more complete possession of me.
Presently she raised her head and laid her hand upon mine, beginning to speak in a strange monotonous, far away voice, ‘This is my first visit since I passed from earth-life, and you have called me here.’ I shivered as her hand touched mine, but had not strength to withdraw it from her light, soft grasp. ‘I am what you would call a lost soul; that is, I am in the lowest sphere. Last week I was in the body, but met my death down Whitechapel way. I was what you call an unfortunate, aye, unfortunate enough. Shall I tell you how it happened?’
The medium’s eyes were closed, and whether it was my distorted imagination or not, she appeared to have grown older and decidedly debauched-looking since she sat down, or rather as if a light, filmy mask of degrading and soddened vice had replaced the former delicate features.
No one spoke, and the trance medium continued: ‘I had been out all that day and without any luck or food, so that I was dragging my wearied body along through the slush and mud for it had been wet all day, and I was drenched to the skin, and miserable, ah, ten thousand times more wretched than I am now, for the earth is a far worse hell for such as I than our hell here.
I had importuned several passers by as I went along that night, but none of them spoke to me, for work had been scarce all this winter, and I suppose I did not look so tempting as I have been; only once a man answered me, a dark-faced, middle-sized man, with a soft voice, and much better dressed than my usual companions.
‘He asked me where I was going, and then left me, putting a coin into my hand, for which I thanked him. Being just in time for the last public-house, I hurried up, but on going to the bar and looking at my hand, I found it to be a curious foreign coin, with outlandish figures on it, which the landlord would not take, so I went out again to the dark fog and rain without my drink after all.
‘There was no use going any further that night. I turned up the court where my lodgings were, intending to go home and get a sleep, since I could get no food, when I felt something touch me softly from behind like as if someone had caught hold of my shawl; then I stopped and turned about to see who it was.
‘I was alone, and with no one near me, nothing but fog and the half light from the court lamp. Yet I felt as if something had got hold of me, though I could not see what it was, and that it was gathering about me.
‘I tried to scream out, but could not, as this unseen grasp closed upon my throat and choked me, and then I fell down and for a moment forgot everything.
‘Next moment I woke up, outside my own poor mutilated body, and stood watching the fell work going on–as you see it now.’
Yes I saw it all as the medium ceased speaking, a mangled corpse lying on a muddy pavement, and a demoniac, dark, pock-marked face bending over it, with the lean claws outspread, and the dense fog instead of a body, like the half formed incarnation of muscles.
‘That is what did it, and you will know it again.’ she said, ‘I have come for you to find it.’
‘Is he an Englishman?’ I gasped, as the vision faded away and the room once more became definite.
‘It is neither man nor woman, but it lives as I do, it is with me now and may be with you to-night, still if you will have me instead of it, I can keep it back, only you must wish for me with all your might.’
The seance was now becoming too horrible, and by general consent our host turned up the gas, and then I saw for the first time the medium, now relieved from her evil possession, a beautiful girl of about nineteen, with I think the most glorious brown eyes I had ever before looked into.
‘Do you believe what you have been speaking about?’ I asked her as we were sitting talking together.
‘What was that?’
‘About the murdered woman.’
‘I don’t know anything at all. Only that I have been sitting at the table. I never know what my trances are.’ Was she speaking the truth? Her dark eyes looked truth, so that I could not doubt her. That night when I went to my lodgings I must confess that it was some time before I could make up my mind to go to bed. I was decidedly upset and nervous, and wished that I had never, gone to this spirit meeting, making a mental vow, as I threw off my clothes and hastily got into bed, that it was the last unholy gathering I would ever attend.
For the first time in my life I could not put out the gas, I felt as if the room was filled with ghosts, as if this pair of ghastly spectres, the murderer and his victim, had accompanied me home, and were at that moment disputing the possession of me, so instead, I pulled the bedclothes over my head, it being a cold night, and went that fashion off to sleep.
Twelve o’clock! and the anniversary of the day that Christ was born. Yes, I heard it striking from the street spire and counted the strokes, slowly tolled out, listening to the echoes from other steeples, after this one had ceased, as I lay awake in that gas-lit room, feeling as if I was not alone this Christmas morn. Thus, while I was trying to think what had made me wake so suddenly, I seemed to hear a far off echo cry ‘Come to me.’ At the same time the bedclothes were slowly pulled from the bed, and left in a confused mass on the floor.
‘Is that you, Polly?’ I cried, remembering the spirit seance, and the name by which the spirit had announced herself when she took possession. Three distinct knocks resounded on the bedpost at my ear, the signal for ‘Yes.’
‘Can you speak to me?’
‘Yes,’ an echo rather than a voice replied, while I felt my flesh creeping, yet strove to be brave. ‘Can I see you?’
‘No!’
‘Feel you?’ Instantly the feeling of a light cold hand touched my brow and passed over my face. ‘In God’s name what do you want?’
‘To save the girl I was in tonight. It is after her and will kill her if you do not come quickly.’
In an instant I was out of the bed, and tumbling my clothes on any way, horrified through it all, yet feeling as if Polly were helping me to dress. There was a Kandian dagger on my table which I had brought from Ceylon, an old dagger which I had bought for its antiquity and design, and this I snatched up as I left the room, with that light unseen hand leading me out of the house and along the deserted snow-covered streets. I did not know where the trance medium lived, but I followed where that light grasp led me through the wild, blinding snow-drift, round corners and through short cuts, with my head down and the flakes falling thickly about me, until at last I arrived at a silent square and in front of a house which by some instinct, I knew that I must enter.
Over by the other side of the street I saw a man standing looking up to a dimly-lighted window, but I could not see him very distinctly and I did not pay much attention to him at the time, but rushed instead up the front steps and into the house, that unseen hand still pulling me forward.
How that door opened, or if it did open I could not say, I only know that I got in, as we get into places in a dream, and up the inner stairs, I passed into a bedroom where the light was burning dimly. It was her bedroom, and she was struggling in the thug-like grasp of those same demon claws, and the rest of it drifting away to nothingness. I saw it all at a glance, her half-naked form, with the disarranged bedclothes, as the unformed demon of muscles clutched that delicate throat, and then I was at it like a fury with my Kandian dagger, slashing crossways at those cruel claws and that evil face, while blood streaks followed the course of my knife, making ugly stains, until at last it ceased struggling and disappeared like a horrid nightmare, as the half-strangled girl, now released from that fell grip, woke up the house with her screams, while from her releasing hand dropped a strange coin, which I took possession of.
Thus I left her, feeling that my work was done, going downstairs as I had come up, without impediment or even seemingly, in the slightest degree, attracting the attention of the other inmates of the house, who rushed in their nightdresses towards the bedroom from whence the screams were issuing.
Into the street again, with that coin in one hand and my dagger in the other I rushed, and then I remembered the man whom I had seen looking up at the window. Was he there still? Yes, but on the ground in a confused black mass amongst the white snow as if he had been struck down.
I went over to where he lay and looked at him. Was he dead? Yes. I turned him round and saw that his throat was gashed from ear to ear, and all over his face–the same dark, pallid, pock-marked evil face, and claw-like hands, I saw the dark slashes of my Kandian dagger, while the soft white snow around him was stained with crimson life pools, and as I looked I heard the clock strike one, while from the distance sounded the chant of the coming waits, then I turned and fled blindly into the darkness
It is a given, or it is axiomatic, or some such word, that greydogtales doesn’t follow rules well. So asking us for a review or to participate in a promotion is always a risk. Besides, weren’t the Axiomatics villains in Dr Who? We were listening to Jon Pertwee in The Navy Lark radio series only the other day, and… no, enough of that.
Today’s piece is about Alan M Clark and the relaunch of his novel AParliament of Crows. We shall now behave ourselves, because we said we’d take part in the blog tour for it. Django, put that sandwich down and stand to attention for the nice man…
A Parliament of Crows
First things almost first. We have read this book, and yes, we thoroughly enjoyed it. Although we know Mr Clark quite well, we wouldn’t have bothered to write the rest of this if we were just being polite to a friend. We would have stopped there, shoved in a purchase link, and then told tasteless jokes about H P Lovecraft or Dan Brown to fill in the rest of the space. Instead, we had stuff to say.
Oddly enough, when we finally put A Parliament of Crows down, the first thing that came to mind was an element of many Inspector Maigret stories (by Georges Simenon). You learn very quickly what the key issue is – the death (and likely murder) of a young woman in three inches of water, under the influence of laudanum. You may well know who did it, and the obvious motive. But like Maigret, although Alan Clark understands the formal aspects of the crime, he wants to know more. What possible set of experiences and mental states might have led to one or more of three ‘respectable’ sisters being involved in this tragedy – and a number of other dubious deaths? And also like Maigret, he burrows deep to satisfy himself – and us.
The book commences in the Edwardian era, with said three sisters, Southern survivors of the American Civil War but now resident in the North, alive and held in custody as a trial progresses. One sister is dutiful and determined; a second is somewhat of a loose cannon, angry and frustrated, whilst the third is letting herself starve to death in her cell. The relationship between these women is the core of the whole book. Although this is a novel, it is directly inspired by a genuine historical case – the three real-life Wardlaw sisters, and the fate of Ocey Snead, a direct relative.
from virginiamemory.com (see link later below)
Over a year after Ocey’s death, the El Paso Herald printed a long article on the details of the case. The story included a paragraph captioned “Truth Indeed Strange” which summed up how many must have felt about it: “The history of the famous ‘bath tub’ mystery bears out the old adage that ‘truth is stranger than fiction.’ No more mysterious story was ever revealed within the covers of a novel than what was brought to light by the press and authorities after the finding of Ocey Snead’s body in the bathtub of her home in East Orange, N. J., on November 29, 1909.”
Library of Virginia project
What follows in Clark’s novel is what you might expect if you are familiar with his series on the women killed by the Whitechapel Murderer in 1888. With great ability he delves deep into the lives and psyches of his partly-fictional three sisters, going back to their childhood experiences on the family estate, and then following them forward through the decades. He explores the bonds and frictions between the sisters with a deft hand, leaving you no doubt that you are observing three ‘genuine’ people, not tokens gathered to justify a story. If they are villains, they are conflicted ones, and if they are wicked, that wickedness stems from minds which are dedicated to survival – a dysfunctional family which seeks to function, despite the cost.
As the novel unfolds, each courtroom scene is matched by strands of personal history, skilfully woven together to provide some explanation of how they came to this sorry state. The whole matter is handled sympathetically but without maudlin sentiment, and demonstrates the author’s real talent for getting under the skin of his characters.
Should you think this sounds at all dry, be not deceived. Along the way you will encounter dreadful deeds of murder, fraud, betrayal, lust and… we won’t give it away. You’ll see. Even the passing mention of a single pistol ball, used in a duel long ago, leads to something quite bizarre – and unpleasantly dark. Just as bizarre is the way in which, at times, it is possible to feel a whisper of sympathy for one or more of these three women, and how they were forged into what they became.
In conclusion, we ended up totally invested within only a few paragraphs, and didn’t put it down again until we’d finished the whole thing. An excellent read, well-written – not only a picture of the past, but a fascinating murder-mystery. Recommended.
Details of the actual Wardlaw case can be read on line – this site is quite informative:
Here’s a brief interview with Alan Clark, who says a little bit more about the work:
What inspired you to write this book?
A Parliament of Crows is based on the crimes of the Wardlaw sisters of 19th century America. For the story, I changed their name to Mortlow. I was fascinated with the idea of three sisters, prominent female educators in the field of social graces becoming criminals and murderers. I knew that for such prim and proper women of the 19th Century, powerful emotional issues had to be involved in their decisions to commit the crimes. The emotional motivations of characters being at the heart of any good tale, I knew that if I could find an answer to the question,”How did they find their deeds reasonable,” then I’d have a good tale to tell.
Can you tell us a little bit about the characters in A PARLIAMENT OF CROWS?
The story is about the three Mortlow sister, Vertiline, Mary, and Carolee. Vertiline is two years older than the twins, Mary and Carolee. The twins are emotionally volatile. The sisters’ father, Supreme Court Justice of Georgia, Horace Mortlow, just before his death during the American Civil War, gave Vertiline the duty of protecting the unstable twins in his absence. Trying to protect them, often from themselves, Vertiline, also commits crimes. The three form a dangerous triangle.
How did you come up with the names in the story?
I changed the names so that what I did with the characters would not offend any of the Wardlaw descendants. I make it clear that A Parliament of Crows is a work of fiction. That said, it follows much of the Wardlaw sisters’ history. I used the name Mortlow instead of Wardlaw, because the “Mort” as a word or syllable is often associated with death, and the “Low” suggests that to which the sisters sink in order to survive.
What did you enjoy most about writing this book?
Writing different chapters from the three main characters’ POVs; developing the triangle formed by the sisters and their competing interests. The story covers most of their lives. While they are bound together as family and increasingly dependent on one another in committing their crimes and keeping their secrets, they are at odds over many things. Distrust between the siblings threatens to drive them apart and expose them.
Tell us about your main characters—what makes them tick?
Vertiline feels bound by duty to see her “difficult” sisters through life. The twins, Mary and Carolee enjoy as well as suffer an emotional connection. They cannot read each other’s thoughts, but each can know what is happening emotionally with her twin. Mary is very religious. Assuming a sense that she is one of God’s chosen, she feels exempt from the rules of society, though she puts up a good front. Carolee, basically an atheist, views herself as simply an animal who should take from the world what she wants, as long as she doesn’t have to suffer any consequences. She, too, puts up a good front most of the time. Vertiline tries to keep her sisters in line, and ends up compromising her own sense of right and wrong in the process of protecting them.
How did you come up with the title A Parliament of Crows?
Apparently crows do a weird thing in which they gather in large numbers, say in an open field, and an argument ensues between one or more of the birds. The others seem to watch. When the argument is done, the crows turn on one of the participants, presumably the loser, sometimes maiming, killing, or even cannibalizing the creature. Some who have viewed this phenomenon have likened it to a trial in which the defendant is convicted and punished. The term for that type of gathering is a parliament of crows. With the way the sisters go after each other, with the fact that they nearly always wore black mourning clothes, I thought the title appropriate.
Who designed your book cover?
I did the cover art and layout. I have been a freelance illustrator for 35 years, doing mostly book covers and interior illustrations for books.
If your book was made into a film, who would you like to play the lead?
Joan Allen would be a great Vertiline and then Catherine Keener, doubling for the twins, would do well for Mary and Carolee.
The Author
alan m clark self-portrait
You can find out about Alan Clark easily via the links below, so let’s not be boring. It was on the basis of his painstaking approach to interpreting history, and his handling of female characters, that old greydog ended up working with him on a number of projects, most notably 13 Miller’s Court, their interleaved tale of the Whitechapel Murders of 1888. Oh, and he’s from Oregon, you know, where they first grew oregono for putting on pizzas…
$25 Amazon; Paperback of The Door That Faced West; ebook of the Jack the Ripper Victims Series novel- Of Thimble and Threat; ebook of A Parliament of Crows – 1 winner each
Follow the tour HERE for exclusive excerpts, guest posts and a giveaway!
After an August beset by too many other things to do, greydogtaleswill be back in a few days with all sorts of unrelated oddities. Stay on this frequency, dear listener…
