Today we look both forward and back, dear listener, and consider tales for all tastes. In memory of Joe Pulver, sadly lost last week, we have a piece by Dave Brzeski on Joe’s The Orphan Palace, adapted from the original BFS review; notice of Hugh Ashton’s excellent pastiche Mapp at Fifty for E F Benson and period fiction fans; a couple of books just out from Alchemy Press, and finally Cliff Biggers gives us the lowdown on F Paul Wilson’s new Repairman Jack graphic novel. So we’d better knuckle down…
THE ORPHAN PALACE
by Joseph S. Pulver, Sr.
Reviewed by David Brzeski
“Cardigan is heading east through the night-bleak cities of America and back to confront the past he has never escaped, as a resident of Zimms, an orphanage-cum-asylum and a true palace of dementia. In the circles and dead-ends that make the maze of his madness, Cardigan meets bounty hunters, ghosts, ghouls, a talking rat, even a merman, and struggles to decide which will lead him to damnation and which to salvation.”
I had to describe this book for a friend recently. This is what I came up with…
Think in terms of an unfilmed noir movie script, revised by H.P. Lovecraft, who worked in references to the work of several of his friends & influences (Robert W. Chambers, Frank Belknap Long etc.). Then it remained, untouched, until Alan Ginsberg was commissioned to pen a script treatment, which then languished in development hell, until it landed on the desk of David Lynch.
Frightening concept isn’t it?
It really shouldn’t work at all…
… but it does! The gorgeous prose sweeps the reader along on an hallucinogenic ride into madness… a road trip (back) to bedlam.
Cardigan, the serial killing, arsonist anti-hero heads east, back to the institution, where the mysterious Doctor Archer inflicted cruel & insidious treatments on his charges. On the way he encounters ghosts, ghouls & a merman & is regularly advised by a talking rat, named D’if. He stays in many identical hotels, all with identical rooms, each one with a book on the night stand. A book with no ending. One of a hundred variant versions of the same book, written by various authors for the mysterious Shadow House press. The TV in the rooms always shows the same movie, an adaptation of one of the books.
This wonderful novel is a roller-coaster ride of lunacy & pop-culture references. There are few books, in my experience, which have off the cuff references to the work of Bulwer-Lytton & Funkadelic in the same chapter!
I read this book until I was too tired to read any more. Then I’d lay, with my eyes closed, unable to sleep, my mind too busy mulling over what I’d just read, theorizing, wondering… until I gave up, put the light back on & started reading again.
If this extraordinary book isn’t at least nominated for a few awards, I’ll be astonished & disappointed.
Addendum – April 2020
Sadly, I was to be disappointed. The Orphan Palace didn’t appear on any awards shortlist as far as I know. Far too few people ever actually read it and, frankly it sold very few copies for Chomu Press. The copy I reviewed was in fact a competition prize from Chomu Press, which I was lucky enough to win (to be honest, not many people entered). It comprised a signed copy of the paperback, with various little extras, including a 2 CDr set soundtrack Joe had put together for the book. I thought his many friends and fans would be interested in seeing a list of music that inspired him while he wrote, so here it is…
- Bruce Springsteen – Born To Run
- Bohren & Der Club Of Gore – Midnight Walker
- David Sylvian – The Boy With The Gun
- Weather report – American Tango
- Current 93 – The Inmost Night
- Robert Fripp – NY3
- Steve Earle – Lungs
- Weather Report – American Tango
- Tim Curry – Cold Blue Steel & Sweet Fire
- Brian Eno – By This River
- The Jimi Hendrix Experience – 1983… (A Merman I Should Turn To Be)
- John Martyn – Solid Air
- Jay Farrar & Benjamin Gibbard – These Roads Don’t Move
- Bohren & Der Club Of Gore – Texas Keller
- Bob Dylan – Things Have Changed (Album Version)
- Weather Report – Unknown Soldier
- David Sylvian – Orpheus
- Weather Report – American Tango
- Iron Butterfly – Iron Butterfly Theme
- Harold Budd – The Place Of Dead Roads
- Neko Case – I Wish I Was The Moon
- Dave Alvin – Thirty Dollar Room
- Women Of The SS – Room Ov Secrets
- Weather Report – American Tango
- Van Morrison & John Lee Hooker – Don’t Look Back
- Jefferson Airplane – White Rabbit
- Kristin Andersen, Spunk – Truly Falling Slowly
- Birthe Klementowski & Vortex – Stille , Silence
I was especially impressed to note that I already had 19 of the 23 tracks in my CD collection. Great minds and all that…
Chomu Press, 2011, p/b, £12.50
NOTE: It appears almost impossible to get hold of a copy of The Orphan Palace now, and we feel that someone really needs to make it widely available again, even if only in e-format.
MAPP AT FIFTY
by Hugh Ashton
“Elizabeth Mapp-Flint of Tilling is approaching her fiftieth birthday, and plans a party to celebrate the event. However, as so often happens in Tilling, things don’t go entirely according to plan, as Major Benjy, her husband, over-refreshes himself at the party, and presents her with an entirely unwelcome birthday gift. Meanwhile, Emmeline (“Lucia”) Pillson and her husband Georgie, together with the rest of Tilling look on as Elizabeth’s sister, the existence of whom had been hitherto unsuspected, visits Tilling and exposes a few family secrets.”
We’re never quite sure how many readers of E F Benson’s Mapp & Lucia stories also associate him with his considerable output of supernatural stories, or vice versa. Whilst Benson (1867-1940) wrote horror stories which vary from the outstanding to the pedestrian, in Mapp and Lucia he found a pace and style which never bores. His stories of village life provide a microcosm in which most of human nature – especially the mean, jealous, petty and trivial aspects – is revealed. Horrendous revenants are replaced by annoying reminders of past transgressions; fear of the unknown is replaced by fear that your little machinations will be discovered. It’s also all very amusing.
Hugh Ashton, already a talented Holmes pastiche writer (amongst other things), has turned his sharp eye on Benson’s tales of the village of Tilling, and in this novella he provides a seamless extension of the original stories.
The book is a pleasure to read even if you know little of the characters – and possibly even more fun if you’re already familiar with the main protagonists. It might easily be one of Benson’s originals. Here you will find dear Georgie, Lobster a la Riseholme, many arch references to their previous exploits, and more. We should note that although complete in itself, the events in Mapp at Fifty do beg a sequel – which we shall await with eager anticipation.
Mapp at Fifty is also available in audio format directly from the author, and narrated by Hugh himself:
https://hughashtonbooks.com/2020/04/15/mappat50-audiobook/
We talked with Hugh at length here a while back:
http://greydogtales.com/blog/holmes-lichfield-literarian/
Just space between articles to squeeze in what’s happening at Alchemy Press – two new books by two more jolly good British authors:
A SMALL THING FOR YOLANDA
by Jan Edwards
“The Métro Murder is one of the most famous unsolved crimes of the 1930s. Who was Laetitia Toureaux? What were her links within the murky world of spies and secret political movements? All of those things remain shrouded in mystery, despite the fact that her movements on her final day are well documented. How was she stabbed to death in an apparently empty Métro carriage? And by whom? A Small Thing for Yolanda offers one potential solution.”
LES VACANCES
by Phil Sloman
“Monasteries rising and falling. Heretics and stakes and fire. There were rebellions and revolution and tales of abundance and happiness and new beginnings. Within the book there were also lies and omissions and fallacies all designed to gloss over a dark past many had long forgotten. Many but not all. The vacation of a lifetime.”
And we understand that Phil himself posed for the cover, without make-up…
REPAIRMAN JACK: THE FIX IS IN AT DYNAMITE
Article by Cliff Biggers
Jack is a “fix-it man”—but he’s most definitely not the sort of fix-it man you call when you need minor repairs around the house. Instead, Jack chooses to fix the problems that the authorities can’t deal with, often involving threats that the authorities would never understand or believe in.
That’s why he’s known as Repairman Jack. And if you need his kind of specialized repair—well, he’s absolutely the best at his job.
Jack has appeared in almost two dozen books (including tales set in his teenage years, his early years as a repairman, and in his prime years as a repairman). But until now, he has never made the jump to comics.
That’s about to change, though, with the release of F. Paul Wilson’s Repairman Jack: Scar-lip Redux Original Graphic Novel HC, an all-new story by F. Paul Wilson & Antonio Fuso. This tale pits Jack against his oldest adversaries, a deadly Rakosh known to Jack as Scar-lip.
Dynamite Entertainment sought Wilson out in hopes of bringing his character to comics. “We approached F. Paul about the rights,” Dynamite senior editor Joseph Rybandt said. “Internally, all of the staff at Dynamite is constantly suggesting authors and properties to pursue for comics and graphic novels. This series was known to a staff member, and then we made contact and made the graphic novel.”
For those who haven’t yet crossed paths with Repairman Jack, F. Paul Wilson offered an introduction to the character. “Jack is an urban mercenary who hires out to fix situations. That’s the mystery-thriller part of the stories. He’s also been drafted into a cosmic shadow war where Earth is just one minor prize and all humanity could become collateral damage. That’s the fantastical aspect of the series. (In Scar-lip Redux I offer a primer in Cosmic Horror for those unfamiliar with it.)
“I designed Jack as an anti-Jason Bourne: no black ops training, not an ex-SEAL or ex-CIA, no connection to officialdom. In other words, no safety net. No one in the government he can call on. He has to rely on his own wits and his own network. He’s something of an anarchist who’s never filed a 1040 and lives totally off the grid.
“A big part of his appeal is that he’s a blue-collar hero. Readers can imagine hanging at Julio’s and hoisting few beers with him. Can you imagine that with James Bond or John Wick? As if. Although he hires out to fix situations, he’s got a code. He’s not a hit man, but threaten his life or someone he cares about and you’re dead — no warning, just dead. But he won’t hire out for that.”
Rather than adapting one of his best-selling novels, Wilson is creating an all-new story for his first graphic novel. While the story is designed to be wholly self-contained for readers unfamiliar with the Repairman Jack saga, the tale fits into the greater canon “after The Tomb and All the Rage,” Wilson said. “I’d place it sometime before Harbingers.”
“This is a ground-up story that revisits elements familiar to Jack’s fans (Scar-lip, Oz’s freak show, the pyramid in the Barrens, etc.), but gives new readers a sense of who Jack is and the world he inhabits,” Wilson explained. “It opens with this vicious reptilian creature breaking into a NYC high-rise apartment, killing the occupant, and then carrying the body off. It’s witnessed by a cop who saw this creature years ago and was ridiculed when he reported it. So this time: no report. He seeks out this urban legend known as Repairman Jack to look into the incident off the books. Jack doesn’t laugh at him. He knows the creature the cop’s describing: ‘We have a history.’ That’s just the first few pages that kick off the story. Things get very weird and violent from there.”
The adversary in this tale is a member of a race known as the rakoshi. “The rakoshi were created by the Otherness as the antithesis of humans,” according to Wilson again. “They’re vicious, powerful creatures who thrive on human flesh and were designed to supplant us on Earth. But that didn’t go as planned. Humans learned how to control them. The rakoshi formed the real-life basis of the mythical Hindu demons known as rakshasa.”
As the Redux in the title would imply, this isn’t first time that Jack has crossed paths with Scar-Lip. What’s his background, and where did he first appear? “Scar-lip is the last surviving rakosh,” Wilson said. “He made his presence known in the finale of The Tomb. He reappeared in All the Rage as the source of the street drug known as Berzerk. Scar-Lip’s talons are responsible for the three long, parallel scars across Jack’s chest when he almost killed Jack at the end of The Tomb. He and Jack developed a bit of an Androcles-and-the-Lion dynamic in All the Rage which left Scar-lip at large in the NJ Pine Barrens.
“Jack has never been comfortable with Scar-lip playing the role of the Jersey Devil and feasting on unwary hunters and hikers. (Lots of real people go missing in the Pines every year.) The graphic novel allowed me to address that situation.”
Dynamite is offering the book as a hardcover graphic novel rather than launching it as a comic book series. “We’ve found that the audience for these wants the full story in one go,” Rybandt said. “And for the more casual consumer, the availability and accessibility of original graphic novels in today’s marketplace gives them a satisfying experience overall.”
Scar-lip Redux is just one of several Repairman Jack graphic novels that Wilson has in the planning stages. “If Dynamite wants more, I got ’em,” Wilson said. “I’ve scripted comics off and on since Creepy and Eerie back in the 70’s and I love to put the visual aspect of the medium to work. With the Jack GNs, I’ll allow myself to indulge in stories that are a little more bizarre and off-center than I’d attempt in print. Jack is part of my ‘Secret History of the World’, which has a definite timeline. I’ll let the GNs fall where they will and leave it up to the readers to figure out where they fit in the Secret History.”
F. Paul Wilson’s Repairman Jack: Scar-lip Redux Original Graphic Novel HC, a $24.99 120-page graphic novel by F. Paul Wilson & Antonio Fuso, was released March 11th 2020. Dynamite is also offering the book in a $39.99 edition signed by F. Paul Wilson.
Amazon is offering hardcover and Kindle editions for May 2020 and June 2020 respectively.
Thanks for the mention xx