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. . . in the shape of two exceptionally fine reviews from Tartarus Press’s always excellent WORMWOOD (#24)—first off, Reggie Oliver waxes rather lyrical about Kate Farrell’s MY NAME IS MARY SUTHERLAND. Over to you, Reggie.
“Those looking for profound horrors in novella form will be much better off going to MY NAME IS MARY SUTHERLAND by Kate Farrell. PS is a publisher noted for specialising in horror novellas of high quality, and MY NAME IS MARY SUTHERLAND is one of their finest to date. It is also fortunate enough to be graced by a cover design of great evocative power by Vincent Chong. Farrell has previously published a number of notable short stories in various anthologies but this is her debut in the longer form.
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“On offer is psychological horror in the tradition of ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ (*) with a narrator who is not so much ‘unreliable’ as tunnel-visioned and warped. The narrative is set within the framing device of a film unit visiting a secure institution, but the main bulk of the story is told by Mary herself. Modern jargon would no doubt categorise her as being ‘on the autistic spectrum,’ but, as we begin to see things from her point of view, we realise that such labels are dehumanising and unhelpful.
“Mary Sutherland is an individual with a particular voice and a particular problem, sometimes sympathetic, sometimes repellent. She is both naïve and perceptive; she has a fascination with words and with food.
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"Mary may be alien to us in many ways but she is an entirely credible creation, so that the reader in the end is compelled to see the world through her eyes. As we become familiar with her landscape, vivid but restricted, the horror which emerges lies not so much in her but in the lack of love and understanding which surrounds her, in the first place from her father and stepmother, but also from the authorities who have taken over following a tragedy, the nature of which is not revealed until the end.“When it comes the denouement is both shocking and inevitable, but it is also laced with a subtle element of ambiguity. Is it true about the rat? Farrell handles this story of parental neglect and its psychopathic consequences with enormous skill and a very sure sense of pace. Perhaps its greatest strength is in the voice that Farrell finds for Mary Sutherland herself. An actress for many years, Farrell has brought to her writing the theatrical skill of finding a way to inhabit and bring to life a strange and troubling personality. It is never overdone: it is alarmingly convincing. Here is Mary having just explained to her interrogators at the institution how she had done something unspeakable to a cat:
They scribbled like mad during most of this, then one of them said: ‘Was there anything else?’
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘What was that, Mary?’
‘I had a Kit-Kat.’
I thought that was dead funny, though none of them laughed. They finished the session soon after that so I think one or two of them must have been cat lovers. I don’t know what their problem was; I mean, they’d asked me.”
(*) ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ was written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman.
It appeared in 1892 in THE NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE.
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“E. Charles Vivian (1882-1947) was just another of those hack writers who churned out masses of cheap novels under lots of pseudonyms, right? Wrong—and most utterly so! Peter Berresford Ellis has done our field a tremendous service with THE SHADOW OF MR. VIVIAN. Vivian is probably remembered, if at all, for such ‘lost race’ novels as CITY OF WONDER (1922) and FIELDS OF SLEEP (1923) as well as several fantastic novels written as ‘Jack Mann’. But, as Ellis explains, Vivian’s output was much more diverse. He also wrote detective novels that drew praise from the likes of Dorothy Sayers, and highly-regarded work that led to him being regarded as a ‘serious’ novelist.
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“So why the ‘shadow’? It turns out that Vivian was just about the most challenging subject possible for a biography. Ellis had to work against the challenges of little information, faulty information, or no information at all in order to keep sight of his man. Vivian was really Charles Henry Cannell, and chose his new name at eighteen on joining the army, apparently wishing to leave behind the family headed by his ‘indolent, impecunious’ father. From then on Vivian always seemed to cover and obscure his past, as if haunted, even while having a family of his own and writing over ninety novels, innumerable short stories, and editing two respected magazines. Vivian’s work was positively received and in demand, yet he made several apparently inexplicable decisions and career moves. But Ellis’s informed speculations as to the reasons do not disguise that a lot of bad luck was also involved.
“At the end, Vivian does unfortunately remain as a shadow figure: a man who having started life under shadows not of his own making, nevertheless had a compulsion to create his own during the rest of it. Ellis concludes: ‘He comes across as a rather sad personality who never really came to terms with his unhappy childhood in spite of the many fictional attempts to analyse it.’ THE SHADOW OF MR. VIVIAN is an engaging book which, even if able to do little else, brings an important and much-neglected writer much further into the light than ever before. Ellis places Vivian’s wide-ranging output in its context, discussing most of his novels and giving useful summaries. This should be a definite purchase for the reference shelf.”
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(three if you also count WORMWOOD itself—go here– http://www.tartaruspress.com/wormwood.htm and order a copy pronto: the two reviews above are from #24 but all issues are uniformly fab) and we’d heartily recommend that you avail yourself of the journals considered, erudite and articulate commentary.
But if you fancy checking out the two books mentioned—MY NAME IS MARY SUTHERLAND by Kate Farrell and THE SHADOW OF MR. VIVIAN by Peter Berresford Ellis—then you can purchase the pair for just £30, a reduction of £12 on the original advertised price on the PS site. Go on, treat yourselves.
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Subterranean’s head honcho Bill Schafer and I have rambled on for many years now about the remarkable work of the great Robert McCammon. Our running order of favorites varies every now and again and why not: THE WOLF’S HOUR, BOY’S LIFE, SWAN SONG, GONE SOUTH, MINE, MYSTERY WALK, THE NIGHT BOAT, BETHANY’S SIN and THEY THIRST, but top o’the pile for me is the total roller-coaster ride that is STINGER. Believe me, if you have never sampled this neo-pulp masterpiece then you have the next few days of your life just waiting for you to turn to page one and read:
“The motorcycle roared out of Bordertown, carrying the blond boy and dark-haired girl away from the horror behind them.”
I mean, come ON—how can you resist. Oooh, you know . . . I just want to sit down and re-read this baby all over again. I read it—and SWAN SONG—on holiday in France almost 30 years ago and I made such a fuss about it—it was a good holidayfor reading, as I recall with Larry Block’s RANDOM WALK in there as well (featuring what is surely one of the all-time greatest serial-killers) plus Jack Vance’s LYONESSE. My oh my!
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First published as a paperback original in 1988, STINGER remains one of Robert McCammon's wildest, most compelling creations. Both a furiously paced action novel and an affectionate homage to the SF/Horror films of an earlier era, it is vintage McCammon, and a grand, often visceral entertainment.
The story takes place during a single twenty-four hour period in Inferno, Texas. Inferno is a town in trouble, driven to the brink by racial tension, gang violence, and a collapsing economy. But things can always get worse, and they do so with astonishing speed when an unidentified spacecraft crash lands in the desert outside of town, followed by a second craft bearing the alien being who will soon be known as Stinger. Stinger is a kind of interstellar hunter on a mission he intends to complete, whatever the cost. He brings with him an endless array of technological marvels and an infinite capacity for destruction that threaten the existence of Inferno, its inhabitants, and the larger world beyond.
Filled with a large cast of vividly realized characters and sporting some of the most memorably horrific imagery you will ever encounter, STINGER is an adrenalin-fueled narrative of the highest order, its classic, pulp fictional elements transformed and elevated by a master storyteller. The result is an engrossing, hugely enjoyable experience that is sure to stay with you for a very long time to come. Heck, it’s been with me for almost 30 years!
Well, OK—now comes the good news: we’ve got 10 copies for sale, priced at £60 plus postage. This is already moving fast on Subterranean’s own site so, particularly if you live in the UK or Europe, don’t hang around wondering whether or not to order a copy.
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And that’s it. We’ve got more to tell you about . . .
. . . but we’re gonna hold that back for a week or maybe two.
Let’s just sign off with the info we received just a few hours ago in the middle of the morning. (As I write this Newsletter, it’s still a little over two hours until we start to get the results of the UK election, so almost a full day before you read this week’s Ramblings From PS Towers.)
Yep, it’s official. For all those folks who have been asking if there was going to be a PS edition of Stephen King’s timeless vampire saga, ‘SALEM’S LOT . . . and in response to my original request some 16 months ago, yes indeedy, there is. And there’s also going to be a PS edition of NIGHT SHIFT. More details—and order pages—soon.
Have a great weekend, look after each other . . . and happy reading!
Pete
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