Author: Christopher Tuthill

Ghost Story by Peter Straub (1979)

On By Christopher TuthillIn 31 Tales of Halloween, Books, Fantasy, Halloween, Horror, Reading1 Comment

Ghost Story was a great success for Peter Straub when it was published in 1979, and it’s easy to see why. The novel has all kinds of unsettling stories within, enough to keep any reader up late at night. It’s written in the form of ghost stories told by four old men who suffer from terrible nightmares. Their stories from their own youth seem frighteningly believable and really captured my interest as I read. Since the men are elderly, we are reaching back in time many years, learning of strange happenings in rural upstate New York. I happen to live up here, and I felt Straub did a great job in that vein, carrying on the tradition of Washington Irving. The ghost tales become increasingly elaborate, with supernatural events in the present time overwhelming the characters.

I really enjoyed reading this book, which received high praise from Stephen King and others. (King would also collaborate with Straub on two different novels, The Talisman and Black House.) Straub wrote many successful novels and in addition to editing the Library of America’s Fantastic Tales set, which I’ve raved about a few times, he also edited their excellent H.P. Lovecraft volume. He was one of the greats of horror fiction, and this is a perfect starting point for his work.

The Refugee by Jane Rice (1943)

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Jane Rice wrote many science fiction and horror tales during the Golden Age of science fiction; The Refugee is one of them, first published in Unknown Worlds, a magazine edited by the legendary John Campbell, in October 1943.

Unknown Worlds, October 1943

This story has a real pulp feel to it—the heroine, Milli, is in some meager circumstances in wartime France, dreaming of better days, when a naked young man appears in her garden. She is intrigued by him, and befriends him when he reappears the next day, even after we learn that a mysterious and brutal murder of a neighbor has happened the night before. Sounds like a bad idea, but Milli is undeterred. The young man eyes her hungrily and Milli finds him quite appealing, leading to some sensual dialogue and imagery. Milli leads him inside and they have an encounter that is not what you might expect; the twist ending is comical and left me wanting to read more by Rice.

This is another one that I found in American Fantastic, the Library of America collection. Editor Peter Straub really outdid himself with this two volume set, it belongs in the library of every horror/fantasy reader. He brings together a real treasury of gothic tales, some quite well known, and others that deserve a wide audience.

The Phantom Coach, by Amelia Edwards (1864)

On By Christopher TuthillIn 31 Tales of Halloween, Books, Christmas, Fantasy, Halloween, HIstory, Reading, Short Stories1 Comment

In the grand tradition of Victorian Christmas ghost stories, Amelia Edward’s The Phantom Coach first appeared in The December, 1864 issue of Charles Dickens’ literary journal, All the Year Round. Amazingly, the preceding link is to that full issue (the cover image is below), which I intend to read. Much of the run of this journal is freely available online, thanks to the Hathi Trust, the Internet Archive, and other sources.

The narrator of this tale of the damned is a man named Murray who is traveling across the Scottish moors when a snowstorm hits; afraid he won’t make it back home, he hails a passing stranger and asks for shelter. The man, Jacob, is the servant at a nearby house, but warns Murray that his master will not want him to stay. Jacob reluctantly allows Murray to follow him back to the residence.

The master of the house is at first irritated by Murray’s presence and tells him he has lived in this secluded place for twenty-three years, with no visitors at all for the past four. But the man is eager for news of the outside world—they have a fireside chat during which the old man tells him:

“The world grows hourly more and more sceptical of all that lies beyond its own narrow radius; and our men of science foster the fatal tendency. They condemn as fable all that resists experiment. They reject as false all that cannot be brought to the test of the laboratory or the dissecting-room. Against what superstition have they waged so long and obstinate a war, as against the belief in apparitions? And yet what superstition has maintained its hold upon the minds of men so long and so firmly?”

The man further says that he himself believed in the supernatural, and as a man of science, his career was ruined for it. He speaks with eloquence about various philosophers and scientists, leaving Murray in awe at the breadth of his knowledge; Murray says that he “wandered from topic to topic, from speculation to speculation, like an inspired dreamer.”

When the storm ends, Murray wishes to make his way home, though it is late at night—it’s decided he’ll join the mail coach, which will be passing through a few miles away. Jacob leads him to the stop, and now the story gets macabre. He mentions that a mail coach had crashed over an embankment, killing all aboard, nine years before.

It’s at times like this in most ghost stories when I, and most readers, want to tell the protagonist to find some other way home. Of course, Murray doesn’t. He gets on the coach when it arrives, at first relieved to be out of the cold, until he realizes the awful truth of the matter.

This is a very fun, atmospheric horror tale, and I can see why it has been anthologized so often. You are set up beautifully by the desolate moor, the irritable servant, finally the old man telling tales of the supernatural in a parlor teeming with hundreds of books and scholarly apparatus of every conceivable kind. Incidentally, I want a room just like this, complete with a fireplace and ghost stories and a glass of sherry. If anyone out there reading this wants to help me achieve this, I’d be grateful.

 I came across my copy of this tale in a Dover thrift edition of ghost stories. I’ve loved those Dover editions since I was a young man—for just a few dollars you get some first-rate stories. My college instructors used to kindly assign these editions to their poor students, and I’ve kept with the tradition.  

Amelia Edwards was a woman of many talents: in addition to writing many novels and short stories, she was also a journalist, illustrator, and Egyptologist. Like most of the authors on this list, you can learn more about her life in her Dictionary of Literary Biography entry, though you will need a login to access it.

The Moonstone Mass by Harriet Prescott Spofford (1868)

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Harriet Prescott Spofford was a prolific writer of short stories—this gothic tale, The Moonstone Mass, predates HP Lovecraft’s tales of madness in the arctic by a good half century or more, but would feel right at home in one of his books. The narrator is told by his uncle that he will receive a large inheritance if he seeks the Northwest passage, and he decides to try, on a ship called the Albatross, a bad idea if I ever heard one. He must delay his marriage to Eleanor, his beloved, but apparently considers this worth the risk.

Once on his voyage, things start to get weird. After an uneventful summer, the ship becomes encased in ice, and eventually the narrator leaves it with a team of dogs to try and find some passage to the west where the stranded crew might escape to safety. Instead, he finds himself in a world of cosmic horrors. He loses all track of time, his dogs die of fear as they are surrounded by cold light. He seems to either hallucinate or have a strange otherworldly experience:

“These enormous days and nights, swinging in their arc six months long, were the pendulum that dealt time in another measure than that dealt by the sunlight of lower zones; they told the time of what interminable years, the years of what vast generations far beyond the span that covered the age of the primeval men of Scripture— they measured time on this gigantic and enduring scale for what wonderful and mighty beings, old as the everlasting hills, as destitute as they of mortal sympathy, cold and inscrutable, handling the two-edged javelins of frost and magnetism, and served by all the unknown polar agencies. I fancied that I saw their far-reaching cohorts, marshaling and maneuvering at times in the field of an horizon that was boundless, the glitter of their spears and casques, the sheen of their white banners; and again, sitting in fearful circle with their phantasmagoria they shut and hemmed me in and watched me writhe like a worm before them.”

Amidst this, he sees a brilliant moonstone, “a thing so real, so genuine, my breath became suspended; my heart ceased to beat; my brain, that had been a lump of ice, seemed to move in its skull.” He is on a moving ice floe and attempts to climb toward the mass but is caught in an avalanche. When he recovers, he is back in an arctic fishing village. The Albatross is never found. No one believes his story, least of all his uncle. Eleanor believes him, but wishes to hear nothing about it, yet the narrator ends his tale saying he will someday recover the precious stone.

This reminded me of Lovercraft in several ways, not least because it is set in the arctic, and the narrator is up against unknowable, ancient beings that seem to bend space and time. The narrator also seems intent on his own destruction even in the face of all this—he’s drawn by the lure of this talisman. This is an interesting tale since it predates Lovecraft, and polar exploration, by decades. It’s an excellent precursor to Lovecraft, who is much better known to horror readers, and a fine story.

I’d not encountered Spofford’s work before reading this tale, but I’ll be sure to fix that. It was included in the Library of America’s wonderful collection, American Fantastic Tales. I’ve taken a few stories on this list from that excellent two volume set, which I give my highest recommendation.

Ma’ame Pelagie by Kate Chopin (1894)

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“Ma’ame Pelagie,” they called her, though she was unmarried, as was her sister Pauline, a child in Ma’ame Pelagie’s eyes; a child of thirty-five.

Kate Chopin is well known for her novel The Awakening, but she was also a prolific writer of short stories, including this gem, Ma’ame Pelagie. Pelagie and her sister live in Louisiana in a three-room cabin beside their formerly grand ancestral home. For decades, we learn, they have lived this way, hoping to save enough to restore the mansion ‘shaped like the Pantheon,’ but now fallen into ruin. The sisters are visited by a niece who comes to live with them—her father, their brother, will soon be joining her. But the young girl cannot stand the sadness of the place and wants to leave.

“It was not the first time she had stolen away to the ruin at night-time, when the whole plantation slept; but she never before had been there with a heart so nearly broken. She was going there for the last time to dream her dreams; to see the visions that hitherto had crowded her days and nights, and to bid farewell to them.” Pelagie recalls these past grand days in a dreamlike reverie, the grand parties held there, and her lover, who went off to fight in ‘le guerre,’ as did so many others. And now we have the central problem on which this tale rests—the war, which eventually comes to the plantation. It is the tragedy of her life, to see her dreams ruined along with the grand house.

A year later, her brother Leandre builds a new, beautiful brick house where the old one stood. The house bustles with activity and music and the laughter of young people, the friends of ‘La Petite,’ her niece. However, Pelagie’s “soul had stayed in the shadow of the ruin.”

This is a great short gothic tale that works very well not only in the tragedy of these two women who live in the ruins of a once grand life, but also in the shadow of the civil war. The stain of slavery and the shadow of war haunts everything in this story of the south. The writing is quite elegant, as is much of the best writing of this period, and does much to transport us to these bygone days.

To learn more about Kate Chopin and her life, you can view this excellent PBS documentary on her.

Jeff Shaara in Poughkeepsie

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Yesterday my son and I were lucky to see Jeff Shaara, the historian and novelist, speak on his book Rise to Rebellion, the first of his two novels of the American Revolution. The books are terrific reads centered around some of the main players in the revolution, including Franklin, Adams, Washington, Jefferson, and others. Like his father, Michael, who wrote the Pulitzer winning classic The Killer Angels about Gettysburg (and which Jeff continued in two gripping books to complete a civil war trilogy), Jeff does a lot of research for his books and uses painstaking historical details to tell the story through the point of view of these characters. It truly makes history come alive in a way that general readers as well as history buffs will savor. My son, who is a well-read thirteen-year-old, loves Shaara’s books as well, and has read a number of them, including one on World War II and his most recent book on the Cuban missile crisis. Shaara also said that his newest book, due next May, is told from the point of view of Lincoln, starting in 1861 and ending in 1863; I’m sure my son and I will be picking up that one as well.

After a lively talk in which Shaara went over some of the details of these historical figures, there were some great questions from the audience about his writing process, and his thoughts on various historical events. He pointed out that while he understood why no one really writes much in popular fiction about someone like Robert E Lee anymore, he felt that it is a mistake to simply ignore or try to erase such historical figures. In a book like Gods and Generals, he showed Lee as the flawed man he was, and Shaara does a great service with work like this. It’s unhelpful to simply view Lee as an evil traitor, or on the other hand, as a noble son of the South. Instead, Shaara paints a picture of an imperfect man who, while acting gallantly in the eyes of the south, committed treason in the eyes of the North. He certainly made some choices that led down a destructive path, for a cause that was indeed evil. Yet it helps to put these actions in the context of the events through which Lee lived, to better understand what happened. But these days, most of us in this country don’t want nuance.

Shaara was also asked his opinion of the current state of the United States, since this event was part of the celebrations that are taking place as part of the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. He said what many in the auditorium were feeling, that we are in a very dark time, and that he feared what the future may hold.

If you enjoy history, or even if you don’t, you ought to read some of his books. You can start anywhere, but since we’re at that 250th anniversary, I’d suggest starting with Rise to Rebellion and the Boston massacre. It’s a great book, and a timely way to learn some things about our history that you may not know. It may even inspire you to do some things to help make sure this republic of ours survives through these perilous times for more anniversaries.

Thanks to the Poughkeepsie Public library for hosting this event. This was our second time seeing Mr. Shaara—he is usually at Gettysburg on every anniversary of the battle, and we saw him there last year on a family trip.

In Dark New England Days by Sarah Orne Jewett (1890)

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Sarah Orne Jewett is a Maine writer known for tales like The Country of Pointed Firs, A White Heron, and numerous short stories and poems that bring the region to life. One of the really interesting things about reading her books is that not only do you get a sense of what Maine was like in the late 1800s, you also get to hear the way people spoke, the diction and accent that they had. If you’re traveling in Maine you will still hear an accent that differs from other regions of the country, and even other areas in New England and the northeast. As time goes on and people are more apt to move around, these kinds of accents are being lost, but you can still hear it when you travel off the beaten path.

“In Dark New England Days” is a gothic story with a deep sense of doom and foreboding from the beginning. We are introduced to the sad case of the three Knowles sisters, ‘Closed-mouth old maids’ who spent their lives taking care of their cruel old father who has now died of a stroke. Mercifully, from the sounds of the story, as one character declares: “The old Cap’n kept ’em child’n long as he lived, an’ then they was too old to l’arn different.” His body is on display in their home–quite macabre by today’s standards, but more commonplace when the story was written. Even so, it is enough to give you the creeps from the opening lines of the story.

On the evening he dies, the sisters, Betsy, Hannah, and Susan, pull out an old chest belonging to their dead father, who had been a seafaring man, and learn that he’d been hoarding gold his whole life, though they lived in abject poverty. They are ecstatic with their new wealth and for the first time in many years they seem to have hope. Yet even as they stare at their gold: “He stopped to listen, came nearer, stopped again, and then crept close to the old house. He stepped upon the banking, next the window with the warped shutter; there was a knot-hole in it high above the women’s heads, towards the top. As they leaned over the chest, an eager eye watched them.”

The next morning, the money is gone: “The sisters had been rich for one night; in the morning they waked to find themselves poor with a bitter pang of poverty of which they had never dreamed.” They blame a neighbor with whom their father had a feud: Enoch Holt, and take him to court. He escapes without a guilty verdict, but not before Hannah Knowles stands before the court and declares: “Curse your right hand, then!” cried Hannah Knowles, growing tall and thin like a white flame drawing upward. “Curse your right hand, yours and all your folks’ that follow you! May I live to see the day!”

It is a chilling scene, and an awful declaration. The misery with which the sisters lived under their tyrant of a father is only made worse by the cruelty of the theft. But as in any good gothic tale, there are some fates worse than death, some things worse even than a sad, lonely life of poverty. I don’t wish to give away the ending, so I highly recommend reading this story and some others by Jewett.

Today we are not without plenty of so-called horror movies, gore-fests and plenty of over-the-top films and television to give us superficial scares. In my view, stories like this one do the job in a much more convincing, chilling fashion. The tale sets you up and gets its hooks in and doesn’t let go.

Interview With the Vampire by Anne Rice (1976)

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“God kills, and so shall we; indiscriminately He takes the richest and the poorest, and so shall we; for no creatures under God are as we are, none so like Him as ourselves, dark angels not confined to the stinking limits of hell but wandering His earth and all its kingdoms.”

Anne Rice’s achievement in this book, among other things, was to bring vampires into a more modern context. It’s also such a well-written book that even people who don’t normally care for horror will find themselves up late turning the pages of this tale. The story of Louis and Lestat is well known by genre fans by now, but in 1976, it was something new and different. What would it be like if a vampire were stalking modern day America? How would such a creature survive? They’re immortal, after all, so what would a vampire’s life trajectory look like? How would it navigate society without causing alarm?

Rice set out to answer these and many other questions about her antihero, and readers responded to the tune of eight million copies sold; Rice has sold over 100 million copies of her other works, including the rest of the Vampire Chronicles, which this book spawned.

I really enjoyed the way this one got into the details of vampire life and the day-to-day troubles of such creatures. For example, when unable to find human prey, they’ll kill whatever small animals are at hand, including rats. Gross, and also not something I would have considered.  But what really made this book work for me was the relationship between Louis and Lestat. Since vampires live forever, they eventually have disagreements with one another and fall out, which makes perfect sense. In a way they are tragic figures, though they’re predators. Doomed to live forever and have no one truly know them, they form intense bonds with each other, but eventually things go wrong. Immortality in this world is more like a curse.

Interview was made into a successful movie, and more recently, a television show, as well as comic adaptations. Rice went on to write many more books in her Vampire Chronicles until her death in 2021.

Coheed and Cambria

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I’m an old RUSH fan super excited by their recent reunion announcement, and so I’m the perfect audience for a band like Coheed and Cambria. A friend of mine has been raving about them for years, but it was only a couple of months ago that I finally took the plunge and started listening. I’ve bought two albums and will eventually get them all. It is so cool to see a progressive band like this doing so well.

I have very limited time, and so I usually stick to my favorite bands from earlier eras, (Jethro Tull, RUSH, YES, Led Zeppelin, The Who, ELP, King Crimson, Dylan and Tom Petty and The Kinks and so on) with a few newer ones sprinkled in here and there. Sometime around the birth of my children, and having the demands of family and my job, I kind of lost the ability to know much about new music, but these guys are so good. The epic science fiction story of The Amory Wars, (for the uninitiated, every album is set in this universe) the amazing riffs and energy of these albums, it’s fantastic. I feel like there should be some kind of rare band act passed by congress to protect these guys. They’re so great. I’m glad younger people have a modern day Rush they can follow. My kids are already singing along in the minivan.

I’ve read a couple of the omnibus comics and am getting into the story a bit, as well. I love how the comic books enhance the whole experience; it’s incredibly ambitious and also such a cool thing for fans to get into. As a teen, one of my favorite things to do was to get a new album by RUSH or some other progressive rock band and spend hours listening, reading the lyrics, looking at the artwork, all of that. I still do that when Jethro Tull or some other favorite band of mine releases a new album, or re-re-releases old ones with dozens of unearthed tracks. It’s more than just listening to songs; it’s an entire experience, and Coheed and Cambria is carrying on this glorious tradition.

I may not have been able to get Rush tickets, but I’ll be sure and try to see these guys the next time they’re touring near me.

A Good Man is Hard to Find by Flannery O’Connor (1953)

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“You can do one thing or you can do another, kill a man or take a tire off his car, because sooner or later you’re going to forget what it was you done and just be punished for it.”

One of the most anthologized and well-regarded short stories of the last century, A Good Man is Hard to Find, like some of the other stories on this list, deserves its towering reputation. O’Connor was a master of the short story, and this tale is one of the most shocking gothic stories I’ve ever read. I can still recall the palpable dread I felt as I first read it many years ago in a college class on the short story.

This tale involves a family that is out for a drive when unspeakable violence occurs, but there is plenty of foreshadowing, with the grandmother mentioning the ‘loss of values’ in the modern world; she also points out a graveyard filled with slaves from a bygone era. She remembers that there was a plantation in the area, and convinces her son, Bailey, to take a turn onto a deserted road, where the family has a sudden accident, flipping their car, and are met by the “Misfit,” a terrifying killer.

This tale is suffused with the south, and with notions of God and the possibilities of salvation and grace. The grandmother attempts to placate the Misfit, who clearly means the family harm, saying he is one of her ‘babies,’ and touches his shoulder. But there’s no salvation here for anyone, it seems.

I think it is best to read something like this, with such a well-known reputation, with an open mind. It’s better not to seek out or think too much about any of the criticism of it at first, just read it. It will probably leave you feeling desolate, as some of the very best horror stories tend to do.

Flannery O’Connor wrote two novels and thirty-one short stories and is considered one of the great American writers of the 20th century. Sadly, she was ill with Lupus and died at just 39. Who knows what she may have achieved had she lived longer; as it is, she left behind an amazing legacy.