Books and Authors

Rich Ristow’s new novelette, Into The Cruel Sea, is about a young woman named Beth who is dealing with several issues.  She has an abusive father, a checked-out mother and a boyfriend Wade, who recently killed his parents before walking into the sea and disappearing.  Wade was always obsessed with the water, even claiming fish spoke to him.  By brutally slaying his parents, he was transformed into something as much fish as man.  He now wants Beth to join him by repeating the ritual.

One of my favorite things to do while on vacation is read horror stories.  If I can find ones themed to the locale we are in, all the better.  This year we stayed at Myrtle Beach.  Seeing the ocean everyday made me select tales on the high seas.  The following take place in such settings. 

SAILING THE DARK SEAS:

Leslie Poles Hartley was born in Whittlesea, Cambridge in the United Kingdom in 1895.  He joined the British Army in 1919, but was sent home after a short stint due to medical problems.  He started his writing career as a fiction reviewer for several magazines, which he continued at for thirty years.  His first published book was a collection of short stories titled Night Fears (1924).  He also published other short story collections of the supernatural, such as

Alfred McLelland Burrage was born in 1889, in Middlesex, England.  His father and uncle were both successful writers, which may account for his early writing skill.  He published his first story at the age of 15.  He fought for his country during World War I, joining in 1917.  He was evacuated in April of 1918, due to trench foot.  Burrage wrote a book about his experiences in the war titled, War Is War (1930).  He published it under the name ‘Ex-Private X’ because he said “were it otherwise I could not tell the truth about myself and others”.  He used the pseudonym for some of his other works as well.  He also published some young adult books under the name Frank Lelland.  Some of his stories have been adapted for both television and radio.  Probably his most famous tale ‘The Waxworks’ was adapted for the TV series Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1959).  The radio show Suspense aired three versions of it, and The Price of Fear also adapted it, starring legendary actor Vincent Price.  His short story ‘Playmates’ was adapted for the television show The Schaefer Century Theater in 1952, which featured the television debut of actress Natalie Wood.  He died in 1956.

Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu was born in Dublin in 1814.  He was the grandnephew of playwright, Richard Brinsley Sheridan.  He went to law school but decided to take up journalism instead of practicing.  He owned several newspapers for a time and often contributed stories to Dublin University Magazine, of which he eventually took charge.  After his wife Susanna died he became a virtual recluse and devoted himself to full time writing.  His writing, I’ve found, tends to be peopled with extraordinary horrors, which always seem to stand out in my memory, generally due to their oddness.  He is probably best known for his vampire story “Carmilla”, which has been credited as being an inspiration to Bram Stoker who wrote Dracula.  Le Fanu’s impact on modern horror has been extensive.  Ghost story master M.R. James sited Le Fanu as a major influence.  Rich Ristow, author of the new novelette, Into The Cruel Sea, had the following to say about Le Fanu.

I was trying to think of what some of the more memorable creatures/characters were from either horror short stories or novels.  They could be memorable due to their eeriness, appearance, dialog, horrific-ness, whatever.  Here are a few I thought of:

- Minheer Vanderhausen from Schalken The Painter (short story) by J. Sheridan Le Fanu He is discribed as a man wearing Flemish clothing and:

William Hope Hodgson was born in Blackmore End, Essex in 1877. He ran away from boarding school at the age of thirteen to work at sea, eventually becoming a lieutenant in the merchant marine. He left that line of work because he had become unhappy with the lifestyle. He used his experiences at sea in a number of his short stories and novels, his best selling novel, The Boats of the Glen Carrig (1907) in particular. From what I have read about the novel, it is a difficult read, but one filled with all sorts of bizarre monsters and oddities that only one with a marvelous imagination could come up with. While at sea, Hodgson undertook a rigorous workout regiment in order to protect himself from bullying by other sailors, as he was a rather short man. He was very successful at this, and after leaving sea life he opened his own exercise school, W.H. Hodgson’s School of Physical Culture. He even used his knowledge of how muscles work to handcuff famous escape artist Harry Houdini on stage in 1902. It took Houdini over two hours to escape the restraints, after which he accused Hodgson of intentionally hurting him and jamming the locks of the cuffs.