Williamson Serves Up Tasty Finger Food, While Pronzini's Latest Offering Should Be Sent Back to the Kitchen:
A Review of Night Freight, by Bill Pronzini, and Frights of Fancy, by J. N. WilliamsonBill Pronzini. Night Freight. New York: Leisure, 2000. 343 p.
J. N. Williamson. Frights Of Fancy. New York: Leisure, 2000. 361 p.
I like short stories. They're the finger food of literature, while anthologies and collections are the buffets. Now, I have been accused in the past of never passing up a buffet, and while that's not entirely accurate anymore, when it comes to books I am like a starving man at a smorgasbord.
Veteran author Bill Pronzini has been a fixture in short fiction for decades, appearing regularly in such magazines as Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Mike Shayne's Mystery Magazine, and Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, where I happened to read him first. His most recent collection has massed a considerable amount of his works, and as one might expect with such a back catalog, Night Freight is absolutely jam-packed with stories, no less than 26 of them in under 350 pages. If you get the idea that these are short short stories, you'd be right–the longest, "Stacked Deck," weighs in at 35 pages, and it's the exception. Unfortunately, its length is not the only thing exceptional about this story: it's also the best of the lot, and it's not even really a horror story; it's probably a better fit in the mystery genre. Also unfortunately, it's a fitting way to begin this review, for, as a whole, Night Freight is an uneven and at times unsatisfying read for a horror aficionado.
Most of these tales aren't particularly scary, which is unforgivable in a collection which labels itself "Horror" on its spine. There are a few exceptions: "Angel of Mercy" is a rather provocative tale of a frontier healer with a secret; "Ancient Evil" is a pretty good werewolf tale; "Tom" is the cat from hell; and "The Coffin Trimmer" is a neat little chiller set in the old west. Some are effective in other ways, notably "Souls Burning," "Strangers in the Fog," "Wishful Thinking," and "A Taste of Paradise" (the latter especially unsettling). The rest of the collection is, well, to put it kindly not so good. There are too many stories whose endings telegraph themselves well in advance, and which go for the easy shock. There's nothing wrong with the creep-out, but it wears quickly. As does this collection, which is a pity, as I expected so much better of Pronzini.
J. N. Williamson has quite a back list of short stories as well, although I was aware of him mainly for his novels, such as Death-Coach, The Dentist (which put me off dental work rather nicely), The Black School, and Spree. I will have to change my thinking now, as Frights Of Fancy is as gripping a collection as I have read recently. As in Pronzini's book, the author prefaces each story with a comment or two, but Williamson's are far more informative and interesting. Readers actually get an idea of the genesis of each tale, and they therefore read the story with, I think, a greater degree of interest as a result. More writers and editors of collections and anthologies should take note and introduce their stories thus.
Now, to the stories themselves. There are sixteen in all, three of which have never previously been published. Williamson grabs the reader by the throat from the outset of the collection: the protagonist of "Reality Function," Mr. Miliken, reminds me of some of the teachers I suffered under in school. In retrospect, I guess I was fortunate not to meet him personally. Such effective horror is great fun. But it only gets better: "When Nature Itself Creates Them" puts a new slant on the Roswell incident, with the unlikeliest of main characters. "Public Places" may put readers off of public restrooms for life. "Mercy" is two and a half pages long–but with a surprise ending that proves that less is sometimes more.
Williamson is a lyrical, literate writer as well. "Child of the Sea" builds its suspense gradually through a description of an unusual, improbable villain with many faces. "A. Pyme" is an oddball, autobiographical piece that defies adequate description, but it's lots of fun. Better still is "It Does Not Come Alone," which is a rather touching, personal story of a group of friends who discover the secrets of aging. It is in short wonderful, but the cream of the crop is "The House of Life", which I will not describe in much detail for fear of giving away the nature of the story. I will say that it's told from three drastically different points of view, one rather unconventional and unexpected, and its ending brought a tear to my eye. Make that several tears.
This is not to say that Frights Of Fancy is all highs, without a lemon in the carload. Williamson states in his introduction to "The Sudd" that "I don't do meaningful, literate horror better than this," and that may be so, but I'm afraid I missed the point of that particular tale. It was quite atmospheric, but not terribly affective or evocative. And then there is "Pick Up," which is a gruesomely effective piece (no pun intended; read it and you'll understand) that will make women cheer and men squirm, but which suffers from a final sentence that reads like a bad joke–which, of course, it is. It neatly sinks the story as a result. But that's just my opinion; each reader's mileage may vary.
Both books are from the same publisher, and are a wonderful bargain as a part of what is advertised in the books as the "Leisure Horror Book Club." That's three books every two months for $11.25, and shipping is free, as is the first package of three, with no minimum to buy. For a cheapskate like me that's pretty darned good. You can't buy recent used books that cheaply. I also like the idea of having a mug shot of the author on the inside back cover, along with a short bio. Not every paperback publisher thinks to do this, and it's a nice touch. How else would I have known that Jerry Williamson and I both are fans of Indiana University basketball? I do, however, have one nitpicking complaint: Leisure puts the author's name as the header of each even page, which is peachy, but it's nice to have the name of the story at the top of each odd page, instead of just the name of the collection repeated over and over again. It adds a little measure of direction that makes the book easier to navigate.