A Writer's Tale Page 8

  Bob Colby, famous for his Fawcett Gold Medal books, was another regular. He always showed up with his wife, Francesca, who was very soft-spoken and nice. Bob was a kick.

  He would always wink and nudge me with his elbow and say, “Hey, Rich, if we’re so famous, how come we’re not rich?” Bob and I spent a while collaborating on a book, but it petered out.

  Gary Brandner was “the kid” of the Pink Tea before my arrival. He’d only had a few things published by the time I came along. His most recent work had been Saturday Night in Milwaukee, on which he’d collaborated with Clayton Matthews.

  Our paths had already crossed in that my first story had appeared in the same issue of Ellery Queen as Gary’s second story. With the publication of The Howling, he became a big-time horror writer. Whenever he hosted a Pink Tea, I knew it would be a very late night. He never wanted anyone to leave. He took departures as personal insults. So it would often be two o’clock in the morning before I could force myself to leave. At the door, he always said, “Try to be a better person.”

  Over the years, Gary brought several women to the Pink Teas. They were always very attractive and flamboyant, including Barbara and Martine, two of his wives I got to know fairly well.

  Leo Whitaker had a huge dog that liked to attack us whenever Leo hosted a Pink Tea. He also has a charming wife, Elizabeth, who hails from Scotland. Leo, red-haired and ruddy, struck me as a Dickens character. I always expected his buttons to pop off.

  A sweet-tempered socialist, he had stories about his days of campaigning for John Kennedy. We used to argue politics a lot. He once said, “Laymon, your answer to all the world’s ills is summary execution.” Though Leo succeeded in having some short stories published, he never seemed obsessed with writing the way some of us were.

  Richard D. Hughes started coming to the Pink Tea, as I recall, because he was a friend of Leo’s. Richard was an attorney and judge. Tall and soft-spoken and friendly, he became a regular member who sometimes read some fiction. For quite a while, he was working on a promising historical novel about the early railroading days in California. To the best of my knowledge, he has never had any fiction published. However, he was a good member who made worthwhile comments about the material being read. He would eventually hire me to work in his law offices. I worked for him for four years, and the job helped to get me through a very rough financial period. I’ll always be grateful to him for that.

  Al Nussbaum was renowned as a short story writer and bank robber. At one time, he was on the F.B.I.‘s “Ten Most “Wanted” list. When captured on the snowy streets of Buffalo, he was armed with a submachine gun and hand grenades. But, gosh, he was a nice guy!

  He always had a twinkle in his eye, a wisecrack, a joke. He told some of the funniest, raunchiest jokes I’ve ever heard. He was often the brains behind “practical jokes.”

  Dan Marlowe was one of the biggest names from the heyday of Fawcett Gold Medal, author of the Earl Drake series (The Name of the Game is Death is one of the best hard-boiled crime novels I’ve ever read), and winner of the Edgar Allan Poe Award of the Mystery Writers of America. He started showing up at the Pink Teas in the company of Al Nussbaum, and became a regular member (while Al only showed up once in a while).

  Even though Dan suffered from amnesia, he wrote better stories than any of us. And you always got the feeling, with Dan, that he was really listening to you, and that he cared.

  Marshall Oliphant, a guy about my own age, has always wanted to be a writer and hasn’t done much about it. He did get a couple of very nasty, funny short stories published in men’s magazines. And he is always threatening the world with a novel that never quite gets done. I once tried to collaborate with Marshall on a horror novel, but it didn’t work out.

  Ted Williams and his wife, Carol, started coming to the Pink Tea because they were friends and neighbors of Matt and Patty. They were nice, friendly people and really interesting, but neither of them was a writer. Ted wasn’t the baseball legend, either. But he was a professional photographer, and he did photos for the covers for some of my Pitman stories.

  Vic Auer started coming to the Pink Teas as a friend of Arthur Moore. He was a very friendly, eager, enthusiastic fellow with a major-league smile. I don’t know much about his background, but it seems that he wrote for television and movies. Unlike most of us, he did his writing in restaurants instead of at home writing longhand at a corner table for hours at a time. A very Hemingway thing to do.

  Bonnie Cardone, a good-looking young gal, recently divorced and living in Brentwood in the heyday of the Pink Tea, was cheerful and enthusiastic but didn’t seem very interested in being a writer. She brought several interesting guests to the Pink Teas. Including some very snotty guys and at least one strange and ditzy gal whose behavior was quite amusing but whose name luckily escapes me.

  The Decline and Fall

  Things happened.

  Warner Law passed away. Matt and Patty moved away from Los Angeles.

  And some new people, who shall remain nameless, started showing up at the Pink Teas.

  They were women who didn’t appreciate smoke or hard liquor.

  And they brought friends.

  Ironically enough, they were turning the Pink Tea into a Pink Tea.

  The low point was struck when these same ladies invited a celebrity to the Pink Tea, and then the celebrity and her celebrity husband hosted a Pink Tea and I decided not to go because I wanted our group to be about writing, not about celebrities.

  Gary Brandner and some others felt the same way I did, so we broke away from the sissified remains of the original group. With Gary mostly at the helm, we started a new group.

  Which was interesting in itself. Its members included Chris Lacher, Bill Relling, Tom Elliot, Bill Carney, Vic Auer, Creighton Barnes, Les Roberts and several others.

  Gary hosted most of the new meetings, and I hosted a couple of them. But it wasn’t the same. One thing led to another, and I quit after a while.

  The Summing Up

  My involvement with the Pink Tea went on for about a decade, and had a tremendous impact on my life.

  I don’t know how much good the “literary criticism” did. In fact, Ann and I eventually came to the conclusion that much of the advice and suggestions about my fiction (in the later years) was often counterproductive. But it was extremely inspiring and educational just to be associated with the original group of colorful, professional writers.

  Most of them were considerably older than me. I admired them and took their advice to heart and never dreamed that I would ever be as successful as any of them. I held them in awe.

  After years of getting advice from teachers and fellow students who rarely knew what they were talking about, the opportunity to learn at the feet of real writers was so incredibly great that it can hardly be expressed.

  Aside from the influences these people had on my writing and attitudes, etc., they had an amazing, direct effect on all aspects of my life.

  You know the old poem, “For want of a shoe, a horse was lost… ?”

  For want of the Pink Tea, major parts of my life would’ve been either lost or entirely different.

  Look at this:

  1. Clayton Matthews got me his agent, Jay Garon. Garon, for all his faults, launched my career.

  2. When I was down on my luck, Richard Hughes gave me the job at his law offices.

  3. Marshall Oliphant set me up on a blind date with Ann Marshall, a friend of his girl friend, Loretta. Ann and I got married and had Kelly.

  4. At a Pink Tea at Gary Brandner’s house, I met Dean Koontz. (Dean was not a member, and disapproved of the criticisms that were being thrown around at various writers.) Dean has not only been a great friend, but he has influenced my life and career in many significant ways. He advised me to “broaden my scope” and he got me Bob Tanner as an agent. Under Bob’s guidance, my career bloomed and he remains my agent to this day.

  Without the Pink Tea, my life would probably not have in
cluded Jay Garon, Dean Koontz, Bob Tanner, my wife Ann and my daughter Kelly. Those are biggies, with ripple effects that touch every aspect of my life.

  But to everything there is a season…

  The season of the Pink Tea was when I was an innocent, aspiring writer learning from the old vets. We were a boy’s club of hard-drinking, smoking, raunchy guys along with a handful of good gals who didn’t try to change us.

  But then the “Aunt Sallys” took control.

  Some of us wanted no truck with getting civilized, so we lit out for the territories.

  And so the season of the Pink Tea came to an end.

  About the Lists

  Included in this volume are lists of my favorite films, books, authors, etc. They are not intended to be lists of “the best.” In fact, I was very careful to judge names and titles entirely on the basis of my own preference not because the person or the work is generally considered wonderful. I tried to be as honest as possible.

  They are very personal lists, reflecting nobody’s taste but my own.

  We (myself, John, Peter and Bob) felt that the lists would serve several purposes.

  One, my fans would be eager to see them. They are always asking about my favorite writers, books and movies.

  Two, many writers will be curious to find out who and what is listed. In particular, are they? Are their friends? Are their enemies?

  Three, the lists provide aspiring writers with names of authors and works that have been significant influences on a successful writer me. If they use the lists as guidelines for their own reading, they’ll gain a fairly broad background that will certainly improve their own writing.

  Four, readers in general might use the lists to discover some excellent writers, books, and films that they might enjoy exploring.

  Five, just about anyone might find it interesting to see what a guy like me prefers to read and watch at the movies. I am known as a horror writer. A lot of readers probably think that my tastes are limited to weird, hardcore, gruesome material. Some editors and critics and writers probably assume that I read nothing at all. I think the lists will surprise nearly everyone except for a few close friends.

  Each list is arranged alphabetically; it would’ve been impossible to arrange the names or titles in order of preference.

  I didn’t set out to come up with a certain number of names or titles for any list. I named my favorites first, then counted. So you can be sure that I didn’t include or exclude anything in order to round out the number.

  The lists are extremely subjective. I pulled most of the names and tides off the top of my head, though I did sometimes scan my shelves to make sure I wasn’t leaving out anyone important. I undoubtedly did leave out certain names and titles simply because I failed to think of them. But many others were omitted on purpose. After all, a list doesn’t mean much if it includes everything.

  Some readers may feel that my choices were influenced by factors such as friendship.

  They may also suspect I omitted certain names or titles because of personal feelings about the author or a distaste for their material.

  Guilty as charged. They’re my lists.

  My 15 All-Time Favorite Books

  THINKING OF ALL THE BOOKS I’VE READ SO FAR, THE FIFTEEN LISTED below stand out as having made such strong impressions on me that they inspired me and changed my life.

  1. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer - Mark Twain

  2. The Carpetbaggers - Harold Robbins

  3. The Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger

  4. For Whom the Bell Tolls - Ernest Hemingway

  5. Last Summer - Evan Hunter

  6. Lonesome Dove - Lany McMurtry

  7. Look Homeward, Angel - Thomas Wolfe

  8. The Moon and Sixpence - W. Somerset Maugham

  9. A Moveable Feast - Ernest Hemingway

  10. The Night of the Hunter - Davis Grubb

  11. The Old Man and the Sea - Ernest Hemingway

  12. Soldier in the Rain - William Goldman

  13. The Temple of Gold - William Goldman

  14. The Travels of Jamie MacPheeters - Robert Lewis Taylor

  15. True Grit - Charles Portis

  On Being A Horror Writer

  HORROR WRITERS FIND OUT HOW IT FEELS TO BE THE TARGET OF bigotry. We are the second class citizens of the literary world.

  Hell, we aren’t even citizens of that world. We are aliens, trespassers, interlopers.

  Geeks, freaks.

  Purveyors of trash.

  Kids love us. So do a handful of real horror readers.

  But most respectable people “literary” authors, editors, teachers, librarians, scholars, politicians, preachers, parents generally consider horror writers to be a stain on the floor.

  I’ve had plenty of opportunities to observe the discrimination.

  People ask me what I do for a living.

  I say, “Oh, I write novels.”

  Their eyes light up. I’m suddenly on a pedestal. I’m an author! An artist! An intellectual!

  They are so impressed. “Really?” they blurt. “What sort of things do you write?”

  “Oh, scary stuff. Horror.”

  More often than not, their eyes go dead.

  I’m no longer a light of culture and art I’m a trash man.

  They force a polite smile and say, “Oh, how nice. I just love Stephen King.”

  But they don’t love me. They’ve never heard of me.

  And they don’t want to.

  Because I’ve identified myself as a writer of “horror,” most people automatically assume that I’m a worthless hack who couldn’t possibly write anything they might want to read.

  With the exceptions of such best-selling authors as Dean Koontz, Stephen King and Anne Rice, we are “untouchables.”

  We are horror writers.

  We are dog poop on the shoes of literature.

  Our families and friends are embarrassed by us. “Why don’t you write something nice?” they say.

  General readers go out of their way to avoid buying any book that is identified as horror.

  Most people in the publishing industry barely tolerate us. I doubt that there exists a horror writer who hasn’t been urged by agents and editors to abandon horror and try writing some other type of fiction.

  They know that horror “doesn’t sell.”

  People don’t want to read horror.

  Except they do, don’t they?

  The fact is, millions of people read horror.

  But they don’t read us.

  They want to run from us.

  Which is very strange, considering that they love Stephen King, Dean Koontz and Anne Rice. Exceedingly strange, considering that the books by those three mega-stars aren’t very much different in subject matter or quality from what many of us are writing.

  In fact, I would venture to say that some of the worthless geeks and hacks of the much reviled horror clan have written books that are better than some of the bestselling books written by some of the mega-stars.

  Not that it matters.

  Because, in the opinion of every major U.S. publisher, horror doesn’t sell.

  Though we all know otherwise.

  So. What’s going on?

  One fact is obvious: horror has a massive image problem.

  To the book industry and the masses of general readers in this country, the word “horror” has nothing to do with Phantoms or Whispers or The Bad Place or Midnight. Horror has nothing to do with Salem’s Lot or The Shining or Desperation. Horror has nothing to do with Interview With the Vampire.

  Horror has only to do with poorly written, empty-headed, violent, gory, depressing, mean-spirited, immoral, unbelievable swill written by bottom-of-the-barrel wannabe authors about such nonsense as ghosts, vampires, werewolves, witches, demons, curses, monsters and psychos.

  Does that sound like an overly harsh appraisal of the situation?

  I bet it doesn’t. Not if you’re a horror writer.

  To most ho
rror writers, I bet it sounds like the solemn truth. But why do they revile us?

  We aren’t bad people. Well, some of us, maybe…

  Back to the question, Why are we reviled?

  People in the book industry look down their noses at us because, with a few significant exceptions, our books do not sell very well.

  Editors claim, “Readers just don’t want to buy horror.”

  They advise, “Tone down the supernatural elements. We’ll call it a suspense novel, and it’ll sell a lot more copies.”

  Basically, it seems that nobody wants to read horror unless it is written by you-knowwho.

  And the publishers long ago gave up on finding any new stars. Oh, they tried a few times.

  But they got the impression that nobody clicked, so they quit. Now, they very reluctantly publish horror novels every so often. Giving them little or no publicity. Doing tiny little print runs.

  Usually, a horror novel will get published with no promotion at all. As a result, nothing much happens. With paperbacks, you’re lucky if five or six copies get into the average store. With hard-bounds, two or three copies may end up somewhere on a shelf, spine out.

  They are pieces of hay in a hay stack. Nobody is likely notice these books, much less buy them. If they do get purchased, most bookstores will not reorder (though they might claim to).

  When Funland came out in paperback, a local bookstore received a dozen copies. They flew off the shelves. They were all gone within two days. But I expressed an interest in buying the book, and was told that they wouldn’t be ordering any more copies.

  Even books that do sell “don’t sell.”

  All of which goes to prove that the publishers are right. Horror doesn’t sell.

  When the books don’t sell like hotcakes, the publisher blames the writer.

  So much for why publishers despise us.

  But what about the general public? Here is my “deep” answer.

  The general public probably reviles horror writers (except for… ) because we are often dealing with taboo subjects that make them nervous. Horror stories dwell on such things as torture, deformity, madness, dismemberment, rape, incest, beastiality, cannibalism, and bad ways of dying. We are the specialists of the worst case scenerio.” We are tour guides leading readers into dangerous, frightening territories. In general, we write nasty stuff. It repels a lot of readers. But it also attracts them.