Jack Vance is such a revered sf/fantasy writer his career as a mystery-suspense writer has largely been overlooked. One of his early mysteries won the Edgar, in fact, and at least one of his suspense novels was made into a TV movie, this being BAD RONALD which is a whole lot better than the 1973 Ballantine packaging would lead you to believe.
The era was still in the throes of Psycho. Numerous writers tried to run riffs on the basic Crazy Mama theme. Vance took the simple but suspenseful story of a seventeen year old kid named Ronald and paired him with an over-protective mother who had to hide him after Ronald committed an unthinkable crime, an event which Vance wisely skims quickly.. The only thing Mom can do is hide him in a hollowed out space in the house (a familiar trope in those days; in fact a more more celebrated novel was called CRAWLSPACE).
As grisly as the set-up is Vance deals with the rest of the novel (the police staking out the house; the nasty neighbors taunting her; and her near-breakdown) with, believe it or not, a healthy dose of black humor. All too soon Mom begins to understand Ronald is not only murderous but maybe even worse, he's a loser. He's pretty much happy to be hidden in the house. She feeds him three times a day (but makes him go on a diet); she gives him magazines hoping this'll keep him in contact with the real world--but he prefers working on his imaginary fantasy novel world; and he whimpers like a child when he can't get exactly the kind of "treat" he wants.
The dark humor only makes Ronald's psychopathology all the grimmer. We really are dealing with a freak here, one who should be chained to a dungeon wall for life. And the wily plot with many twists and turns shows just how many riffs you can run on freaky.
Unlike many of the PSYCHO riffs, there's a great deal of perceptive and nimble writing here. A very solid novel. The TV movie was straightforward and wasn't hip enough to include the humor.
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Here's a beautifully made reasonably priced three-book collection from the premiere small press Subterranean (though at the rating they're growing they're no longer "small") that contains Jack Vance's three finest mystery novels, including Bad Ronald http://www.subterraneanpress.com/ I read one a night and was reminded again that Jack Vance not only deserved his first Edgar he deserved a couple more, too.
New Jack Vance in Stock and Shipping
May 9, 2011
Our mammoth (over 560 pages) gathering of three of Jack Vance’s mystery novels is in stock and shipping. Included in Dangerous Ways are the Edgar Award-winning The Man in the Cage, the unforgettable hider-in-the-house thriller Bad Ronald, and the exotic South Seas murderfest The Deadly Isles.
You won’t find a better example of an established author stepping outside the genre that made him famous—in this case sf—and putting his indelible imprint on another.
A great collection. All of Vance's mystery novels are worth revisiting, including the ones both printed and reprinted by Underwood-Miller.
ReplyDeleteEd, I remember laying on the floor of my family's trailer house with my best friend in the second grade watching the BAD RONALD TV-movie. Scared the heck out of us both! Thanks for the great post.
ReplyDeleteThe Bad Ronald TV movie is available from Warner Archive if you are interested.
ReplyDeleteStan Burns