Monday, May 12, 2014
Scream Queen and Other
Tales of Menace
Posted by Charles R. Rutledge
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Posted by Charles R. Rutledge at 6:56 PM
I first discovered Ed Gorman's work back in the early
1990s. Crime writer Andrew Vachss was my absolute favorite author at the time
and I was tracking down his short stories in books like COLD BLOOD edited by
Richard Chizmar, DARK AT HEART, edited by Joe and Karen Lansdale, and DARK
CRIMES, edited by, well, Ed Gorman. But see, all of these books also had
stories by Gorman. I think it was the story THE LONG SILENCE AFTER that made me
a fan and that led to me picking up Gorman's collection PRISONERS AND OTHER
STORIES and one of my absolute favorite private eye novels, THE NIGHT
REMEMBERS.
Over the years I've read a lot of Gorman's other
books including a lot of his Westerns, most recently the collection A DISGRACE
TO THE BADGE AND OTHERS.
This weekend though I've been back to the stuff
that attracted me to Ed Gorman's work to begin with, crime and dark suspense
stories, because there's a brand new collection out called SCREAM QUEEN AND
OTHER TALES OF MENACE. The very first story in the book, ANGIE, was a
sharp gut punch of Noir that was dark, dark, dark. I read the last page and put
the book down and said, "Damn."
Here's one of the things I love about Gorman's
work. It's also something that I admire and envy as a writer, and that's his
ability to get real people on the page and to do it in an economical way. Give
an author a whole novel to tell you about a character and most of them can do
it, but to do it in a short story and do it consistently is bloody impressive.
Gorman has the knack. He's not writing about characters. He's writing about
people, be they private eyes, cowboys, call girls, or what have you. They seem
real and they will stay with you after you've closed the book.
The titular story, SCREAM QUEEN is an excellent
example of this. Yes it's a tale with some menace, but it's also a story about
growing up and that often painful period between high school and reality where
you lose friends and try to establish yourself as a functioning adult. This
story has a couple of heartbreaking moments, and only because, for that brief
span of reading, Gorman has made me believe in those people and care what
happens about them. Probably didn't hurt that I found some stuff to
identify with in the protagonist either.
I'm not going to review all the stories, because
that would take too long and because the book is out now and I wanted to get
the word out about how good it is, and because I'm not going to tear through
all the tales. Or I'm going to try not to. I want to save a few for when I need
a shot of something well written, dark, and memorable. Highly recommended.
Fabulous review and well deserved, Ed.
ReplyDeleteThe Night Remembers is my favorite too! Great, great characters and story.
TWB