Review: "The Rim of Morning"

SLOANE, William, The Rim of Morning – Two Tales of Cosmic Horror, New York Review Books/The New York Review of Books, New York NY, USA, 2015.

Octavo; paperback; 464pp. (with 3pp. of adverts). Mild wear; some creasing to the spine and a small bump to the spine head. Else, very good.

Hot on the heels of Ligotti, I bumped into this guy and it’s probably an instance of unfavourable comparison that I’ve rated him so highly. Bear that in mind as we go through this. Conversations with friends about Ligotti have led me to think that his short stories probably weren’t the best introduction to his oeuvre – it’s a case of baroque language, nihilistic violence, rinse and repeat – but I’m not sure that his long-form writing is going to vary considerably. In the case of Sloane however, we have quite a different beast altogether.

William Sloane (1906-1974) was a bookman through and through. Princeton educated, he wrote, edited, published and reviewed books all his adult life. His writing is incredibly polished and beautiful to read – it conveys rather than striving for effect. His characters jump off the page and their conversations are a delight to eavesdrop upon. And there is humour: not dark, bloody, slap-you-in-the-face humour, but urbane wit and drollery; even slapstick in some places. It seems that Mr. Sloane realised something that has utterly escaped the anhedonistic Mr. Ligotti: writing is for pleasure and to entertain.

Nevertheless, the two stories presented here are tales that Lovecraft would have sunk his teeth into with delight. There is cosmic horror (as advertised on the cover) and it doesn’t pull any punches. Our characters face awful revelations and they sink into mires of dread. There are no grandiloquent passages of adjective-laden prose here; this is Lovecraft without obfuscation, without the language getting in the way. And unlike Lovecraft, Sloane doesn’t take himself so seriously.

First though, I want to explore the introduction to this volume. As is customary these days with collections or reissues of horror writing, Stephen King has been tapped to give us a walkthrough of the material to follow, and he does a reasonable job here, even giving us a “Spoiler Alert” heads-up to start. I don’t begrudge Mr. King his accomplishments but he has a tendency to unreasonably pigeonhole writing and force it to conform to his definitions. I suspect, at some point in his career, he’s been tagged with the “Oh, you write genre fiction? Have you ever thought about writing a real book?” comment and it’s stuck with him as an enormous chip that he carries around on his shoulder. For King, if it’s genre fiction, it must be aimed at the lower classes, the blue-collar milieu, the proletariat, and he’s eager to claim anything that passes before him as part of his clan. Whenever he pens an introduction therefore, he assumes that he’s talking to fellow travellers – I almost suspect him of wearing a beer-hat while pounding on his keyboard.

It doesn’t pay anyone to judge a book in this fashion. Writers produce pieces that they choose to write, or are compelled to write, and they set their plots, their characters and their events as they see fit. Obviously, writers also write best about what they know, but even then some others can elevate or lower their material vicariously – look at Lovecraft. No-one calls Joyce Carol Oates or Donna Tartt genre fiction writers, but that’s what they are when you boil things down. The line between literature and genre fiction is incredibly vague and tenuous, and nowhere near as defined as Mr. King would like us to think. The work stands on its own merit, or it doesn’t; only time will reveal whether something is ‘worthy’ or not.

Nevertheless, this particular intro. isn’t as bad as some of his others, and the axe-grinding is toned back to a quiet murmur in the background. Still, the need to write “Spoiler Alert” at the start shows that he thinks he knows his audience. I usually prefer to read these pieces before going in, just to get some context; in this instance, I would recommend leaving it until last. It doesn’t really add anything to the experience and the cat de-bagging is a little frustrating.

Now: let’s get into it. This is two novels in one volume, the only two novels – sadly -which Sloane wrote. The first is To Walk the Night (1937), while the second is The Edge of Running Water (1939). Both are set mainly on the North American east coast amongst relatively well-heeled folk, and both tales are, essentially, mysteries with startling revelations (Stephen King calls them “whodunits”, but I prefer not to go there). Given that they were both written in the time of Hemingway, Steinbeck and Faulkner, there’s less of the exotic and the introspective about them and more of a Chandler-esque spotlight on the zeitgeist: to me, they feel a bit like P.G. Wodehouse, or Dornford Yates, trying their hands at something new.

To Walk the Night, when seen through a Mythos lens, is a story about psychic possession. It’s not, however, the carelessly-benign brain swap of the Great Race of Yith, but more in line with the Shan of Ramsay Campbell’s work. Unlike HPL’s “The Shadow out of Time” the story is told not from the inside out – from the point of view of the possessed – but rather, from the perspective of those around the affected individual, specifically Berkeley Jones, a recent university graduate and Long Island resident. “Bark” and his boyhood friend Jeremiah “Jerry” Lister, go back to their alma mater to watch a football game, and afterwards, drop in at the campus observatory to catch up with Jerry’s old professor and mentor, Walter LeNormand. They arrive to see him seemingly spontaneously combust, and are unable to stop him from burning alive. The resulting police investigation reveals that LeNormand, a confirmed bachelor, had married not a month previously, unbeknownst to our heroes; their meeting with Selena LeNormand is curious and an instant attraction between her and Jerry is the result. Soon Jerry has convinced her to move to New York and to marry him.

What follows are Bark’s observation of Selena and his mistrust of her and her goals. Selena is unusual: she is incredibly intelligent but completely unskilled in the ordinary processes of daily life. Although strikingly beautiful, she has no sense of fashion or style, until Bark’s mother takes her in hand. She is relentlessly coy about her past, which drives those around her crazy, especially in view of her upcoming marriage to Jerry (too quick for anyone’s liking). Bark mistrusts his views of Selena, not wanting to succumb to jealousy because this woman has come between him and his best bro’, but unable to dismiss certain evidences that she may not be what she seems: she exhibits powers of telepathy and clairvoyance, along with an ignorance of current events that seems unreal. (Sloane handles these instances very gracefully and delicately, integrating them seamlessly into the narrative; they don’t come off anywhere near as gauche as my description of them here!)

To be fair, most of what bothers people around Selena, is the fact that she doesn’t behave like other women. She’s “too intelligent”, too much an equal of Jerry, not willing to cook, not interested in art, literature, or fashion. She is, in other words, a modern woman in a world where such a creature is unheard-of. In reading this story, I had to periodically readjust my social lenses to work out what the fuss was all about. Once I had configured my internal “Way-Back Machine” to 1937, I could tootle along more easily. That being said however, Sloane isn’t just playing with a stereotype; he’s actually showing us that his characters have somewhat unrealistic expectations about this new person in their lives. There are no other characters in the book who are coloured-by-numbers; the fact that they all fall back on a type to try and pigeonhole Selena is a cunning trope to try and subvert that whole process.

By the end of the story, the scene has shifted to a desert area of “Arizona or New Mexico” called Cloud Mesa. Jerry and Selena have moved here so that Jerry can write a thesis and finish his PhD. Bark receives a summons from Jerry to visit and he arrives to find trouble in paradise: Selena is distant, aloof; Jerry is fraught with nerves, worried about something unspoken about Selena’s nature and, like a dog with a bone, unable to leave it alone. His research has given him glimpses of a possible answer to the ‘Selena question’ but, as the evidence crystallises around a final unspeakable truth, he commits suicide by shooting himself through the head.

The book is told in flashback, narrated by Bark to his adoptive father on the evening he returns to Long Island after Jerry’s suicide. They are both distraught and confused by the events leading to his death and so Bark lays out everything that has happened since the day of the football game to try and see some sort of cohesive whole. The story is punctuated by sections of italic text where Dr. Lister and Bark compare notes and clarify, and these passages help to massage the moments of the tale where the information being presented would be common knowledge between them. As the horrible conclusion emerges, Bark’s descriptions, not only of his slow-welling dread but of the universe around him, become hypnotic and vertiginous:

“Below us spread the gigantic sweep of the desert, tarnished gold where the sun still lay, and purple blue where the shadows from the western mountains were racing across it as the sun sank behind us. Watching that great tidal wave of darkness pouring across the valley, I suddenly realised how truly the earth was a ball, hung in gulfs of space and spinning around its axis with majestic precision and power. I almost thought I could feel the eastward surge of the mesa under my feet.”

Lovecraftian enough for you?

The final scenes of the novel are a slow burn, coming inevitably to fruition. Revelations take place and the conclusion is satisfying and grim. Not everything is revealed though; just enough to give us an idea of what’s happening. This is no Bellknap-Long story where there is no explanation (ooh! Spooky!), but rather a Blackwood drama, oozing with a slowly-manifesting psychological dread. I heartily recommend it.

*****

“A year ago it would have seemed to me ridiculous to assume that there are some facts it is better not to know, and even today I do not believe in the bliss of ignorance or the folly of knowledge. But this one thing is best left untouched. It rips the fabric of human existence from throat to hem and leaves us naked to a wind as cold as the space between the stars.

The fringe of that cold touched me once. I know what I am talking about.”

These are the final sentences of the first chapter of The Edge of Running Water. When I first read them I knew I was in for a treat. There are comparisons to be drawn here with Lovecraft’s “From Beyond”, but really, this book is its own creature.

The main thing that intrigued me when I got stuck into this was that it became obvious that Sloane enjoys writing female characters and that he likes to write about ‘difficult’ women. I don’t mean to open up any controversy here, but it’s become apparent from these two books that Sloane prefers complicated female personae, or rather women who live outside the parameters of normal expectation. There are three main women in this story: Twenty-year-old Anne Connor who, of the three, is the least complex or interesting; Mrs Elora Marcy, the cleaning lady and cook who comes from a poor background and a life of excruciating hardship; and Mrs Esther Walters, a spiritualist medium and a complex Chinese puzzle of motivations. In order, they represent the novel’s love interest, victim and villain, but even these labels are merely rough approximations – Sloane never really lets things get that easy.

Rounding out the pentacle of our character set are Dr. Julian Blair, an “electrophysicist” haunted by a terrible loss and a dark secret, and his protégé Professor Richard Sayles, a psychologist. As we come to explore these men’s background, we discover that previously, they had both fallen in love with Helen Connor and that Helen had chosen to marry Julian. Despite thwarted affections, the three remained on good terms and Richard had become the father figure in absentia to Anne – Helen’s younger sister – adopting a role of which Julian was incapable. Shortly after Anne’s fifteenth birthday, Helen died suddenly of pneumonia, Julian quit university in despair and Anne was sent overseas to boarding school. Richard struggled on with his studies to become a professor of psychology and a world-class lecturer.

(It’s obvious too, that Sloane enjoys writing about people in complex, broken, family units. In To Walk the Night, Bark’s mother is not Jerry’s mother, neither is Jerry’s dad Bark’s dad. They exist in a bizarre, informal adoptive arrangement which suits everybody but which is hardly quote, normal, unquote.)

Before departing out of Julian’s life, Richard makes a trite observation that “they will all meet again in the Hereafter”, and Julian blows his stack. If there is a ‘Hereafter’, he rages, surely men of science would have discovered it by now, or at least some evidence of its existence? He decides that he will not rest until he has discovered some means whereby he can penetrate ‘The Veil’ and speak once more to his beloved Helen. Richard is concerned for his friend and mentor but equally sure that this mania will peter out in due course. They part ambivalently.

Jump forward five years: Richard gets a mysterious letter from Julian, summoning him to a small town in coastal Maine. Having lost all contact with Julian, Richard catches the first train north from New York and wakes up in Barsham Harbour, a washed-up trading port whose best years were a century ago. He is left in no doubt as to the locals’ attitude towards “foreigners” or to the fact that this is a benighted backwoods that would be better left off the map than on. If it sounds a bit like Innsmouth, it’s not a bad parallel, but with less obvious inbreeding.

Once arrived at Julian’s new digs, Richard becomes acquainted (re-acquainted in two cases) with the inhabitants. The first person he meets is Mrs Walters, overweight, shrewd and affected. The dislike is instant and mutual. Next he discovers Anne, all grown-up and a young woman sure of herself and her capabilities. Julian is next to appear, but now shrunken and elderly due to overwork and constant strain: Richard’s first interview with him leaves him in no doubt that Dr. Blair has toys in the attic. Finally, we meet Mrs. Marcy, whose family built the crumbling edifice in which the story takes place but lost it due to the failure of the harbour and bad investments. We are told that her sunny disposition is a front to hide the squalor of her existence. At one point Anne discovers that her loser of a husband regularly beats her, an unexpected revelation for a novel of this genre and age. Just as Richard starts to find his own level in this strange household, a murder takes place and its resolution becomes the main impetus of what comes next.

Awhile ago I reviewed a book called The Ghost of 29 Megacycles, which claimed to be a report on the attempts by a ‘scientist’ to conduct experiments very similar to those taking place in this novel. Having finished this, it’s left me wondering if the ‘journalist’ who wrote that drivel in fact, read this book and made up the whole thing based upon it. It wouldn’t surprise me at all. Firstly, Julian’s work is all about radio frequencies and the modulation thereof, just like that other book; second, his premises are all based upon the presence of a practicing medium just as in the ‘real’ experiments. Once Richard gets the gist of what’s going on and exactly how Mrs Walters fits in, he realises that Julian is so far out in the tall grass, there may be no reeling him in again. I felt a great spiritual connexion to Professor Sayles at this point...

William Sloane takes us through the rest of the story at a breakneck speed. Once the death is discovered, the police are called in, the townsfolk rise in protest, and the questions fly. While the crime is being uncovered, Richard and Anne are also trying to find out what Julian’s up to. In the midst of everything is Mrs Walters, whose iron will and self-control impresses our heroes as much as she thwarts and exasperates them. They try a tactic to get her to reveal her hand; she counters and learns something that they were unwilling to reveal. Each time they lock horns with her, they find her more than equal to the challenge. By the end of the story, they (and we) are left in admiration of her skills (if not her ambitions) and they wish her well in retreat. It’s a remarkable accomplishment that Sloane undertakes here – to create a nemesis who, at the end of the day, inspires respect and credit for a good fight.

This, again, is where Sloane’s strength lies – the quality of his writing. His characters are sound and well-rounded, based in solid, if complex, psychological foundations. Even Anne isn’t a complete lightweight – there are nuances to her nature which make her intriguing (although, some of the shine does come off when things get a little schmaltzy). The scene in which she and Richard go swimming for the first time in the Kennebec River, is all but erotically charged as Richard discovers how much she has changed from the young girl he once knew; the creeping menace of Julian’s experiments pervade the narrative with an ominous tone, underscored by the run-down town and the wild, riverside setting; the revelation about what Julian has actually stumbled upon while messing about with Spiritualist fantasies has chilling repercussions and lifts the stakes dramatically at the end. This is not the writing of the pulps that Stephen King would have us believe it to be; it is, in fact, just damned good writing and deserves to be better known.

The full five Tentacled Horrors from me.