"Everybody Needs a Mink" by Dorothy B. Hughes
There is no crime in this story. A woman shopping at an upscale department store and wishing she had the money to buy some of the beautiful goods she sees is asked by a clerk to model a mink coat for an elderly man standing nearby. She agrees and the mink is a perfect fit. Joyfully she dashes to a mirror to see herself in it. The clerk comes over and asks her initials for a monogram and her address to have it delivered. Of course the woman thinks this is all a gag but gives her the information.
The coat is delivered and when she tells her family about this they are befuddled too but her husband says, "Wear it. Everybody needs a mink." When later on TV she sees a man being carted off to prison and somewhat similar to the man in the stores, she tells them this was the man. And she wears it after that, wishing she could properly thank the man but glad he saw her joy in modeling it.
"The Purple Shroud" Joyce Harrington
Every summer the Moons go to an artist colony where she weaves and he paints. He also recruits a young woman to be his consort for the summer. Finally having had enough of this, Mrs. Moon weaves a shroud and murders him then sews him into the shroud and dumps him into the lake. As the story ends she is headed out to Minneapolis where this summer's consort lives. This is a gorgeously written story that takes its time with her weaving...and murdering. No one will mourn the death of this womanizer.
8 comments:
Perhaps not, but I would wonder if his summer fling deserves the same warp and woof (or if even he did). A bit how too many HITCHCOCK PRESENTS: episodes seem to have been about meek husbands worm-turning against their overbearing wives (I'm not sure how many, but it was Too many)...the several about bank tellers getting over their overbearing bosses (theft rather than murder) were less tired on at least two counts (and distant cousins of the Parker--with the crime somewhat implied in the offstage shenanigans, one presumes!)...
I've turned Hughes into Parker...
Both of these look great, Patti. I've not read her stories before, but these sound like an interesting way to get to know her work.
I'll have to check my shelves for TROUBLED DAUGHTERS, TWISTED WIVES. I might have a copy.
I remember the Hughes stry very well from that anthology.
Nothing very exciting here this week. Finished the Lily King and William Brittain collections, still reading the Graham Swift - which is good but nowhere as good as his novels - and read a couple in Bill Pronzini's SMALL FELONIES 2, another short short collection.
Steve Lewis's parallel construction:
https://mysteryfile.com/blog/?p=79609
John Boston's more congruent, if aging (by days) in comparison, but possibly interesting:
http://galacticjourney.org/may-6-1967-stirred-shaken-june-1967-amazing/
I have enjoyed all the stories I read in this book, Patti, including these two. I still haven't finished all the stories, but now maybe I will read a few more. I have read two stories by Joyce Harrington and both were good.
And my own SSW aspect is up, for now dealing with the rather late-published pair of short stories by Ray Bradbury in the RB special issue of F&SF, May 1963.
https://socialistjazz.blogspot.com/2022/05/fritz-leiber-j-g-ballard-avram-davidson.html
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