New from Crippen & Landru
I first read Charlotte Armstrong after seeing a 1952 movie called
"Don't Bother To Knock." The stars were Richard Widmark and Marilyn
Monroe. Monroe plays a seriously disturbed young woman asked to babysit
the child of Widmark and his wife. Monroe is terrific--terrifying. Will
she kill the kid?
I'd seen the name Charlotte Armstrong on the metal paperback racks.
She always seemed to have a new paperback out. And she was in Ellery
Queen a lot. I tracked down Mischief which the Monroe movie was based on and became an Armstrong fan for life.
If she was not as phantasmagoric as Dorothy B. Hughes sometimes was
or as Elizabeth Sanxay Holding almost always was, Armstrong, as a critic
recently noted, updated the gothic tropes of the previous generation
and made of them tart and contemporary popular art.
No critic of the time was a bigger promoter of Armstrong's work than
Anthony Boucher. He noted that she was the creator of "suburban noir" and
he was right.
Though she used the tropes of what was dismissively called "women's
fiction" she took them into a nether realm that was riveting and
terrifying.
Editors Rick Cypert and the late Kirby McCauley have collected here a
collection of short and long stories that are a tribute to the Armstrong
finesse and darkness.
None of the pieces here have ever been collected before and there is also unpublished material.
Everything in the book is packed with excellent storytelling but my
favorite has to be the long novelette "Man in The Road") about a "career
woman" (yes that was how they were divided from "real women" :) ) who
returns home to a small bleak desert town only to find herself accused
of a sinister mysterious hit-and-run. I'll pay this the highest
compliment I can--this is the kind of twisty crime story Richard
Matheson excelled at. It would have been perfect for the long form
"Alfred Hitchcock Presents."
My favorite of the shorter pieces is "The Cool Ones" which concerns
the kidnapping of a grandmother and makes as contemporary a statement as
the Flower Power era she wrote it in.
This is not only a major collection of a major writer (thanks to
Sarah Weinman for bringing so many overlooked women writers back to our
attention) but is also the most beautifully jacketed and produced book Crippen & Landru has ever published.
New from Crippen & Landru
I first read Charlotte Armstrong after seeing a 1952 movie called "Don't Bother To Knock." The stars were Richard Widmark and Marilyn Monroe. Monroe plays a seriously disturbed young woman asked to babysit the child of Widmark and his wife. Monroe is terrific--terrifying. Will she kill the kid?
I'd seen the name Charlotte Armstrong on the metal paperback racks.
She always seemed to have a new paperback out. And she was in Ellery
Queen a lot. I tracked down Mischief which the Monroe movie was based on and became an Armstrong fan for life.
If she was not as phantasmagoric as Dorothy B. Hughes sometimes was
or as Elizabeth Sanxay Holding almost always was, Armstrong, as a critic
recently noted, updated the gothic tropes of the previous generation
and made of them tart and contemporary popular art.
No critic of the time was a bigger promoter of Armstrong's work than
Anthony Boucher. He noted that she was the creator of "suburban noir" and
he was right.
Though she used the tropes of what was dismissively called "women's fiction" she took them into a nether realm that was riveting and terrifying.
Editors Rick Cypert and the late Kirby McCauley have collected here a collection of short and long stories that are a tribute to the Armstrong finesse and darkness.
None of the pieces here have ever been collected before and there is also unpublished material.
Everything in the book is packed with excellent storytelling but my favorite has to be the long novelette "Man in The Road") about a "career woman" (yes that was how they were divided from "real women" :) ) who returns home to a small bleak desert town only to find herself accused of a sinister mysterious hit-and-run. I'll pay this the highest compliment I can--this is the kind of twisty crime story Richard Matheson excelled at. It would have been perfect for the long form "Alfred Hitchcock Presents."
My favorite of the shorter pieces is "The Cool Ones" which concerns the kidnapping of a grandmother and makes as contemporary a statement as the Flower Power era she wrote it in.
This is not only a major collection of a major writer (thanks to Sarah Weinman for bringing so many overlooked women writers back to our attention) but is also the most beautifully jacketed and produced book Crippen & Landru has ever published.
Though she used the tropes of what was dismissively called "women's fiction" she took them into a nether realm that was riveting and terrifying.
Editors Rick Cypert and the late Kirby McCauley have collected here a collection of short and long stories that are a tribute to the Armstrong finesse and darkness.
None of the pieces here have ever been collected before and there is also unpublished material.
Everything in the book is packed with excellent storytelling but my favorite has to be the long novelette "Man in The Road") about a "career woman" (yes that was how they were divided from "real women" :) ) who returns home to a small bleak desert town only to find herself accused of a sinister mysterious hit-and-run. I'll pay this the highest compliment I can--this is the kind of twisty crime story Richard Matheson excelled at. It would have been perfect for the long form "Alfred Hitchcock Presents."
My favorite of the shorter pieces is "The Cool Ones" which concerns the kidnapping of a grandmother and makes as contemporary a statement as the Flower Power era she wrote it in.
This is not only a major collection of a major writer (thanks to Sarah Weinman for bringing so many overlooked women writers back to our attention) but is also the most beautifully jacketed and produced book Crippen & Landru has ever published.
10 comments:
Ed was a great writer, editor, and friend. I miss him a lot.
Thanks for sharing this one, Patti. Ed is much missed...
I am just glad his wife (Carol?) left his blog up. So too with Bill and Ron's and Rick's.
Serendipity. I'm currently reading Armstrong's SEVEN SEATS TO THE MOON and have just ordered NIGHT CALL. For me, Armstrong WAS the Queen of Suspense and many of those who followed her but pale imitations.
And this review, once again, shows what a perceptive reader and critic Ed was.
I've read a few Charlotte Armstrong mystery novels and more than a few of her short stories over the years. Very capable writer who deserves more attention. I miss Ed Gorman.
I had to buy (no library copy) Lawrence Block's latest anthology, PLAYING GAMES (you can guess the theme), and, as the authors are listed alphabetically, we start with:
Patricia Abbott, "Seek and You Will Find." This was a good one that kept me guessing where Patti was going with it until the end. Two old friends go to the nursery to buy plants. One, Ruth, seems just interested in the plants, while the other, Kitty, is way more observant about what is going on around them, especially the tattooed man playing Hide and Seek with a young girl. Who is he, what is their relationship, and what the heck is he up to? You will definitely want to follow this to the end, and it went in an unexpected direction. Good story.
I've also read stories by Charles Ardai and S. A. Cosby so far.
I've read the two Armstrong collections done by Crippen & Landru, as well as another one plus a few of her novels. She won an Edgar for A DRAM OF POISON, which I liked a lot.
Thanks, Jeff.
I also like A DRAM OF POISON.
I bought a copy of this book about two years ago when I was looking for some of the Crippen & Landru collections. I am surprised I have not read any of the stories in it yet, because I like Charlotte Armstrong's writing and have enjoyed short stories by her in anthologies.
Thanks for linking me up! It's been a bad computer, cat and Blogspot day for getting Desired Results. And the cats were the least of it.
Carol is indeed the late Ed's impressive wife...you can (I think) read some recent Carol Gorman Fb comments here w/o being on Fb (At least, I think so...my Fb "wall" is an open one, and my "wall" is an open-to-all wall): https://www.facebook.com/todd.mason.589/posts/pfbid02BmsaeudKBKpfPUx3bLBALzEkdeJpj9di1d16wVJQTqfDaYTrRe1rRMwVERnYdbnNl?notif_id=1689893632318139¬if_t=feedback_reaction_generic&ref=notif
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