Ed Gorman is the author of the Sam McCain and Dev Conrad series of crime novels.
Charlotte Armstrong Night Call & Other Stories
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None of the pieces here have ever been collected before and there is also unpublished material.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 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 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 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.
4 comments:
I purchased this book about three years ago, but unfortunately I haven't read any of the stories yet. I agree with Ed Gorman's assessment that the cover is very special. Probably one of the reasons that I bought the book.
Yes, Ed was right on target. I've only read a few of Armstrong's novels, but I have read some short story collections (including this one) and liked them a lot.
Finished this week: the previously mentioned CAN'T AND WON'T by Lydia Davis. Mostly very short stories, often a page or less. Most do not leave anything deep in the memory, but she can be interesting. I notice a lot of them either say "from Flaubert" or "a dream." I have a more recent collection, OUR STRANGERS, which she made NOT available on Amazon to encourage independent bookstores.
Also read the Crippen & Landru collection by Tom Mead, THE INDIAN ROPE TRICK and Other Violent Entertainments. I must admit that, though I liked it, my general reaction was mild disappointment. Mead is supposed to be the new John Dickson Carr, with locked room and other impossible crimes. First, his detective, Joseph Spector, a retired conjuror, is no Gideon Fell but a recessive, colorless person who leaves little impression. If you want to see someone who sells a solution, watch any episode of JONATHAN CREEK. Second, too many of the stories were cheats (IMHO). Either his solution is based on facts or specialist knowledge that the reader doesn't have, or else the solution is simply not believable as presented. They are certainly readable, just don't expect to be amazed.
Current reading includes two British Library story collections edited by the indefatigable (it seems) Martin Edwards. The first is a book I missed when it came out in 2023: THE EDINBURGH MYSTERY And Other Tales of Scottish Crime. The other is CRIMES OF CYMRU: Classic Mystery Tales of Wales.
I've read some of Armstrong's novels, but never her short stories. Thanks for sharing this one; I ought to look into her work more.
Count me in as a big Charlotte Armstrong fan, having read all of her novels, two of her collections, and one Broadway play. Her lesser works are merely good, her other writing is fantastic. A major (and once best-selling) talent who is sadly all but forgotten today. I have been slowly dipping into the stories in NIGHT CALL , stretching the book out for as long as possible because once I finish this one, there are no more new Armstrongs for me to read.
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