Wednesday Short Stories: The Whimper of Whipped Dogs, Harlan Ellison

 From Randy Johnnson

 Forgotten Short Stories: The Whimper of Whipped Dogs – Harlan Ellison

Harlan Ellison is hardly a forgotten writer, but I’m working under the assumption there are people today that haven’t read him. They should go right out and find anything by the man. He’s a writer worth reading. I’ve written about him before HERE.

My selection for the first edition of Patti Abbott’s Forgotten Short Stories is THE WHIMPER OF WHIPPED DOGS, the story of a woman brutally murdered in a courtyard while residents watched, not one responding to her cries for help, not even calling the police. The story concerns the aftermath and the decision the young woman protagonist, one of the watchers, makes at the end of the story.

It was inspired by the true life murder of Kitty Genovese in 1964. A news story two weeks later reported on the non-response of neighbors to the brutalization that went on only a hundred feet from her apartment door. Stabbed twice, the attacker left, only to return ten minutes later to continue the assault.

The report may have been in error, no one knows for sure anymore. Nevertheless, it inspired a powerful story from Mr. Ellison on the general malaise enveloping people living in the city, the constant violence on TV, the mind your own business attitude of to many of us. It won the Edgar for best short story in 1974, one of the many awards(to numerous to list here) his writing has won in a long career.

It’s easily available in numerous editions.

1. Bad Moon Rising, eidted by Tom Disch: first appearance and reasonably priced with a little search
2. Deathbird Stories: good prices
3: Dreams With Sharp Teeth: omnibus containing Deathbird Stories, Shatterday, and I Have No Mouth & I Must Scream. A nice introduction to the man’s stories for anyone new to Mr. Ellison’s work
4. The Essential Ellison: A 35 Year Retrospective and the expanded 50 Year Retrospective 

 Kevin Tipple

Jerry House 

TracyK 

Monday, Monday

 I have become quite fond of LOVE ON THE SPECTRUM, a reality show about people with autism trying to find love. All of them seem to have been raised to be very polite. Maybe things like manners are easier to teach than how to have a conversation. Anyway, you can't help but root for them. And their parents. 

Also watching ROOSTER, HACKS, MARGO'S GOT MONEY TROUBLES, and a show on PBS with people in the UK trying to find their parents (or children). Most of them were adopted during the time when those records were hidden. 

Reading SHE READ TO US IN THE AFTERNOON, Kathleen Hill and some short stories by James Lee Burke. 

The weather is still unpredictable.

How are things there?  

Went to an art show at Cranbrook. Cranbrook is a school, art museum and lovely grounds. We all find it hard to identify with installation art, which students mostly seem attracted to.  I know photography brought representational art to a crossroads but looking at a table full of broken pottery does not do much for me. Or the recreation of a sixties living room. 

FFB-NO RETURN ADDRESS, Anca Vlasopolos

 

Anca is a good friend of mine, but I didn't know her well when I read this wonderful, sad, intelligent book. It recounts her flight from post-war communist Romania, to France, to Belgium, and finally the U.S. It tells about the persecution and death of her father in that communist period too. It is an honest account of the good and bad she and her mother found in the Detroit area. This is an excellent text on how to write memoir. And how to tell the story beautifully even when the events are not. 

Short Story Wednesday: "No Pain Whatsoever" Richard Yates from HIGH INFIDELITY

A friend had this anthology in duplicate and gave me a copy. I don't remember seeing it before but it's from the nineties. Richard Yates was a favorite writer of mine, but I don't remember this story. Lots of the nineties most popular writers are included: Russo, Atwood, Updike, Banks, et. 
It takes place at a TB hospital. Do they exist anymore? A woman is visiting her husband who seems to have been there for a long time and through many surgeries. A friend has driven her there and she is having an affair with another passenger. This must happen often when your spouse is at a place like this for years. She has brought her husband some magazines, which he is anxious to read. She breaks down after her visit but then her lover cheers her up. What an odd story. 

George Kelley 

Jerry House 

Kevin Tipple 

TracyK 

Todd Mason 

Monday, Monday

I went to see THE CHRISTOPHERS and could barely make out a word. I thought it was my hearing but at the end of the screening, a man rose and asked if anyone else had trouble hearing the dialog. So I guess it was not just me. Is it likely the film itself or the theater's equipment. This is not the first time this has happened. 

We still have had barely a day without rain. 

Watching HACKS, MARGO's GOT MONEY TROUBLES, THE STORE (Wiseman doc about Neiman Marcus.

About to start a new book, but what? 

What about you?  

El Dorado Drive Wins the LA Book Prize in Mystery-Thriller

 

                                                                Congrats, Megan

FFB: THE FOG, James Herbert

 

reviewed by Ed Gorman, the author of TICKET TO RIDE, THE MIDNIGHT ROOM and many other fine books. 

 

The Fog, James Herbert

Just after Stephen King created the horror industry back in the Seventies U.S. publishers began importing British writers who walked the same streets as the master. One of those was Brit superstar James Herbert. While he never quite found the audience he deserved over here, a number of his novels have stayed with me long after the more successful imports have faded completely from my memory.

My favorite Herbert is titled The Fog and it continues the long and heralded tradition of the British disaster novel. Sometimes the disaster is an alien invasion as with H.G. Wells and sometimes the disaster is unworldly seeming yet of our world as with the great John Wyndham.

In Herbert's novel a yellow fog begins moving across England causing much of the population to go insane and begin committing atrocities on family, friends and anyone else they can get their hands on. Even animals go insane; pets become killers. A group of scientists in a bunker race to learn why one of them is immune to the effects fog.

What raises this story to the level of a classic is not just the shock effects--Herbert can jolt the most jaded of readers--but the portraits he draws of his people. He cuts across all ages and all classes. Unlike most Big Bestsellers he makes us care about them and in so doing he gives the reader the race-against-the-clock story with the scientists and the anxiety of seeing real people face their fates.

Centipede Press has just issued a collector's edition of the novel complete with a beautiful cover homage to the U.S. paperback edition and a long, fine introduction by horror legend Ramsey Campbell.

Thought it's a lengthy novel, I read this new edition in two sittings. It's a thriller that truly belongs on the same shelf as H.G. Wells, the early catastrophe novels of J.G. Ballard and the classic work of the late John Wyndham.

A Private View, Douglas Stuart (The New Yorker)

 Although I did not read SHUGGIE BAIN, Stuart's breakout novel of a few years ago, it was widely reviewed and celebrated. This is a story of gay man going through an art exhibit with his mother.  He and his mother are from Glasgow but the museum is in New York where he now lives with his lover, a curator of the museum. Although his life has been difficult because of his mother's alcoholism, he is extremely forgiving and fond of her and trying hard to give her the good time she would want to have. This was a sad if lovely story. 

George Kelley 

TracyK 

Kevin Tipple 

Jerry House 

Monday, Monday

 MIROIRS NO 3 left a lot for the viewer to fill in but I liked it a lot. Enough to go back and rewatch his earlier film BARBARA. My poor neighborhood theater keeps trying to show foreign films but since there are no good ways to advertise, there were only four of us.

Went to a lecture on Immigration at my senior center, which was terrifying. As an immigrant you have many right but ICE doesn't give a damn.

Saw a fabulous production of FIDDLER ON THE ROOF with my son and family for his birthday. We had dinner at a new Greek restaurant, THE BLUE GOAT.

Watching the Harry Hole series, THE PITT, HACKS. I will certainly miss THE PITT. 

Reading a kindly book, THE ROAD TO TENDER HEARTS, Anne Hartnett.

Broke my garbage disposal but things like that get fixed in a rental. But then the guy broke the connection to the dishwasher 

RAIN, RAIN, RAIN

Going to see & JULlIET today.  

What about you?  

FFB: The Long-Legged FLy, James Sallis

 

The Long-Legged Fly is the debut novel by James Sallis, featuring Black private detective Lew Griffin in New Orleans. It was followed by several more novels, all having an insect in the title. (And many other novels like DRIVE that did not)

It follows Griffin as he searches for missing persons across four different time periods (1964, 1970, 1984, 1990), with the cases serving as a backdrop to explore his own struggles with alcoholism, loneliness, and a troubled past. The book is praised for its lyrical, blues-like prose and its focus on character over traditional plot, making it more a story about a detective than a standard mystery. 

 There are similarities between this series and Walter Mosley's Easy Rawlings books, which are set in L.A. 

Sallis died not long ago. Before his death, he published an anthology of his many fine short stories. 

Short Story Wednesday; Agatha Christie's Short Story Collection (Kerrie Smith from the archives

 

Forgotten Story Collections: Agatha Christie

This post is a contribution to Pattinase's Friday's Forgotten Books. This week the focus is on forgotten short story collections.

Many people who read Agatha Christie novels ignore the fact that she wrote some terrific short stories.
In my quest to read the works of Agatha Christie (novels and short stories) in the order in which they were written, I have identified 21 short story collections. So far I've read 82 short stories in this particular reading challenge.

Agatha Christie used many of the short stories to introduce, and develop the character of, a person who would later feature in novels.

Most of the short stories appeared in magazine format and then were later collected for publication.

This was certainly the case of Miss Marple who first appeared The Thirteen Problems- publ. 1932.

The first of these short stories was The Tuesday Night Club - Sir Henry Clithering, until recently Commissioner of Scotland Yard, tells a tale about tinned lobster that caused a fatal case of food poisoning. It was first published in December 1927. Miss Marple appeared in her first full length novel THE MURDER AT THE VICARAGE in 1930.

While Hercule Poirot first appeared in THE MYSTERIOUS AFFAIR AT STYLES in 1920, by 1924 Agatha Christie had written (and mostly published separately) 11 short stories that elaborated his character and his abilities with the "little grey cells" that were then published as Poirot Investigates.

On the other hand some characters appear only in short stories, such as Mr Parker Pyne (Parker Pyne Investigates publ.1934), and Mr. Harley Quin (The Mysterious Mr Quin publ. 1930).

If you'd like to follow up on Agatha Christie short stories, then check my latest update post.
I am about to read the next The Listerdale Mystery

If you'd like to find out more about the Agatha Christie Reading Challenge and the accompanying monthly blog carnival check here.

George Kelley

Kevin Tipple 

Not A Day Goes BY

Viengsamai Fetters - Associate Editor 10:56 PM (37 minutes ago) I get a letter like this about once every two weeks. Is it AI? I am assuming so. What does it mean? This fellow seems to exist, are they just using his name? to me Hello Patricia, I hope you’re having a great week. My name is Viengsamai Fetters, and I serve as an Associate Editor at Erewhon Books. I recently spent some time looking into your work, particularly your novel Shot in Detroit, and I found the concept and execution quite compelling. The way the story explores Violet Hart’s journey as a photographer navigating the darker corners of Detroit while wrestling with ambition, morality, and the psychological weight of her choices creates a very striking and memorable narrative. The premise alone immediately stood out as something both bold and thought-provoking. I was especially intrigued by how the novel blends psychological suspense with artistic obsession, placing the protagonist in increasingly difficult situations as she pushes the boundaries of her work. That tension between creativity, desperation, and the ethical consequences of Violet’s decisions gives the story a distinctive voice that is hard to ignore. Because of that, I would be very interested in learning more about your current writing projects and any forthcoming work you may have in development. I’m also curious to know whether you are currently represented by a literary agent. If you do have representation, I would of course be happy to continue any conversation through your agent. If not, I would be glad to outline how the process typically works should there be mutual interest in exploring the conversation further. Subject to reviewing additional material, there may be room for a broader discussion regarding potential alignment with the type of adult fiction we continue to explore and develop within our publishing program, particularly works with strong psychological depth and distinctive narrative perspectives. If this sounds of interest, I would be very glad to hear back from you and continue the conversation. Best regards, Viengsamai Fetters - Associate Editor at Erewhon Books Kensington Publishing Corp. www.kensingtonbooks.com/erewhonbooks kensingtonbooks@vfetters.co.site

Monday, Monday

Kevin came home for spring break with two assignments: attend a live poetry event and a live fiction reading event. We went to hear The Moth (an NPR live program) and the readers were doing non-fiction stories about sus, which I thought was suspicion but it turned out to be shady behavior. None of the stories were great but none were terrible either. The audience favored sad stories rather than violent ones. The poetry slam was in Ann Arbor.

Also went to Pompeii: Under the Clouds.  Every review was extremely positive but the four of us were a tad bored. 

The weather is still ugly mostly.

Watched Michigan beat Arizona.  Watched THE PITT, DTF ST LOUIS, THE ROOSTER

Listened to Bill Nighy's podcast "Ill-Advised"

What about you? Is it nice there yet?  

Happy Easter Weekend

 

On the Street Where You Live, from Wednesday's Child, Yiyun Li

 

This story reminded me a lot of the recent movie with Rose Byrne, "IF I HAD LEGS I COULD KICK YOU." It is also about a mother with a troubled child. In this case, her child is autistic and his disease is growing worse. She, and to a lesser extent her husband, is trying to find ways to help him: music lessons, art, etc. He is fearful of being alone in the world yet does nothing to prevent this (though he is only six). The mother is keeping a journal of people she meets that have an oddity too. When a burglar confronts her, she lets him take everything but asks him to return the journal. 

George Kelley 

Kevin Tipple 

Steve Lewis 

Casual Debris