JOHNNY HALLOWEEN: Richard Chizmar was one of the first editors to encourage me as a writer. My first published story ("Save the Last Dance for Me") appeared in the second issue of Cemetery Dance, and to date I've been fortunate enough to make seven subsequent appearances in the pages of Rich's fine magazine. In fact, more than a few readers have told me that my Cemetery Dance stories started them searching for more Norm Partridge fiction.
While I'm at it. I'll mention that Rich also took a chance on my first novel, Slippin' into Darkness, publishing it under his CD Publications imprint when mainstream editors were turning it down as "too dark." It got so I heard that so many times, I began to think the only way I'd ever get that book into print was if I agreed to provide a bottle of Prozac with every copy. Anyway, the CD edition of Slippin' sold out in less than a month and received uniformly positive reviews from the mainstream critics, which made both publisher and author pretty damn happy.
Rich's acceptance of Slippin' illustrates the reason we hit it off as writer and editor—Rich seemed to like the dark stuff. Especially the noirish, non-supernatural style of fiction that I was drawn to. Not that he was adverse to publishing supernatural fiction in Cemetery Dance, it was just that he favored the under-your-skin-and-close-to-the-bone kind of stories that Jim Thompson and Dan J. Marlowe had penned in the fifties... the kind that were popping up in the anthologies of the late eighties and early nineties under the bylines of Joe R. Lansdale, David J. Schow, and Ed Gorman, to name a few. The kind of stories where dysfunctional humans prove more frightening than anything in fangs and a cape.
So when Rich called and asked me to try my hand at a Halloween tale for his fall '92 issue, my immediate inclination was to go noir. But with a monster mask, of course.
Rich liked the finished product. A couple months later, the fall issue of Cemetery Dance showed up in my mailbox, and I was simultaneously terrified and delighted to see my tale following a Stephen King story on the table of contents page. That was one of a handful of little moments which convinced me that I might be able to go somewhere with this writing thing, after all.
Thanks, Rich.
88 SINS: The shrine in this story actually exists. Or existed, anyway. My wife read about it in a travel book specializing in "off the beaten path" adventures, and we set out to find it on a trip to Kauai, an adventure that taught me one thing—ten feet off the road in Hawaii and you might as well be right in the middle of Tarzan's own jungle.
We did find the shrine, however. Unfortunately, we also found a bulldozer and several construction workers who were building a house for someone who had more money than sense... which is another way of saying that the shrine wasn't going to be anyone's preservation project.
Except mine. I came home and wrote this story. Of course, it reflects my feelings for the place I'd visited, but it also gave me a chance to tip my hat to Rod Serling, who did those "businessman with a troubled conscience" stories so well.
THE CUT MAN: Maybe this one had a little bit to do with Rod Serling, too. I've always loved Requiem for a Heavyweight, especially the original television version starring Jack Palance. And I've always enjoyed stories that mix boxing with the fantastic—Serling's "The Big Tall Wish" on Twilight Zone, Richard Matheson's "Steel," and especially Joe R. Lansdale's "The Pit," which goes further in explaining a particularly brutal (but certainly not uncommon) kind of fighterly motivation than any mainstream boxing tale I've ever read.
Boxing is the only sport I've ever been interested in. I've followed it since I was a kid, and while my interest wanes at times—I can't get used to the idea of multiple heavyweight champions and titles that don't mean a damn thing—I've never been able to give up on it entirely. One of the saddest things in the sport is a fighter past his prime who refuses to hang up the gloves. Not an uncommon theme in boxing fiction—in fact, it fits both the Serling stories mentioned above—but one I thought I could make fresh when I set out to write my own boxing-horror story.
DEAD CELEBS: One day Rich Chizmar called and suggested that I send a story to Joe R. Lansdale, hisownself, who was editing an anthology of "dark suspense" stories along with his wife, Karen. It sounded like a good idea to me—I'd always admired Joe's work, both the fiction itself and the way he handled his career. I almost always felt a strong connection when I read his stories, and I was interested to see what he'd have to say about one of mine.
The first story I submitted leaned a little too much toward the supernatural. Joe sent it back with a cordial note of rejection. He didn't exactly say that I should submit another piece, but he didn't say I shouldn't, either.
I went for a long walk. Along the way, I recalled reading an interview with Joe where he spoke about the early stages of his career, when he'd been so determined to make it as a professional writer that he'd literally turned out a story a day.
Well, I was determined, if nothing else. By the time I returned from my walk, the first section of "Dead Celebs" was in my head. By the time I went to bed that night, I'd typed "The End."
I also thought that I'd turned a corner as a writer. I was becoming more and more comfortable with the writer's voice I was developing. It seemed to me that it wasn't so much the stories I was telling as the way I was telling them, and the perspectives I was telling them from. I was gaining confidence, and suddenly I couldn't work fast enough to keep up with the many ideas I was having. While I never turned out a story a day, "Dead Celebs" marked the beginning of a creative period where I turned out two to four stories a month.
‘59 FRANKENSTEIN: I'm a big fan of fifties horror movies—give me teenage werewolves, amazing colossal insects, or teenagers from outer space and I'm happy. One day I got an idea for an anthology of stories that would pay tribute to those films. I told Ed Gorman about it, and he suggested that I pitch the idea to editor-extraordinaire Marty Greenberg. Marty liked it, sold the book to DAW, and, to make a long story short, the two of us got busy co-editing It Came From the Drive-In.
The contributors seemed to have fun with the premise. The postman filled my mailbox with stories of things from lover's lane, gigantic rabid jackalopes, headless bikers, and rampaging mole-folks that time forgot.
Much to my dismay, no one submitted a teenage monster picture with 'gators and hot rods. So I wrote one myself.
CANDY BARS FOR ELVIS: For me, the shorter the story, the harder it is too write. This piece was the exception. It came very fast. But, hey, it was about ELVIS. And, if you've read the piece (and—naughty-naughty—you shouldn't be reading these notes if you haven't), you'll realize that I've spent way too much time studying the man.
I'm not the only one. A bigga bigga hunka writers have done Elvis stories—there are even a couple anthologies composed of nothing but (and most anthologies with a rock 'n' roll theme are good for at least one story about the King).
Quite frankly, while reading those books I got the distinct impression that more than a few of the contributors were - to put it kindly- just phoning it in. Their stories kinda reminded me of the false start Elvis included on "Milkcow Blues Boogie" way back when at Sun Records - the sameold-sameold honky tonky rendition he cuts real short by saying, "Hold it fellas... that doesn't move me... let's get real real gone for a change."
And so he does.
Not that I'm saying a writer can hit it out of the park with each and every story—I've done some "theme anthology" work in my time that I view as professional but certainly not exceptional—but in the case of the Elvis anthologies it rubbed me the wrong way, because, hey... this was ELVIS. Anyway, it has always bothered me that I couldn't wrangle a slot in one of those books. Which means, sure, I've tasted sour grapes... but I'd like to add that they ain't regularly on the menu here at Casa Partridge.
While I'm at it—the narrator of "Candy Bars..." also appears in a recently completed suspense novel called Saguaro Riptide, due out next year from Berkley Books. He still has that scar-colored Caddy, only now he's planted roots in a little town in Arizona. But, like they say, tha
t's another story....
STYX: I wrote this one for an anthology of ghost stories edited by Peter Straub. My goal was to build to the familiar shiver that climaxes a traditional ghost story, but to have that shiver come from an unexpected direction—a charge-ahead crime/suspense plot. Looking back on it now. I've got to admit to a soft spot for the descriptive passages here. I love writing about deserts... that's for sure. Sunsets, too.
For a while I thought "Styx" might be the first chapter of a novel. I think that the moment has passed, but you never know....
WRONG SIDE OF THE ROAD: I did some writing in college, submitted several stories, but didn't sell a thing. I pretty much busted my pencils and gave it up when I graduated. I went to work in a public library and didn't write a word for nearly seven years. Then a couple things happened that got me started again—first, I got an Apple Macintosh computer, which meant that I could save mucho time by not having to retype draft after draft after draft of each story I did. Secondly, I discovered several small magazines such as The Horror Show, Noctulpa, Cemetery Dance, and Grue—all of which were publishing interesting fiction.
I got back to work and sold a few stories to those small magazines. But it was always my aim to break into the "professional" markets—which to me meant the anthologies which were published by the mainstream press.
One of my targets was Charles L. Grant's Shadows series. I'd been a fan of those books for years. See, while I'd given up writing for a while, I never gave up reading. Grant's anthologies were like textbooks to me—I devoured each new volume that the library received, caught up on the older volumes I'd missed through inter-library loan. Reading those books taught me a lot about how to put a story together. I remember one William F. Nolan piece in particular called "The Partnership" which marked a kind of epiphany for me. I suddenly understood how to create an effective plot twist after reading that story, something I'd been trying to figure out for ages.
So when I learned through a market listing magazine called Scavenger's Newsletter that the redoubtable Mr. Grant was reading for a final volume of Shadows, I knew I had to take a shot.
About three weeks after I submitted "Wrong Side of the Road," Charlie phoned to accept the story. I didn't take the call, however. My wife did. See, I was in the bathtub. But that didn't stop my bride. She dragged the phone into the bathroom—"Norman, it's Charles Grant!"—and handed it to me.
So I sat there buck naked and wet talking to the man viewed as one of the most influential horror editors of the eighties. I got the impression that Charlie was a little disappointed to discover that I wasn't a grizzled World War II vet like the main character in "Wrong Side..." But I think I made up for it by admitting where I was at the moment I made my first "pro" sale.
I just thank God that I didn't drop the phone and electrocute myself.
GORILLA GUNSLINGER: Joe Lansdale does the same thing each time he finishes editing a book—he swears that he'll never edit another. But it seems that a little time and a little distance, plus a fresh idea, have a way of changing his mind.
That's the way it was with Weird Business, an anthology of comic fiction (and we're not talking ha ha comics—we're talking "graphic novel" comics, or "illustrated fiction," if you prefer). Joe co-edited the book with a fellow named Rick Klaw, who had read and enjoyed my first short story collection, Mr. Fox and Other Feral Tales.
Joe asked me to write a weird western, a genre we both enjoy. I put on my thinking cap. I'd loved comics for years—as a teenager in the seventies, I ran a mail-order business with a buddy of mine just to pay for my collecting habit—and I'd always wanted to try my hand at writing one.
This was a case where coming up with a title gave me just about everything I needed. First, "Gorilla with a Gun" popped into my head. I played around with that a little bit until it became "Gorilla Gunslinger." The plot came to me in a rush—a talking gorilla in a Sergio Leone landscape, Darwinian confusion, gunslinging antievolutionist preachers—and almost immediately I was ready to slap leather to the idea.
Then I got the chicken pox. Thirty-five years old, and I'm flat on my back. Still, I couldn't keep away from the story. Every day I dragged my sorry ass into the saddle and did a page or two, sweating calamine lotion. Maybe that accounts for the feverish pace.
Joe and Rick liked the finished script. Rick turned it over to a talented artist named John Garcia, whose realistic style complemented my story. Then, when all was said and done, Joe and Rick sat down with Ben Ostrander (the publisher of Mojo Press), and decided that "Gorilla Gunslinger" would be the lead story in Weird Business.
Hey, I was honored. Even more so when I had a chance to enjoy the wonderful stories that made up the finished product.
Reviewers and readers enjoyed the story, too. Ben and Rick—partners in Mojo Press—decided that maybe we were on to something. I felt the same way. Ben got together with my agent, Jimmy Vines, and hammered out a deal for a full-length graphic novel that's currently scheduled for early 1997 release. We're calling it Gorilla Gunslinger: The Good, the Bad... and the Gorilla, and I hope you'll strap on your six-guns and come along for the ride when the finished product lands in a comic shop near you.
DEAD MAN'S HAND: Another weird western, original to this volume. This piece features a gunfighter named Stackalee, loosely based on the character from African-American folklore (remember Lloyd Price's fifties hit song "Stagger Lee"?). Early on, I tried my hand at a horror story based on the legend ("Stackalee") which appeared in Cemetery Dance, but that didn't satisfy me. So I tried again a few years later with a novella called "The Bars on Satan's Jailhouse," which appeared as a chapbook published by Doug & Tomi Lewis's Roadkill Press, the fiction imprint of The Little Bookshop of Horrors in Arvada, Colorado. I liked that one a lot, and readers seemed to enjoy it, too, so I figured I'd take another crack at the character. This is Stack's second appearance, and I'm hoping it won't be his last.
APOTROPAICS: I'm always asked the same question about this story: "What does the title mean?" It seems the word is not included in most dictionaries, though it is included in a book called Vampires, Burial, & Death by Paul Barber, which is where I discovered it.
So, for the record, apotropaics can be defined as "methods of averting evil," referring in this case to the tools used in the destruction of a vampire.
Hey, Mr. Webster, don't cha think it's time?
SHE'S MY WITCH: Westerns, space operas, gangster stories, war stories—these are some of the more traditional genres available to storytellers. But scratch a little harder and you'll discover mythologies that haven't been quite so thoroughly explored.
Like for instance the rockin' rollin' juvenile delinquent, circa 1958. If you ask me, the fifties J.D. is an icon not unlike rougher versions of the American cowboy—independent, untamed, by definition going against the grain. I've wanted to write a J.D. horror story since reading Stephen King's "Sometimes They Come Back" in Night Shift many moons ago. Thinking about King's revenant greaser gang still makes me smile in admiration, as did the surprisingly good Made-for-TV movie that expanded the original story. Brimfire-spittin' street rods and cemetery rumbles... well, I'm a sucker for that kind of action. Double-bill that puppy with I Was a Teenage Werewolf and you've got an entertaining evening in store.
Of course, the J.D.'s in King's story weren't the good guys. But they were just as dead as Johnny Benteen....
BAD INTENTIONS: For the most part, I like book and memorabilia collectors. For the most part. Most collectors I've met are well-read and intelligent. Their passion makes their lives richer, and they haven't lost their sense of wonder—traits they share with writers of the fantastic.
But sometimes... Well, this one's for you, Uncle Forry.
TYRANNOSAURUS: This piece was written for an anthology of audio suspense stories which ultimately died on the vine. That's always been a regret, as I would have enjoyed hearing it performed by a talented actress—or perhaps an actor and an actress—seeing if it would work the way I'd hoped. I think
my spare style would have complemented an aural presentation.
Another point I should mention—"Tyrannosaurus" is one of many stories set in the fictional San Joaquin Valley town of Fiddler, California (see "Apotropaics," "She's My Witch," and "Guignoir," also in this volume). Strange things happen in Fiddler. Sometimes supernatural, sometimes not. "Haunted" cars have been known to prowl the roads, jukeboxes play '50s songs about dead teenagers, and everybody thinks they know everybody else's business.
Kinda reminds me of home....
GUIGNOIR: Finishing this one, I felt for the first time that I'd hit on all cylinders, creatively speaking. Voice, plot, pacing—everything came together just the way I'd hoped in "Guignoir," and I felt that maybe I was beginning to carve out my own territory as a writer.
It wasn't so much that I thought I was reinventing the wheel or anything. I recognized the influences I was drawing upon, but I also felt that maybe I had a different way of combining those influences into a personal style that would work for me.
I'd learned about pace from writers who'd specialized in paperback originals in the good old days—guys like Dan J. Marlowe and John D. MacDonald and Elmore Leonard, who really moved a story along and made every word count. I learned how to set a scene and keep a reader guessing from writers as diverse as Peter Rabe, William Goldman, and Dennis Etchison. From Ray Bradbury and singer/songwriter Tom Waits, I learned how to make a metaphor original, how to make descriptive passages sparkle. And I learned how to make my own voice work—and how important it was to trust that voice—from Stephen King, Joe R. Lansdale, and David J. Schow.
The story was accepted by George Hatch for Noctulpa, a small but well-respected annual anthology that had caught the eye of several reviewers in the horror field. I’d submitted it under the title "Monster Masks," and George renamed it "Guignoir," a hybrid of "grand guignol" and "noir" which I thought suited the piece just fine. Upon publication, Ed Bryant had some nice things to say about the story in Locus, and it was eventually picked up for reprint in Stephen Jones and Ramsey Campbell's Best New Horror 3 and Robert Morrish and Peter Enfantino's Quick Chills II, receiving an honorable mention from Ellen Datlow in The Year's Best Fantasy & Horror.
Bad Intentions Page 26