The New York Review of Science Fiction Issue 310, June, 2014

by Kevin J Maroney

  Many of the interviews and short essays have appeared in various venues. Brock has likewise produced excellent documentaries on Charles Beaumont and Forrest Ackerman. He and his wife Sunni have been great supporters of William F. Nolan, and Brock is a very visible mover and shaker at the Lovecraft Film Festival. This book focuses on the effect of the “Group”—Nolan, Beaumont, Richard Matheson, Ray Bradbury, and (at some remove) Harlan Ellison—on the creation of a rhetoric of fantasy through short fiction, the Twilight Zone, films, and sf culture. The book follows through with the remanifestations and evolutions of this group’s aesthetic in such modern masters as John Shirley.

  The genius of the tale is its emphasis on pedigree. The American fantastic is unlike any other genre. One gets to meet one’s inspirations, take part in literary feuds, compete for slots in magazines and on TV. I had a brief moment of shock as I read the work—even a hermit like myself had mouth-to-ear interactions with no less than seven of the folks mentioned within.

  In most literary studies, the critic does her best to guess at influence. In the American fantastic we can just plain ask. If you confronted a well-read fan with “Who was Charles Beaumont?” you would receive a blank stare—yet when you realize that he comes up in so many of the interviews, drawing praise from Bradbury and Nolan, you begin to understand that influence is not merely about one writer reading another’s work. It is about how we live and interact each with the other. No other book addresses this as well.

  The text demonstrates the change in cultural weight of the fantastic as a genre. Although dutiful lip service is paid to Shelley, Poe, and, Lovecraft, the narrative in the book truly begins with a creator of a social network, Forrest J. Ackerman. Here we see a young boy electing to remain a young boy/collector—who by force of collecting creates the network that the Group will come into being within. Brock’s perspective is a tad fannish, but an emic approach is what makes this volume valuable. Most of us will buy this book because Brock interviews one or another of our inspirations (or even our friends), but it will be valuable for the scholar who looks for the most significant part of the American fantastic—the webwork of mentorship. This webwork extends from an overeager collector in Hollyweird to a deep scholar like S.T. Joshi, from penny-a-word pulp markets to multimillion-dollar films. What had begun as the “Proud and Lonely” status of fandom becomes the koine of the twenty-first century.

  Dan O’Bannon and Marc Scott Zicree, F. Paul Wilson and David Skal are contextualized in this great community. Giants like Bradbury and Matheson or Ellison and Nolan are shown in the webwork. This book creates for all time the strong notion that dark fantasy is a community. By staying firmly emic, it refuses to break the liveliness of this movement into economic or aesthetic components. Its weaknesses are much less than its strengths. Every old fart reader like myself will have his or her complaints—“You talked about the Group but didn’t mention Chad Oliver? Where are C.L. Moore and Shirley Jackson in your survey?” But the strength of capturing the words of these great men before they are no more is huge. The strength of explaining Community-as-Muse before the age of social media makes this a book of legacy. It needs to be in the libraries of the world for people yet-to-be to understand why and how American horror happened. Good job, Jason!

  Don Webb lives in Austin, Texas.

  Michael Andre-Driussi

  Wes Anderson as a Great-Grandson of Edgar Rice Burroughs

  Wes Anderson (b. 1969), the director/writer of eight feature films including The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014), Moonrise Kingdom (2012), and The Royal Tenenbaums (2001), has frequently been said to be the great-grandson of Edgar Rice Burroughs. One can find this claim repeated on the Internet in countless blogs as well as on such curated sites as Wikipedia (entries on “Edgar Rice Burroughs” and “Wes Anderson”) and the IMDB (entry for “Edgar Rice Burroughs”). The first mention of this lineage seems to be from Jeffrey Wells in a Los Angeles Times article, “Lost in Filmland?” (Nov 7, 1993), where, in the third to the last paragraph, it states that Wes Anderson is “descended from literary royalty (he’s the great-grandson of Edgar Rice Burroughs).”

  While this statement of a bloodline linking Wes to ERB has been floating around for over 21 years, it is apparently never backed up with any further substance. What little we know about the director’s lineage is that his full name is Wesley Wales Anderson, and we have the names of the nuclear family he grew up in: father, Melver Anderson; mother, Texas Ann; and brothers, Mel and Eric Chase.

  Since Wes does not have the surname Burroughs, we somewhat rashly suppose the ERB connection to be on his mother’s side; and lo, said mother’s maiden name was, in fact, Burroughs. “Texas Ann” certainly sounds like the name of an ERB heroine (perhaps from one of the several Westerns he wrote), and the fact that Texas Ann Anderson was an archeologist at one time further adds to the ERB-quality of adventure-in-a-name.

  On the other hand, the descendants of ERB are fairly well documented (for example, the premiere of the movie John Carter was attended by great-granddaughters Dejah Burroughs and her sister Llana Jane Burroughs, both named after ERB heroines). Well, I first thought the family lines were documented and clear, but in delving deeper I found some instances of second marriages, adoptions, and things of that sort. Such that Texas Ann might be descended from ERB’s second marriage when he wed Florence Gilbert Dearholt and adopted her two kids Lee Chase and Caryl Lee. (Note that “Chase” forms a link with Wes’s brother, Eric Chase.) Or perhaps Texas Ann comes via ERB’s son, John Coleman Burroughs, and his second wife Mary Nalon, which produced daughters Kimberly and Stacy, either one of whom might be a public name for Texas Ann.

  Such speculation was mere conjecture. Having surveyed the ERB family, it was time to press harder on the Texas Ann Burroughs side, specifically to find the names of her parents and see if they match the known grandchildren of ERB (Joanne Pierce, James Michael Pierce, John Ralston Burroughs, Danton Burroughs, Dian Burroughs, Kimberly Burroughs, Stacy Burroughs).

  Luck is with us here, as The Daily Register (Harrisburg, Illinois, 18 Sep 1958) tells of the wedding between Texas Ann Burroughs, daughter of Dr. and Mrs. E. W. Burroughs of Shawneetown, Illinois, to Melver Leonard Anderson, Jr. of Houston, Texas. Also mentioned is Texas Ann’s sister, Rebecca, and her brother, Edgar Wales.

  This is an electrifying bit since ERB was born and raised in the Chicago area. There is also the curious detail that Dr. Burroughs is probably named Edgar, just like ERB himself.

  But there is more: The Daily Register (4 Nov 1958) tells of the passing of Dr. Burroughs’s mother-in-law, Mrs. Texas Bates, who was 91 years of age. Furthermore, as Dr. Burroughs was married to Texas Burroughs and named a daughter Texas Ann Burroughs, we have records of at least three generations of women named “Texas.”

  Finally, “Find a Grave” shows a headstone for Dr. Edgar W. Burroughs (1892–1976) that lists children Edgar W., Texas A., and Rebecca C. This seems to be the father of Texas Ann, and thus the grandfather of Wes Anderson. Note that Dr. Burroughs was born in 1892, which is eight years before ERB first married. Thus it seems impossible that ERB is father to Dr. Burroughs, and therefore ERB could not be great-grandfather to Wes Anderson. True, ERB had older brothers (George, Harry, and Frank), but none of them seem to have produced an Edgar Wales Burroughs, and even if one had, such a fellow would be a great granduncle to Wes Anderson.

  The fact seems to be that Wes Anderson is the grandson of Edgar Wales Burroughs. “Edgar Wales Burroughs” sounds not unlike “Edgar Rice Burroughs,” and maybe the notion of lineage between Wes and ERB started with such a simple slip.

  An additional note on Dr. Burroughs and Wes Anderson is in order. Another biographical detail that Wes Anderson has given in many different interviews is that he was traumatized by the divorce of his parents in 1977, when he was in fourth grade. Anybody who has watched his movies will probably nod in understanding at this, since so much of his work has to do with fractured families. With this in mind, I note that Dr. Burroug
hs and his wife, Texas, both died in 1976: she in January, and he ten months later in October. To me this heightens the sense of crisis in the Anderson family in that era and further emphasizes what a bad stretch 1976–77 was for them.

  All along the way in this investigation were various challenges, starting with how Wes Anderson’s mother Texas Ann is often given as “Texas Anne.” The newspaper material I reviewed was OCR text, and thus prone to eruptions of hieroglyphics: Dr. Burroughs was first encountered as E. M. Burroughs, but that’s nothing compared with his daughter “Rebbocca” or his son “Fldgar Wales.” (That Texas Ann and Mr. Anderson had their honeymoon in “Mcxi Cvj City” sounds like something ERB would make up.)

  Michael Andre-Driussi lives in Albany, Californa.

  Mike Barrett

  Margery Lawrence: Narratives from the Round Table

  Margery Lawrence (8 August 1889–13 November 1969) was a successful English novelist and short story writer with some forty titles to her credit. These included thirty novels starting with Miss Brandt: Adventuress in 1923 to the posthumously published Autumn Rose in 1971, and although the supernatural represented a relatively small proportion of her output, she was highly renowned for the creation of the psychic detective Miles Pennoyer. His first appearance was in Number Seven Queer Street (1945) and he also featured in Master of Shadows (1959), highly regarded collections in their sub-genre. But Lawrence’s contributions to the field of imaginative fiction extended much farther than that, and she was an accomplished writer who dealt with the diverse aspects of the uncanny with considerable dexterity and originality.

  Lawrence’s first book appeared under the Grant Richards imprint in 1913 and was entitled Songs of Childhood and Other Verses. A year later three of the poems in that book—“Wondering,” “The Nodding Mandarin,” and “Byelow Land”—were brought out as Three Songs of Childhood with music by Edward German. The same year, another of the poems from that first book —“Arabian Serenade”—appeared with music by Edward Elgar. This was followed in 1916 by “A Song of Love and June,” with music this time by Guy d’Hardelot, and a “Margery Lawrence”—presumably the same—is also credited with writing the lyrics for “Oh! Johanna!” in 1930 and “Here’s to the Next Time” in 1932, two songs for which the melodies were written by the popular English bandleader Henry Hall.

  Born in Staffordshire and brought up and educated in Shropshire, Lawrence reportedly left home when young and went to Paris where she intended to be an artist. She worked as an ambulance driver there at the start of the Great War, and secretly married an Italian air ace who was later killed in action. She subsequently took to art again and held several exhibitions of posters, illustrations, and stage décor. She also illustrated two books, the cover and end-papers for Mary’s Moving Pictures by Hilda M.A. Hankey in 1917 and all of the artwork for The Hills of Ruel and Other Stories by Fiona Macleod in 1921.

  Her first attempts at writing were actually intended to augment her income while she was still making a career of art, but her literary abilities were soon apparent, and it was that medium which presently came to comprise the whole of her creative output. Several stories were filmed: Red Heels (1925) as Das Spielzeug von Paris in the same year, directed by Michael Curtiz in his pre-Hollywood days; “A Woman Who Needed Killing” (1927) as A Dangerous Woman in 1929 with Clive Brook; and, most notably, her novel The Madonna of Seven Moons. This book appeared in 1931 and became the basis of the extremely successful 1944 film Madonna of the Seven Moons, starring Phyllis Calvert and Stewart Granger.

  Margery Lawrence was a believer in spiritualism and reincarnation from early in her life, although comparatively little of her writing sought to actively lay emphasis on those ideas (most notably the nonfiction two-volume Ferry over Jordan published by the Psychic Book Club in 1944). When it did, it was never in a preachy vein, with Lawrence seemingly well aware of the potential problems of such an approach. In the introduction to Ferry over Jordan she reassured her readership that this was a subject she was serious about, and that it was a long-standing interest rather than a fad.

  The part of her writing which incorporated elements of the weird encompassed many of the classic themes of that format, from haunted houses to malign curses, supernatural revenge to deadly elemental forces, dark sorcery to troubled spirits, demonic entities to the animation of the inanimate. She had a natural ability to present chillingly atmospheric fiction in a straightforward and compellingly readable manner, and it was in the short story format that she particularly excelled, where her tales were always forcefully told and distinctly memorable. Two collections in particular stand out, these being Nights of the Round Table (1926) and The Terraces of Night (1932). They revolve around the concept of a monthly dinner party where one of the guests is required to relate a story, “the rarer and more curious the better,” and each book comprises the twelve tales told in the course of a year.

  “Vlasto’s Doll” is a powerful opening to Nights of the Round Table, telling of the Bavarian showman Karl Vlasto who learns how to animate a wooden doll by hypnotizing his mistreated wife Emmy and transferring her personality into it. Emmy has come to hate Vlasto and his cruelty over the years, and when he is responsible for the violent death of her lover she exacts a post-mortem revenge which is brutally effective. “Vlasto’s Doll” is atmospheric and forceful, and Lawrence succeeds impressively in producing memorable characterizations in relatively few words, clearly displaying the malice in Vlasto and the bitterness in Emmy.

  “Robin’s Rath” tells of a small area of untouched woodland in the grounds of Ghyll Hall, a property which has been bought by the American heiress Ellen Vandermyl. She plans to put a path through the Rath to make it more convenient to the golf links, despite the villagers warning her against such action. There is a guardian, the “Man in Green,” who seduces Ellen both mentally and physically. As his spell over her wanes, far from gaining freedom from him, she has to face his full unforgiving nature in what is a good story with a downbeat ending.

  In “The Woozle,” a six-year old boy is terrified when his nurse tells him that there is a monster called the Woozle in his toy cupboard at night, a monster that will come for him if he is naughty. And generated by his own imagination, come for him it eventually does, “stooping and shadowy and horrible, with eyes like lamps in the dark, eyes that never blinked....”

  The Soldan’s Daughter in “Floris and the Soldan’s Daughter” is a small ivory figure that comes into the possession of a young man called Floris, who becomes completely obsessed by it. It is only at the end of the tale that the supernatural nature of the figurine becomes chillingly and tragically apparent, as Floris takes what he is convinced is the one and only way of finally possessing her.

  “The Fifteenth Green” concerns the redevelopment of a coastal spit to extend a golf course, meaning that an old man with an evil reputation has to be moved from his ramshackle dwelling. He takes a dire revenge on the man who sold the land when that man plays his first—and last—round of golf there.

  A lighter tone marks “How Pan Came to Little Ingleton,” a pleasing account of how a dour priest’s life is changed for the better after an encounter with Pan. In the introduction to this story, it has an alternate title, “Mr. Minchin’s Midsummer,” and that is how it was published in August Derleth’s anthology The Night Side in 1947.

  “Death Valley” is the chilling account of an unseen horror in the stifling heat of a remote African valley. This is an atmospheric and effective tale, and although the frightful presence in the old hut is never seen by the narrator, its existence is death-dealingly real, a horror that leaches the very color from its victims’ eyes.

  In “The Curse of the Stillborn” a woman pays a high price for interfering with Egyptian burial customs. That price seems completely disproportionate, but the ancient powers are remorseless and care nothing for good intentions if there is any transgression of their rules.

  “The Fields of Jean-Jacques” is the sad tale of the barren land own
ed by Jean-Jacques, and how his idiot brother Pierre propitiates the forces of Nature to bring fertility to the soil, little realizing the tragedy that he is unwittingly fomenting. The fields do indeed bloom, but at a bitter and unacceptable cost.

  Ancient forces also feature in “Morag-of-the-Cave.” Morag grows up with a fascination and obsession with the sea, where gods older than we know hold domain, and whence strange creatures sometimes emerge. This is one of the strongest stories in a strong book, an austere account of a woman alienated from her fellows by her love for all aspects of the sea.

  In “The White Cat,” a man called Lidgett plies a dubious trade in one of the meanest streets in the East End of London. He regularly has girls as “servants,” whom he misuses and then disposes of. The latest of these is a young albino girl who befriends a white cat, a relationship with horrific consequences for Lidgett. The missing girl’s soul seems to migrate into the cat, which proceeds to take a bloody revenge on her tormentor.

  Despite an unprepossessing title, “The Haunted Saucepan” is a very good story and a fine finale to the book. It is particularly impressive in the way it so convincingly depicts the eponymous kitchen utensil as an object of dread: the saucepan, which has been used as an indirect instrument of murder, takes on a deadly life of its own.