As I may have mentioned in previous posts, Richard Laymon is my favorite horror writer. Fortunate for me, since the guy published a slew of titles over the course of the thirty or so years he was active prior to his death in 2001. Unfortunate for me, since unlike, say, Stephen King who routinely has print runs in the millions, Laymon's books were only moderately successful here in the US prior to the late 90's when Leisure Publishing finally got him the attention he deserved, which makes collecting his stuff problematic and, occasionally, expensive.
But since I discovered him in 1996, I've managed to put together a respectable collection of his stuff, including a number of oddities and rarities. Inspired by a recent post by @baronstrucker, highlighting some of his Brian Lumley collection, I thought I'd brag a bit too. Every day, for the next few days, I'll post about some of the off-beat, weird, or exotic pieces of my collection. Come back tomorrow for a look at some new goodies.
Today we're looking at a few Laymon books which were only released in certain parts of the world.
As always, all images shown are scanned directly from my own source material.
Cuts
Up until the late 90's, Laymon was far better known (and better promoted) in the UK as opposed to the US, which is odd since he lived in California. Therefore, it's ironic that, of the forty-five novels Laymon completed over the course of his career, only forty-four of them saw print in the UK.
The UK, for some reason, never got Cuts.
Now, in the grand scheme of things, that's not such a big loss. Published in 1999, Cuts is one of three novels Laymon got on shelves that year, and it's easily the weakest of the three. While Among the Missing and Come Out Tonight are both above-average reads, Cuts reads like bog-standard Laymon. It follows a 17-year old named Albert Prince, who, after being rejected by local slut Betty for not having the $20 required to obtain her sexual services, embarks on a cross-country slashing spree, where it's just him and his favorite knife doing what Albert loves best: cutting pretty girls -- the prettier, the better.
Cuts isn't a terrible book, but it isn't particularly memorable either. Laymon struggles with a larger-than-usual cast of characters here. This is something he handled fine in the likes of Blood Games and Quake, so I know he was up to the task, but perhaps this was written earlier and published later.
The good news is, if you live in the UK, this is the only Laymon novel you'll need to import, although the Leisure paperback edition will look odd and out of place on your shelves next to all the Headline versions.
Fiends and Dreadful Tales
In contrast to Cuts, which only received a US release, two of Laymon's books were only given UK releases. Dreadful Tales and Fiends are each short story collections, which collate a number of pieces Laymon published between 1970 and 1997, either in mystery magazines or for themed anthologies from other editors.
The first of these, Fiends, was published in 1997. The title novella makes its debut as the lead piece in this collection, while the rest are reprints. Included in Fiends is the short story 'Desert Pickup', which was Laymon's first professional sale, seen in the November 1970 issue of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine.
There's some quality stuff in here, and some cringe-worthy stuff as well, which is exactly what you should expect from a Laymon anthology of short stories.
The best news about Fiends is that it's dirt-cheap. Like, if you're a Laymon lover, and you don't have this in your library, I'm not sure what to tell you except to spend the three dollars.
The second, Dreadful Tales, was published in 2000, just prior to Laymon's death. As with Fiends, the stories within are all reprints, with a sole exception: a short story entitled 'Out of the Pit'.
Now, 'Out of the Pit' is an interesting oddity, because it's the only piece of Laymon's output I'm aware of which was recycled into another story. Specifically, it appears, with the names changed and the ending altered and expanded, as a diary inserted into Laymon's posthumous Mummy story, To Wake the Dead (or Amara as it was known in the UK).
To Wake the Dead was written very early in Laymon's career, and it never sold until Leisure bought it after his death. That's not surprising, since it's a mediocre story and neither adds anything new, nor does anything interesting, with the supernatural antagonist. Whether 'Into the Pit' appeared first in Laymon's manuscript for Amara, or if it appeared first in Dreadful Tales and Laymon (or perhaps his daughter Kelly) expanded it for use in the middle of Amara is unclear, but makes for another oddity of Laymon's body of work, and one you wouldn't see outside of the UK unless you were into imports.
I want to point out two more things about Dreadful Tales. The first is that it contains 'The Grab', which is Laymon's most anthologized and reprinted story. It first appeared in the January 1982 issue of Gallery magazine, then was picked for inclusion in The Year's Best Horror Stories, Vol. XI by editor Karl Edward Wagner in 1983. Ten years later, it was selected for inclusion in 100 Hair-Raising Little Horror Stories by Martin Greenberg and Al Sarrantonio; that same year, Laymon included it in his own limited-edition short story anthology, A Good, Secret Place. Four years later, in 1997, it was performed as an audio drama on Halloween night by the New Hampshire Radio Theater Group. Then, finally, in 2000, it was optioned to appear in an Australian 8th grade English textbook entitled English Magic 2.
I would like to state for the record, "The Grab" is about a severed head in a jar of formaldehyde kept partly as a curiosity and partly as a game at a crusty old bar in the middle of nowhere. The fact a bunch of Australian tweens got to read this in their English textbooks while I was stuck with the same crusty old stories my own 8th grade English teacher read when he was my age still irritates me.
The second thing I want to point out is that it contains 'Herman', the single worst short story Laymon ever committed to paper. What Firefly is to Piers Anthony, 'Herman' is to Laymon. Just so we're clear: 'Herman' is a story about a powerfully-built, invisible adult man who has blood-drenched "consensual" sex with a thirteen year old girl after saving her from being sexually assaulted by two visible rapists.
Laymon liked to push boundaries in his writing, but for the life of me, I cannot see any purpose at all behind writing a story like 'Herman', which reads like an attempt to titillate, not horrify, the reader. There's nothing at all redeeming about this story, and if it was my first encounter with Laymon, it would guarantee it was my last encounter with Laymon. So, just trust me on this: there are some really fine stories in Dreadful Tales, but if you get this one, just promise me you'll skip pages 61 - 78.
Much like Fiends, this one is also quite inexpensive, averaging around $5 for a perfectly serviceable reading copy. Easy peasy lemon-squeezy. Just avoid 'Herman', and Bob's your uncle.
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