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.
Over the last few months, I've posted about my Laymon collection as I've expanded it. It's been a while since my last update, but I haven't been idle with my Laymon acquisitions, as you're about to see in this eighth installment.
As always, all images in this post were scanned by me.
The Paperjacks Books: The Beast House
As I previously mentioned in another part of this series, Canadian publishing house Paperjacks bought the rights to three of Laymon's novels. At the time, I only had The Cellar, but now I've added its sequel, The Beast House, to my collection.
One thing I will say for these editions: the cover art is striking, and I quite like it.
This leaves only Beware! necessary for me to complete my collection. I'm not going to hold my breath though -- Paperjacks Laymon are long out of print and command higher prices on the second-hand market than the Leisure US or Headline UK paperback printings. There's no need to get these versions unless you're a collector. This copy of The Beast House cost me $30--a bargain considering what great shape it's in. Copies of this one typically go for around $75. All three had a single print run in 1987, so they weren't exactly ubiquitous thirty-five years ago.
It seems Paperjacks was perfectly content to use made-up cover blurbs as well. Their edition of The Cellar contained one attributed to Publisher's Weekly despite PW never reviewing the novel (at least as far as I could tell). This edition of The Beast House uses the same blurb by author Burt Hirschfeld which Warner invented for their publication of The Woods Are Dark.
The Kinnell UK Hardcovers: Beware!
Kinnell Publications Ltd. is a now-defunct UK publisher. They put out two of Laymon's works in hardcover. Beware! was the first, with Allhallows Eve following a few months later, both from 1992.
Beware! was completed in 1981, but rejected by Warner (Laymon's US publisher at the time). In the UK, it was picked up by New English Library for their paperback division, but due to a backlog of Laymon's works already scheduled, it wasn't released until 1985. Kinnell picked up the hardcover rights in 1991.
This is the first appearance of this book in hardcover, and being a UK release makes it much harder to track down in the US. I received this as a birthday gift, but if you want your own, expect to spend $75 or more. To my knowledge, there was only a single printing, and it's a beautiful hardbound book, but I've got to be honest: the cover artwork doesn't do this one any favors. This is another for-collectors-only version; if you want to read the story, it's far easier and cheaper to track down the Leisure US or Headline UK paperback editions.
The W.H. Allen UK Hardcovers: Flesh
Flesh is Laymon's "When Parasites Attack!" story: a rope-like worm burrows into its victim's skin and attaches itself to the spine, taking control of the host like a puppet and driving it to depraved acts of violence. It's a more "mainstream" style novel than Laymon's earlier work, with multiple viewpoint protagonists and a small amount of world-building for good measure, but still suffused with plenty of Laymon's trademark sex, violence, and rumps.
For this story, Laymon recycled a sub-plot he used as the main line for his Fastback short Night Games a year earlier, with a girl handcuffing herself to the radiator of a building where a murder took place in order to ensure she stays in there the whole night and wins a bet. But that's only a small part of the overall narrative, and if you'd never read Night Games, you'd never know he was re-treading the concept here. Flesh is also quite a bit more violent than Night Games, the latter of which was, after all, written for a teenage audience.
W.H. Allen published the hardcover in the UK in 1987; at the same time, it was published in the US in paperback by Tor. It was nominated for a Bram Stoker Award in 1988, but lost to Thomas Harris's The Silence of the Lambs.
I love the artwork on this edition. It's perfectly evocative of what you're going to get with the story, and was re-used for the Headline UK paperback edition released in 1990, albeit with the parasite removed so it was just a bloody hand missing a finger, with the house way in the background. An odd choice, but maybe Headline felt the worm gave away too much of the story or something.
Once again, this is "collector only" territory, especially if you live outside the UK. Expect to lay out around $50 to get your hands on one. Again, the Leisure US and Headline UK paperback editions are far less expensive and ubiquitous -- my Headline UK is a 20th printing, so that should tell you how many are out there.
Unfortunately I've never heard of this author, but reading your post made me want to read something by him, especially because horror is one of my favorite genres when it comes to reading. But, if for you it is difficult to get his books or even expensive living in the United States, I don't want to imagine for me because I'm from Latin America. Unfortunately for this side of the world they don't usually bring many books and, if they do, they tend to be mostly juvenile literature, very few classics.
Now I will do some research on the internet, maybe I will be lucky enough to meet someone in this continent who knows about the subject. I loved your post.
Thanks so much, @danielapevs ! The good news is, Laymon's books are not at all difficult to find. I'm showcasing some of the more rare and expensive variants in my own personal collection, but I'd say a solid 80% of all of his books are readily available either in paperback or digital.
Some of his books were translated into Spanish, which might help you find copies in Latin America. I can't say how good the translation is, since I can't read Spanish, but I know El espectaculo del vampiro, La isla, and Noche infinita all exist. :)
But most of his books are available, in English, very inexpensively. I hope you can find one, and if you read it, will let me know what you thought!
Just the way you commend the said author and his works makes me want to read his stories.
Thank you very much, @idlemind! Laymon is not for everyone, so don't feel like you have to read something of his, but if you want to know more about him or a suggestion of a place to start, I'm happy to offer some suggestions. :)
I'd love that :)
I love horror stories.
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Strangely I have never heard of him! I did my masters on horror movies, but probably should have paid more attention to the writers! Maybe this is a start.
I'm honestly not surprised you've not heard of him. Laymon struggled to achieve any kind of status or notoriety in the US for much of his life. He died in 2001, so unless you were reading horror voraciously in the 80s and 90s, it would be quite easy to pass him by.
Most of his books are available on Kindle, and paperback copies of many of his stories were printed by Leisure before they closed down in the 2000s. If you're going to start looking at Laymon, I'm happy to offer suggestions for good starting points. He's a polarizing author, and even as big a fan as I am, I can admit he dropped some real stinkers.
Have any of his books been made into movies?
A number of Laymon's books were optioned to be turned into movies, but nothing came of it.
Well, almost nothing. A writer/director team of brothers named Clifton and Dwayne Holmes made a rough cut of his book In The Dark back in 2000. It's ultimately incomplete, as it lacks a soundtrack and they ran out of money before production ended, so they were unable to do any ADR work afterwards. But it does exist.
The Holmes brothers cast the movie using local stage actors, and it's very much an amateur production on a shoestring budget, but even though it's not perfect, I really like the way it turned out. The girl who plays Jane is awesome, and since she's carrying the story on her shoulders, it winds up being quite fun.
So give it an hour and forty minutes of your time, and if you enjoy that, then I think I can safely recommend the book it was based on. They even changed the ending for the movie adaptation, so you can read the book and still be surprised. And, not going to lie, I think the movie's ending works better than Laymon's own text. Much like The Mist for Stephen King.
In The Dark is one of Laymon's longer novels though, so if you want to start with something shorter, my other recommendation would be The Stake, which is a vampire story that may or may not actually have any vampires in it at all. It's certainly one of the most unique twists on the vampire trope I've ever come across, and how/if you enjoy that one will pretty much dictate whether or not Laymon's for you.
Wow thanks for this great information! I will give the movie a go first. Man you know your stuff...so good to see!
I try. I found Laymon all the way back in 1995, and he quickly became a favorite of mine. I started getting serious about tracking down all of his novels and short stories in 2000, then I started going for the more obscure, out-of-print, and hard-to-find versions of stuff. He's been an obsession for two decades now. :)
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