Talking in the Dark

In Talking in the Dark, Victor Rippon is a lonely man from a small town. Ever since his wife left him, he’s lived a quiet, bleak existence, with no friends to speak of. His only real interest is his favorite writer, Rex Christian. Victor is obsessed with Rex’s horror stories, which somehow seem more real to him than his own boring life. Why do Rex’s stories have such hypnotic power over his readers? As Christmas draws near, Victor has a chance encounter with Rex and learns the answer to this and to the age-old question, where does a writer really get his ideas? This original short story will thrill and chill you!

From Publishers Weekly

While Etchison (California Gothic) is best known for horror, this wide-ranging collection culled from the past 30 years reveals an unexpected non-genre side to his newer tales, sometimes reminiscent of John Cheever and Shirley Jackson. Still, the truly rewarding stories here number from among his relentlessly grim early ones. Standing out is "The Late Shift," a deft if heavy-handed satire of capitalism, in which a secret organization turns outcasts into zombies and farms them out as pliable, low-wage workers. In the slow-building shocker, "It Only Comes Out at Night," a highway rest area is a charnel house for awaiting travelers. Reanimated Donner Party teenagers cannibalize their modern counterparts in the taut "Daughter of the Golden West," while Stephen King's Misery gets poignantly inverted in "Talking in the Dark." In a funnier vein, a good Samaritan is outrageously exploited in "Call Home." On the other hand, some stories, including the antivivisectionist jeremiad, "The Dead Line," and the never-before-published "Red Dog Down," grow boring and pretentious. Since the stories are arranged in rough order of composition, it's easy to observe Etchison's style evolve, from self-consciously dry and hard-boiled prose into the mellifluous and light-handed. Many early stories are marred by stupefying recitation of products and brand names. But a growing wit is on display, as when a Hollywood producer boasts of his movie's star: "The picture's called Is Anybody There? It was written for him." Etchison is one of the better talents writing horror today, but readers must be patient to find the pearls. (July) Forecast: With a blurb from Peter Straub, among other horror notables, plus a striking J.K. Potter jacket, this book screams quality and has the potential to be a genre bestseller. Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About the Author

Dennis Etchison has been called "the most original living horror writer in America" (The Viking-Penguin Encyclopedia) and "the finest writer of psychological horror this genre has produced" (Karl Edward Wagner, Year's Best Horror Stories). Since 1961, his short stories have appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies. A screenwriter who has written for Dario Argento and John Carpenter, Etchison is also a noted editor. He has been honored with the World Fantasy Award three times and the British Fantasy Award three times.

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