In Laymon's Terms

Matt Schwartz

Y FIRST LOVE in horror fiction is the short story. While I may read hundreds of short stories a year, there are years where I may only check out a handful of novels. And unfortunately, that can often lead me to coming to an author’s full body of work until late in the game.

Sadly, that’s the case with Richard Laymon. I didn’t read my first Laymon novel until 2004. I had read many of his short stories and loved them—among them two masterpieces—“The Hunt” and “Mess Hall.” But, perhaps daunted by the sheer number of novels to choose from, I had never dived into his full-length work.

In choosing what my first Laymon novel should be, I looked to an author who scares the living hell out of me—Bentley Little. Little had done an introduction for Cemetery Dance’s beautiful hardcover of The Cellar and I figured if Little dug this one, then chances are it would be up my alley.

To say I agreed with Bentley Little is an understatement.

I found The Cellar to be one of the most genuinely shocking, ballsy horror novels I’ve ever read. It’s one of the few books I’ve read—alongside Jack Ketchum’s The Girl Next Door and Little’s own University—where I found myself amazed that the publisher agreed to put it on store shelves given its content. And the horror community is infinitely richer for the publishers having taken that chance.

But that’s not what this essay is about.

After experiencing the mindfuck of The Cellar I found myself craving more Laymon. A lot more. For the next several months, I read Laymon. And that was all I read. The Beast House. The Midnight Tour. One Rainy Night. Midnight’s Lair. The Wilds. Among the Missing. Beware. Night in the Lonesome October. And that was just in the first month.

Laymon was my crack cocaine. And barring A&E sending in a camera crew for “Intervention,” I wasn’t about to stop.

It had been a long time since I developed such a fast addiction to something in entertainment. Ten years in fact. In other words, I didn’t think Richard Laymon wasn’t just good. He was “Melrose Place” good.

I know what you’re thinking. But let me tell you—they’re not as different as it may seem. Let me clarify it a bit.

First of all, when I’m talking about “Melrose Place” I’m not talking “Billy and Allison move in as roommates, determined to remain platonic friends, and wacky hijinx ensue.”

I’m talking “Kimberly (played by “Desperate Housewives’” Marcia Cross, by the way) is plotting to murder everyone who is responsible for her losing most of her scalp (and brain) in a car accident, with special plans to torture amateur call-girl Sidney, who’s busy planning to shove her wheelchair-bound sister Jane in front of a truck so she can sleep with Jane’s husband, who’s not above altering medical records if it means it gives him a shot at sleeping with Heather Locklear.”

Good stuff, good stuff.

But schizophrenic psychopaths aren’t the only parallels between the two. There’s more to their common appeal than meets the eye.

Over the years of selling horror books, I’ve had many customers email me their thoughts on various authors and books, eager to discuss my own thoughts on the matter. Several customers have told me that they feel that Laymon’s regular descriptions of women as gorgeous and perfect are misogynistic.

Man, I think they’re missing the point. Big time.

One of the things that instantly pulled me into Laymon’s works is quite the opposite. He’s one of the very few authors I’ve read who provides eye candy for everyone in many of his novels. Now, if you’re not a straight woman or gay male, you may not notice it in his text—but for every female character with great breasts and luscious hair, Laymon had no problems offering up male characters with power pecs or bulging biceps. In fact, it was particularly nice to see that by The Midnight Tour it’s clear that the Beast swings both ways. (Sorry fellas—that excellent “Y” chromosome ain’t saving you from this horror.)

That said, it may beg the question—why have so many gorgeous people at all?

Well, that brings us back to “Melrose Place.”

Here’s the thing—the stuff that goes down in Laymon’s books is sick shit. Really sick. People are put through the ringer in terrifying, disturbing ways, and when it comes to trying to think up new ways to shock the reader, Laymon is a master of rising to the occasion.

And I think having that sick stuff happen to impossibly gorgeous people actually is a brilliant maneuver.

Having these violent, sick, terrifying acts happen to us “normal” folk would risk making the books downright unpleasant to read. Life is already often full of sorrow and pain, and having one of us go through the wonderfully twisted horrors presented in such books as The Cellar or One Rainy Night would cause such pity for the main characters as to be nearly unbearable.

But let’s face it. If someone has to go through unbelievably sick and twisted crap—wouldn’t we all rather see it happen to someone who is impossibly good-looking, and whose life has undoubtedly, up to this point, been full of a level of happiness, sex, and love that the rest of us mortals only dream about?

Not that we necessarily take pleasure out of seeing bad things happen to gorgeous people. But if it’s going to happen—and let’s face it, if it wasn’t going to happen, it wouldn’t make much of a horror book—isn’t it better to happen to someone who’s already been sickeningly fortunate in life so far?

Or maybe that’s just me. I’m perfectly comfortable acknowledging my Schadenfreude-prone personality.

To quote “Melrose Place”’s Sydney: (referring to psycho Kimberly) “What’s happening in her world is not exactly what’s happening in ours.”

Now, of course, Laymon isn’t the first author to have his main characters step out of an Abercrombie & Fitch catalog. And it definitely doesn’t apply to all of Laymon’s novels. In fact, when you start looking at many brilliant works like The Traveling Vampire Show and Night in Lonesome October you’ll see quite a different Laymon, albeit one that’s no less essential to read.

After that initial burst of devouring a minimum of one Laymon novel a week, I slowed down a bit. Not because I got bored, but because the author’s untimely passing has left me with a finite amount of his work that I’ll ever be able to read—and I want to be able to get the thrill of reading “new” Laymon (new to me, anyway) for years to come. Right now, I’m feeding my Laymon lust with Island—which is blowing me away.

Nothing excites me in horror fiction like reading someone whom is unlike anyone else I’ve stumbled across, or reading a novel that goes in a direction which I never could have believed possible.

If you had asked me five years ago what a collaboration between David Cronenberg and Aaron Spelling would be like in novel form, I couldn’t have told you. After reading The Beast House series, I think I have a pretty damn good idea. And that knowledge has made me happier than I ever would have imagined.