Third, I'd set the story in my hometown. The high school my cast had attended would be my high school. The viewpoint characters would be my age. While none of them was exactly like me, they would all share my frame of reference. I'd write about the class of 76, and how they'd spent the intervening years winding their way from the days of disco to the early nineties. In other words. I'd be on completely familiar turf.
Lastly, I told myself that I wouldn't cross the line that had put Kiss of Death in that cardboard box. There'd be no zombies. No monsters. I was going hard-boiled with this one. I was going noir. I might nod my head toward the supernatural, but I wasn't going there.
It was only halfway through the writing that I realized my decision on that score didn't matter. Supernatural or not, the book I was writing was really a ghost story.
By the time I figured that out, it was okay with me.
Because this story I believed.
I called my novel Slippin' into Darkness. It took me awhile to finish it. My short work had gained notice during the writing, and I began to receive invitations to contribute to anthologies. I didn't pass up many of them, as I figured every professional credit I could notch would be another reason for an agent to look at Slippin' when I finished it.
When that day rolled around, I figured I was ready. I'd made enough contacts in the business that I didn't have to hit agents cold. I could get an introduction from another client, or from a reviewer or an editor who was a mutual friend.
So I came up with a list of agents I wanted to work with.[47] I hit them with query letters or called them. Several were interested in looking at Slippin', and the manuscript started making the rounds. The only problem was that it kept coming back to me. It took me awhile to figure out exactly why that was happening. Most of the replies I received from agents praised my writing, Several were almost apologetic about not taking me on as a client.
The problem they had was with my novel itself. First off, it was dark. Pretty much everyone told me that it was "too dark to sell to New York." A few agents had a problem with the characters, too—they didn't know who they were supposed to "like" in the book."[48] Most of all, they didn't know what kind of a book it was—it wasn't any kind of horror, or mystery, or suspense they recognized. Elements of all those genres were contained in the book, but it didn't fall solidly in any of those camps.
Reading those letters from agents, I knew that they were right. I'd look over at the books on my shelf by established writers who'd built careers, and I'd realize that I hadn't followed their advice. I hadn't written to market. I hadn't written a Betty & Bob book.
I'd written a Norm Partridge book. As it turned out, that was something different. And something different didn't fit into a slot too easily...or a paperback rack designed to hold the latest book out of the great NYC fiction mill.
I took a break and tried to regroup. I did a rewrite on Slippin' from beginning to end. I didn't do this in an attempt to make it more palatable to the marketplace. The story remained dark. But the earlier version did have some plot problems, not to mention a few too many tangents that were overly complicated. I eliminated those detours, tightened up the novel, and then mercilessly carved what was left down to the bone. The version I ended up with after the rewrite was a meaner little machine than the original.
I was happy with the revised version. It did what I set out to do, and I knew that it was as good a book as I could write at the time. Still, I wasn't really convinced that the new version of Slippin' into Darkness would be received by agents—or publishers—any differently than the first version.
So it sat there in the manuscript box on my desk, and I got back to writing short stories.
One day Rich Chizmar called me. By this time Cemetery Dance was gaining a lot of attention as a magazine, and Rich had decided to branch out into publishing books. He'd done an Ed Gorman collection and a limited edition of an early Joe Lansdale novel (Act of Love), and he was looking to publish an original novel.
Rich and I had worked together since the beginning. Cemetery Dance had become known for dark suspense stories, and so had I. Thinking it over, I knew that Slippin' into Darkness was right up Rich's alley. If it fit any template at all, it fit his. In a way, it was the perfect novel for his new book line.
I sent a copy of the manuscript to Rich, and we discussed the possibilities of publishing it under the CD imprint. I knew that he was looking at manuscripts from other "new" writers, too—guys who were coming up through the small press ranks the same way I was—but Rich didn't make it a secret that he was very interested in mine. Soon he was ready to make an offer on the book.
Now, I might have just picked up my pen and signed on the dotted line. I didn't do that. With an offer from a publisher in hand, I took one last crack at getting an agent. This time, I connected. My first agent mostly worked with science fiction and fantasy writers, but she knew a lot of the players in the horror market, too.
Before we signed on the line with Rich, my agent spent about a month shopping Slippin' into Darkness around New York. Guess what. Nobody bit. People were still telling me that my novel was too dark to publish in a mainstream market.[49] So I went with Rich, who did a limited run of 500 copies in hardcover. The cover price of the book was $35.00. I sat back and held my breath, hoping someone besides my mother would actually buy a copy.
Slippin' was published in February of 1994. It received good reviews in Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, and Locus (among others). Rich received a lot of orders for the book based on those reviews.
Three weeks after publication Slippin' into Darkness was sold out from the publisher.
Rich had taken a chance on me. If he had been able to snag an original novel by a more established writer—say Ray Garton or F. Paul Wilson—I would never have had a chance. But Rich might have had trouble meeting their terms at that time, and they might have been hesitant to entrust an original novel to a new press. So Rich lowered his sights a little, looked at the next generation of writers coming up, and chose me.
Of course, I was taking a chance too. If I could have gotten a New York deal, I probably wouldn't have signed with Rich. After all, I would have gotten a lot more copies of Slippin' out there if it had been published by New York. And I had no guarantees that my novel would sell as well as it did. Rich's press was still brand new—he certainly didn't have the kind of built-in audience and selling power that is attached to the CD imprint today.
So there was no sure way to know whether we could sell my novel at all...but we had a hunch. As publisher of Cemetery Dance, Rich had built a core audience of magazine readers who enjoyed dark suspense. Those readers had followed my work since I published my first story in CD #2, and many of them were ready to pony up their thirty-five bucks to see what I could do at novel length.
One other thing: Rich and I were driving outside the lines. We were on a different road than those guys in New York. But the funny thing was that we pretty much had that road to ourselves. There weren't a lot of small presses (horror or otherwise) publishing original novels by new writers in the mid-nineties. And there weren't dozens upon dozens of new writers competing for those small press market dollars on message boards, or websites, or in chatrooms.
Nope, that road was open in those days.
For us, the timing was exactly right.
For us, the timing was perfect.
So the good news was that I'd published my first novel, and it had done well. But the bad news was that Slippin’ into Darkness had come and gone in three weeks; now no one could find it.
My agent and I were planning to take another crack at getting a mass-market deal for Slippin' in New York, but we decided to wait a little while. Our plan was to submit the manuscript with a few promo blurbs from established writers, along with the best of the reviews the book had garnered. Putting together a package like that made me feel more confident. If anyone else in New York shot me the thumbs down, at least they'd know that they were taking a pass on a book a
lot of people thought was pretty damn good.
I kept busy in the meantime. I was editing an anthology with Marty Greenberg called It Came from the Drive-In, which you may remember me mentioning in an earlier essay. For those who don't, Drive-In was an anthology of stories that played off B-movie themes; I was looking for stories that might have been drive-in movies back in the fifties and sixties.
Many writers were naturals for the project. I sent out invitations to those I could track down. This was all pre e-mail, of course. Over the next few weeks most of the writers I'd contacted RSVP'd by snail mail, letting me know whether or not they'd have time to do a piece for the book.
A few called me. I remember one in particular. I was sitting in my office, working on a short story, when the phone rang.
"Hello?"
"Is this Norm?" It was a woman's voice, bright and cheery.
"Yeah. This is Norm."
"Hi. This is Stephen King's secretary. Will you hold for Steve?"
"Sure," I said, because what else are you going to say when you're hit upside the head by a question like that? I spent the next couple of seconds trying to decide which of my friends was playing a practical joke on me. Then I heard a little click, and a voice came on the line. It was... well, it was obviously Stephen King.
Steve told me that he didn't think he'd have time to write a story for It Come from the Drive-In, even though he thought that it was a fun idea for a book. We got to talking about some of those old movies that had inspired the concept, and then about Cemetery Dance. I was surprised that King knew anything about Rich's magazine, but his comments made it obvious that he'd read CD... and some of my work.
"I've got Slippin' into Darkness on tape," he said. "Next time I go on a trip. I'm going to listen to it."
"What?" I said, surprised. See, I hadn't sold Slippin' into Darkness as an audio-book. I couldn't understand how King had gotten a copy.
He laughed when I asked him about that. "My son and I had a bet on the basketball finals," he said. "The deal was that if he lost he had to read your book onto tape for me."
Now I was laughing, too. A couple minutes later I was off the phone, back working on my short story, feeling just a little dazed. A couple weeks passed as I finished that up and got busier with the Drive-In project. Every once in awhile I'd stop and think about Stephen King sitting in some hotel room listening to Slippin' into Darkness on a Walkman. The whole idea was kind of surreal.
My agent called to talk about putting together our promo package for Slippin'. Thinking about it, I figured I was crazy if I didn't ask King for a quote. I also figured that he was probably up to his elbows in such requests, so I might be just as crazy if I did ask. Finally, I mailed King a note. There were probably a lot of if's in it. As in: if you had a chance to listen to Slippin’, and if you enjoyed it, I'd love to have your endorsement for the book.
Less than a week later, I walked out to my mailbox and found a letter with a Maine postmark. It included the following quote:
Slippin' into Darkness is easily the most auspicious genre debut of the year. Part horror, part mystery, part blood-tipped satire, it signals the arrival of a major new talent. The generation that remembers The Six Million Dollar Man, The Brady Bunch, and songs like "Billy, Don't Be a Hero," will never be the same after they sample Slippin’ into Darkness. This is, quite simply, a five-star book.
That, ladies and gentlemen, was a sweet moment. When my agent submitted Slippin' to another New York publisher, that quote from Stephen King was at the top of our list of promotional blurbs.
Now, I'm not saying that quote from King is what finally got me a paperback sale on my novel.
But I'm sure it didn't hurt.
Thanks, Steve.
KISS OF DEATH
(an excerpt)
Day One: October 28, 1955
Chapter One
The freak gripped the neck of the Coke bottle between two toes and shook it. Inside, the spider — balled up and black and dead — bounced against the glass.
The room was so quiet that Reno could hear the damn thing ticking off the glass like a bony finger worrying the windowpane of an empty house. The sound was driving him nuts, had been driving him nuts for the last ten minutes. Just as he was about to say something—for chrissakes, will ya give it a rest already? — the freak put the bottle on the table.
The spider teetered one last time, then rolled against the glass. It was a big one. Reno thought it looked like a nigger's severed toe, though he'd never seen a nigger's toe, severed or otherwise. He didn't want to think about niggers, though, so he thought about toes instead, wriggling his own inside his boots and kind of laughing to himself: This little piggy went to market... this little piggy went to town.. .and this little piggie went wee wee wee, all the way -
Inside the bottle, eight long furry legs snapped out from the spider's round black body. The dead bug started moving. It scuttled across the floor of the bottle, legs scraping glass, body twisting in a crazy circle.
Reno nearly gasped, instantly hating himself for reacting at all. Christ, it wasn't like he hadn't seen this happen before. But he'd been sure, sure that the bug was dead for good this time. After all, the damn thing hadn't moved in a week, no matter how many times the freak picked up the damn bottle, no matter how many times the scarred-up bastard stared through the glass with his one gleaming eye trained on the dead thing and —
No. Reno didn't want to think about the freak's eye...mostly because he didn't want to find that eye staring at him.
So he ignored the sound of the dead spider's legs ticking against the walls of the bottle, and he ignored the delighted little giggle that spilled over the freak's lips, and he grabbed the new issue of Life Magazine off the table and opened it up.
He flipped past a couple ads, stared down at Roger Maris. Flipped the page. Stared at a platinum blonde movie star. Flipped again. Tried to read about President Eisenhower.
But he couldn't read.
He was too busy listening to the dead spider scuttling around inside the bottle, too busy hearing the freak's slobbery little giggle.
Reno tried thinking of other sounds. Sounds he'd hear in a place he'd like to be. Ice cubes rattling in hurricane glasses. Quiet music on a juke box — a good Julie London ballad. Yeah. And add a woman's laughter to that, because a woman's laughter would fit right in with those sounds.
Reno pictured a place he liked to visit whenever he hit Vegas, a friendly club where he could get himself an ice-cold beer and sit in a corner booth and look at people who had the requisite number of arms, legs, and eyes. That was where he should be right now. In that club. Not here, babysitting the freak. Coley and Hector should be stuck here. That was the way it should be, because Reno was supposed to be the boss of this outfit. But there was no way he could give orders to those two jackasses. Coley was just plain stupid and Hector always screwed up on purpose, just to get out of doing any work at all.
Hector's attitude wasn't surprising, seeing as how he'd been such a big shot in Korea with his sniper rifle and the special privileges that he was always bragging about. Reno didn't mind Hector's bragging, really. He didn't mind the former G.I.'s war stories, either, except for the fact that Hector could never finish a story without getting in a dig at Reno.
Reno didn't like that. It wasn't his fault that he couldn't get into the army. He'd tried. He had two strong arms and two good legs, and he hated the gooks almost as much as he hated niggers and Mexicans. And he didn't buy all that stuff the army docs told him about his heart. After all, the army took Cash, and Cash was Reno's twin brother, wasn't he? So the two of them had to have the same heart, didn't they?
The docs claimed that it didn't always work that way. Reno figured that they had to be wrong. Hector agreed with him, though Reno couldn't figure out why Hector held it against him when it was so obviously the fault of the army doctors.
So Hector was a smart ass when it came to work, but Coley was even worse. He was big and stupid with tiny blac
k eyes and oily black hair that looked like it had been cut by a drunken sailor. He got everything balled up mostly because getting things balled up was his fate.
Like the time Reno sent Coley to the Vegas Public Library with a list of books that the freak wanted. Christ, imagine an Indian —a full-blooded Navajo, for chrissakes — who liked to read Westerns, and Reno was expected to get him everything he wanted anytime the screwed up headcase asked. That's how it was with the freak.
Anyway, Coley complained that he didn't know anything about libraries, and Reno told him, "Listen, you big dope, all you have to do is hand the list to a librarian and follow her around while she finds the books." With that, Coley agreed that the mission sounded simple enough.
Right. Several hours later Coley returned to the adobe empty-handed, muttering something about forgetting Reno's library card. When Reno asked the big dope why he didn't just get a card of his own, Coley went all red and explained that he couldn't fill out the application because he couldn't write anything besides his name, and he didn't know the address for the middle of nowhere, anyway.
Even Reno could forgive that last mistake. The big adobe was in the middle of nowhere. Its thick, cool walls stood a good hundred miles outside of Vegas with nothing nearby but sand and dirt and scrub brush that no one even noticed because it was much nicer to look up at the blue sky instead. Not that the sky was always blue — sometimes the evening light would filter in an odd way and the horizon would turn purple, or orange, or as yellow as a cartoon canary. Sometimes clouds would roll in like big fists and sand and mountains and sky would turn as dark as slate, as black as....
Mr. Fox and Other Feral Tales Page 26
