Lie Ten Nights Awake - Herbert Van Thal

[nightreader]

Lie Ten Nights Awake - Ed. by Herbert van Thal (Hodder & Stoughton 1967)

‘A Pair of Gloves’ – Anthony Burgess
‘The Eagle’ – Richard Chopping
‘Whisper’ – Martin Waddell
‘From the Water Junction’ – William Sansom
‘The Road to Mictlantecutli’ – Adobe James
‘The Sin-Eater’ – Elizabeth Walter
‘The Green Boy’ – Mariana Villa-Gilbert
‘The Tune in Dan’s Café’ – Shamus Frazer
‘D’You Like Me, Saunders?’ – H. Macallister
‘The Lost Child’ – John Burke

A Pair of Gloves - Anthony Burgess
A cautionary tale of a nagging wife, obsessed with cleanliness, repelled by her husband and his “horrible unnatural desires”. Obsessed too with her father and his virtuous sartorial smartness and how he always used to wear gloves while out and about. Then Harry the long suffering hubby buys an expensive pair of leather gloves, and still the wife complains. There’s only one thing for it…

The Eagle - Richard Chopping
The bird in question is stuffed and displayed in a rundown yet friendly and hospitable café, a welcome find for a group of hungry and weary tourists. It seems the handsome son of the café owners has taxidermy as a hobby – always a worry if you ask me. The tourists, having eaten well of a delicious stew (only spoilt by the number of small bones it contained), take the tour of the young man’s collection of stuffed animals…

Whisper - Martin Waddell
Rosemary is a medium, Charlie her patient and loving husband. He fears his wife gives up too much of herself to the dead. Particularly this spirit of Rachel, who has almost taken over completely, who doesn’t seem in a hurry to let Rosemary come back…

The Sin-EaterElizabeth Walter
While on a trip to remote rural Devon, Clive is manipulated into becoming a ‘sin-eater’. He finds a derelict looking farm, belonging to the elderly Preeces who mourn their dead son – who is laid out on the bed upstairs. The old couple insist Clive see him, and take a glass of wine and a biscuit while in dead Eddie’s presence, in doing so they believe Eddie’s sins to be transferred to Clive. The story in the village is that Eddie murdered his attractive young wife Elsie in a fit of jealous rage after discovering her affair with local bad lad Richard Roper. But all is not as it seems, and a year later Clive feels compelled to return to the village and the derelict farmhouse. To his surprise he meets Roper there and begins to learn the truth of what happened…

The Tune in Dan's Cafe - Shamus Frazer
When Charles and Helen’s car breaks down they wait out the garage repair in Dan’s all night café. It’s late and the place is empty. As they wait they hear a tune played on the jukebox. They feel strangely uncomfortable. It’s a haunted jukebox, haunted by the spirit of a “London ted”, waiting for eternity for the girl who shopped him to the Police after he’d violently robbed a bank. Rather than be arrested London ted draws a gun and blows his brains out next to the jukebox. His unquiet spirit plays the same song on Dan’s jukebox…

D'You Like Me, Saunders? - H. Macallister
Probably the least successful story of the collection so far I thought. It’s the strange story of a boy and his teacher at an old style grammar school. Saunders is the boy, a determined under-achiever, and on the last day of term the news that he is leaving goes around the school. Mr.Thom his teacher has made it his mission to push Saunders as hard as he can, whenever he can. When he hears he is leaving Thom confronts Saunders…

[dem bones]

Dead pleased you posted this, andy. That's the edition I used to have before I somehow decided it was surplus to requirements, don't ask me why. Can't remember the Waddell story but I was very impressed with it once - I've a feeling he must have played it really straight for a change?

Peter C. shares his thoughts on Lie Ten Nights Awake HERE (old board)

[nightreader]

I liked the Waddell story, quietly spooky rather than in-your-face. So far the only one I couldn't get my head around was the H. Macallister story, I finished it and thought "Is that it?" but it looks like Peter C saw more in it than I did. Maybe one day I'll re-read it and like it... Also enjoyed the Shamus Frazer story and the idea of a ghostly "London ted"

[allthingshorror]

Here's the US edition - settings on the scanner still need to be tweaked - so it hasn't done the full thing.... Also, Waddell's WHISPER filmed for Rod Serling's Night Gallery - starring Dean Stockwell and Sally Fields. It's very weird........

[erebus]

Brilliant. Never even seen this around. Would love to find it and what a title.
Does'nt the first tale sound a little like the story in the old Amicus film VAULT OF HORROR. The one with Terry Thomas in. Neat Job I believe its titled.

[dem bones]

Herbert van Thal – Lie Ten Nights Awake (Hodder & Stoughton 1967)

Anthony Burgess – A Pair of Gloves
Richard Chopping – The Eagle
Martin Waddell – Whisper
William Sansom – From the Water Junction
Adobe James – The Road to Mictlantecutli
Elizabeth Walter – The Sin-Eater
Mariana Villa-Gilbert – The Green Boy
Shamus Frazer – The Tune in Dan’s Café
H. Macallister – “D’You Like Me, Saunders?”
John Burke – The Lost Child

Blurb:
From the eerie underworld of William Sansom to the psychological terror of Anthony Burgess & H. Macallister;
from the nightmare fantasy of Adobe James, Elizabeth Walter, Mariana Villa-Gilbert to the exploration of the fringes of insanity on the part of Martin Waddell. From the horrific dream-world of John Burke to the stark realism of Shamus Frazer and the malignant inventions of Richard Chopping:

These tales, all but one published here for the first time, span the far reaches of horror in a book that will banish sleep, and gathers spectres around the midnight oil.



Anthony Burgess – A Pair of Gloves: "If you wore gloves you'd be a gentleman and wouldn't have these unnatural desires ... That's you, Harry. Dirt and nastiness."

Everyday tale of the henpecked husband who finally rebels against terminally unsatisfied wife who finds the whole idea of sex too disgusting for words. Les Dawson could've written this in a dark moment.

Richard Chopping – The Eagle: A homely family café in the Alps doubles as the workshop of a skilled taxidermist, and a party of tourists grow uneasier with his every revelation. After beaten a hasty retreat, they wonder what exactly went into the meat stew and, especially, the tasty but tough "chicken" sandwiches.

Adobe James – The Road to Mictlantecutli: Dan Morgan, fugitive, survives a car crash in the desert and continues staggering toward the Mexican border and safety. A solemn old padre accompanies him part of the way until they're approached by a beautiful young woman on horseback. The priest warns against accepting her offer of a ride to Mictlantecutli's Ranch, but Morgan pays the old fool no mind and joins her in the saddle. As they approach the Ranch, the girl, who has been subjected to his wandering hands since they set off, suggests they can stop here a while if he wants. Morgan doesn't need asking twice ....

H. Macallister – “D’You Like Me, Saunders?”: A form teacher gets a sadistic kick from making a pupil's life a misery. But now Saunders is leaving, what will the twisted bastard do to fill his days? Is H. MacAllister the same author is Hamilton MacAllister of The Woman Who Didn't Waste Words fame?

[dem bones]

Mariana Villa-Gilbert – The Green Boy: Kindly old Uncle recalls a strange event of twenty years ago when a blushing Miss March was chased around the rose garden by an evil nude statue.

Shamus Frazer - The Tune in Dan’s Cafe : A dead Ted haunts a greasy spoon. As resurrected by Richard Dalby for The Mammoth Book Of Ghost Stories.

Martin Waddell – Whisper: The monologue of a nervous wreck whose wife, Rosemary, is perfectly alright, you understand. It's just that she's a spirit medium who has been marooned on the other side.

This paperback was among the too many I charity-shopped in a pre-Vault purge, and, until last week, had been hunting a replacement copy ever since. On first acquaintance, I thought Whisper was Martin Waddell's best ever story - it's certainly a lot straighter than his macabre comedy efforts for the Pan Books. Now? Maybe not quite so great, but ... different.

[paulfinch]

I remember thinking The Green Boy was very unsettling. Years ago, when I unsuccessfully pitched an idea for a dramatised TV anthology series of classic but lesser known horror stories, that was one of my first choice six.

[dem bones]

Jul 20, 2015 13:16:30 GMT paulfinch said:

I remember thinking The Green Boy was very unsettling. Years ago, when I unsuccessfully pitched an idea for a dramatised TV anthology series of classic but lesser known horror stories, that was one of my first choice six.

What, out of interest, were the other five?

Yeah, The Green Boy is an impressive and deadly effective story, typical of Lie Ten Nights Awake as a body of work. Subtle as opposed to the - at times - screaming all-out gore assault of the Pan Horror's. Also, there's far more depth to it than my minimalistic synopsis implies.

John Burke - The Lost Child: It almost certainly wasn't written with Whisper in mind, but the story reads like a companion piece. With her husband dead, Mary Neal dreads that she is now losing their little girl, too. Every night, the bleak hillside cottage is filled with Janet's pitiful cries as she dreams of abduction by an evil woman pretending to be her mother. "Which is dreams and which is .... the real thing?" The local GP assures Mrs. Neal that there's nothing to worry about. We know there is.

Elizabeth Walter - The Sin-Eater: Some people are born unlucky and such a one is Londoner Clive Tomlinson, an architectural draughtsman, whose interest in medieval churches leads him to the obscure Welsh hamlet of Penrhayader. On leaving the church, he's prevailed upon by a demented old farmer to visit his bedridden son, Eddie. Clive does so under protest (the farmer, Evan Preece, has hold of his sketches of the rood-loft and seems reluctant to return them ). He enters the hovel and is ushered upstairs to stand at the very dead Eddie's bedside. Before he can leave, Mr and Mrs Preece implore him to break bread in the corpses presence as this will unburden Eddie of his sins.

Back in civilisation (The Red Lion, Carringford, to be precise), Clive is informed by Barnabus Elms, the local Johnny-no-mates, that Eddie was indeed a sinner: he'd spent half of his forty years in prison for the murder of wife, Elsie, after learning of her affair with rakish Dick Roper, only son of the local landowner.

Clive is haunted by the "sin-eater" business. A year to the day, finds him back in Penrhayader. The Preece's are dead, the cottage derelict. Who can that be breaking in through an upper window ...


Which only leaves the least "horrific" but, for this reader, the most interesting story in the collection .....

[dem bones]

William Sansom - From the Water Junction: (Something Terrible, Something Lovely, 1948). Three infants who somehow found their way into the main canal network have been exploited by the waterboard ever since, "employed" as a phantom workforce, their only wages a second-hand uniform and work boots apiece. One day, the trio, led by Egon, investigate a new pipeline. After five days struggling through the sewer they climb a steel ladder, emerging inside a disused mill which boarders a country estate. The trio make for what must surely be "the greatest of all pumping stations", Seegram's Folly, where the Countess of Reval is hosting a masqued ball for like-minded hedonists. Taking their filthy rags as inspired fancy dress, the pale gatecrashers are welcomed like long lost friends.

"Surely there must be a trick? Surely they were not immediately to be accepted into this fantastic society?"

The Countess and her entourage are so amused by their strange guests that she invites them to come live at the Folly and enjoy all the great things life has to offer those vacuous few who can afford it. But having experienced a taste of this alien world, Egon and his friends silently return home to a life of hardship at the water junction.