Gerald Biss: The Door Of The Unreal.

[pulphack]

Recently picked up the Ash Tree edition of this, and it's an interesting book for many reasons. Firstly, it's one of the few werewolf novels. Secondly, it was the only supernaturally inclined book by Biss. Thirdly, it has little regard for what we now see as the conventions of the horror novel or of werewolf lore.

So did I like it? Quite a lot, actually, despite a slightly formal style of prose (that may, however, just be my current mood towards a late Victorian/Edwardian style, which this has despite being published in 1919). Biss was a journalist by trade, notable at the time for his writings on automobiles (and indeed these feature heavily and in loving detail in the text). He wrote a few novels, mostly thrillers, and died of alcoholism-related illness in 1922. I owe these details to Stefan R Dziemianowicz' excellent introduction. He also points out astutely that Biss was not untypical of popular novelists at the time in that he wrote across genres and had just the one 'weird' title to his name at a time when genre boundaries had not really been defined and writers were not pushed into being one thing or another.

I think it's the former rather than the latter that has led to this book being overlooked as little more than a footnote in 'weird' fiction. It gets two mentions on this board that I could find. One from lobolover reports that it was a decent romp but lacking in 'weird' atmosphere, while the coffin flies called it boring tosh. I honestly can't see that latter myself as it moves at a fairly rapid rate, even though at times very little happens directly. It does have very little werewolf lore, however, and is not a horror novel as such, which seems to be a bugbear. Indeed, lobolover's only criticism of the book is that it has little of the 'weird' fiction atmosphere he demands of such a novel. He's right - within those parameters it has little: however, this is because it was written before such things became convention, and also because it does not actually set out to be a 'horror' novel. Rather, it seems that Biss wanted to find a twist on the thriller formula he had mined before, and found it after a perusal of Elliott O'Donnell (who is mentioned in an acknowledgement at the end).

Although written on the verge of the 1920's, in style it has less to do with the likes of Edgar Wallace and Sydney Horler - the journalist-lean style of prose on the rise - and more to do with the ornate style of E Phillips Oppenheim and William LeQuex with their Edwardian tones. It concerns happenings on the road to Brighton that leave police baffled - car crashes and disappearances. Into this confusion comes an American who has traveled and recognises that which the police cannot see: that lycanthrope is afoot. He sets about gathering evidence to prove this, enlisting the aid of a lawyer who has also traveled abroad and witnessed sinister happenings. They acquaint the police with this, and action is taken.

If that sounds matter of fact, then this is simply because it is: the supernatural is dealt with in a most prosaic manner (the only passages with any kind of mystical atmosphere actually occur in the coda of the book, and are surprisingly powerful because of this). Lobolover's mention of the book bemoaned the lack of suspense in that there is nothing held back - we know everything. He's right about this, but that does not make this a boring book. On the contrary, as a thriller it adds to it: the reader knows exactly what is going on even as some of the characters do not, and some are fully informed so that they may take their part. There is no suspense: what there IS - and effectively - is a tension that is wound taut. Our narrator has one month in which to gather evidence and force action before the soul of a young woman is lost forever. He knows this, and so do others - yet they are forced to wait for the moon before they can take the right action. The clock audibly ticks.

There is no adherence to werewolf lore as we know it: despite the setting being ripe for Larry Talbot to walk through the door, there is no wolfsbane or gypsy curses. Simply because all that hadn't been enshrined in pop culture at that point. Also, it's nice to see that the police do not dismiss our narrator as a loon, nor do they act like fools themselves - they, like him, work on the Holmesian dictum that when you have eliminated the possible, then the impossible - however bizarre - must be the solution. Read it like a horror novel and again that doesn't work. Look at it like a detective novel of the time - ah, that's another matter.

This reminds me more of Geoffrey Household's Rogue Male than it does any other 'weird' or supernatural novel: there is that same sense of a man hunting down a menace as though stalking game, but with a much greater prize at stake.

Apparently HP Lovecraft recommended this book - I can't help but think that this has gone against it in the long run, as many would approach it expecting it to be in a similar vein. Apart from the fact that there is no cop-out and the issue is really about elementals and evil, it has nothing in common with the vast majority of 'horror' books. I picked it up not realising exactly what it was until I searched on here - for me it was going to be an inter-war thriller of the type I like, only realising the supernatural element when reading the back cover. I think that distinction in expectation makes a difference as to how much you may enjoy the book: it's not Sax Rohmer, that's for sure. It is a damn good thriller with a weird edge.