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Post by dem on Apr 7, 2008 21:00:38 GMT
Charles Birkin - My Name Is Death (Panther, 1966).  Cover photograph by Ken RandallBlurb: HORROR UNLIMITED!
Dark putrescent pools of slime
A child priestess presiding over vile, unthinkable cults ...
The ghastly touch of a corpse's waxen flesh...
Paintings Which explore the deepest abyss of horror and evil
IN THIS MACABRE,
SPINE-CHILLING COLLECTION A NEW MASTER OF MYSTERY AND HORROR POINTS THE ICY FINGER OF FEAR AT YOU!My Name Is Death
Kitty Fisher
King Of The Castle
Parlez Moi D'Amour
Who's Your Lady Friend?
The Finger Of Fear
Hosanna!
Hard To Get
My Name Is Death: (AKA The Terror On Tobit) The Scilly Isles, 1920's. Despite all warnings to the contrary, Daphne and Aline bully a young man to row them out to a shunned island, where a creature reputedly appears after dark, hungry for human flesh. One girl spends the rest of her days in an asylum. The other isn't so lucky. Kitty Fisher: Hubert, babysitting while his parents are a party, is coerced into giving his girlfriend a lift home, leaving baby Lucy in the hands of her sister Kitty. But Kitty is trying to put on a performance of "Cinderella" with her dolls, and the kid won't stop bawling ... The Finger Of Fear:When six year old Peter has a toothache, miserly Cornelia Jamieson decides - after a bottle of gin - that it would be cheaper to have the boy driven around to the dentist rather than vice versa. So she decapitates him with an axe and has the unsuspecting chauffeur Tomlin take his head over to the surgery in a hat box. King Of The Castle: Christmas time at Blackwood. One of the Regulars at The Green Archer, farmer Jack Tetbury, despises his son, Harry, due to his slow-wittedness and the birthmark on his cheek. When, in a particularly violent drunken rage, he beats the boy for spilling some of his tobacco, his belt buckle catches the boy in the face and makes a gash across the livid stain. It proves to be the final straw. Shortly afterward Harry goes missing. Meanwhile, his mother enthuses over her favored son's striking snowman. Until it begins to melt ... Parlez Moi D'Amour: Macabre ghost story with a Parisian setting. Edouard De Louvier went to the guillotine after hacking Nicolle's body to pieces then taking plaster casts of the ears, hands and feet as moulds for his bizarre statuettes. Now the narrator, a young English artist, is staying in the room where the slaying took place as the anniversary approaches. Who's Your Lady Friend?: London theatre life in the early 'twenties. The secret of Albert 'Victor de Vere' Rodinberry's ventriloquist doll. Albert's wife, Madge, deserted him three years ago, leaving him holding the baby, Norman, whose condition is giving cause for concern. Within three days the little boy dies of pneumonia, but he has remained vital to his father's act ever since. Madge, now a prostitute and drifting into alcoholism is too befuddled to realise the truth. Hosanna!: Birkin, via hapless longhair Noel Carter, explores the dangers of hitch-hiking and concludes that it's not advisable to accept a lift from an artist who specialises in depicting scenes from the Bible. Hard To Get: A rakish officer takes a beautiful woman to dinner at an exclusive London hotel and sets about seducing her. Nothing particularly odd about that except in appearance they resemble loathsome gigantic spiders and their physical attributes include antennae and "a dual row of saucer shaped suckers ... sunk under the hair of their arms." These are the conquerors of earth and they prefer to eat their meat raw and alive. Bad news for the few humans who survived the conflict.
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Post by Dr Terror on May 9, 2010 22:38:07 GMT
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Post by Johnlprobert on Jun 27, 2010 20:54:11 GMT
This book has just been despatched & is on the way to Probert Towers! I'm far too excited about what is basically an old paperback  |
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Post by dem on Jun 27, 2010 21:11:08 GMT
i reckon you're in for a sick treat. of all his 'sixties collections this is arguably the pick of the bunch and i'm dying to learn what you make of it!
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Post by marksamuels on Jun 28, 2010 9:06:15 GMT
Coincidentally, My Name is Death is also going to be the title of Fabio Capello's world cup 2010 memoir.  Mark S. |
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Thana Niveau
Devils Coach Horse
We who walk here walk alone.
Posts: 109
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Post by Thana Niveau on Jun 30, 2010 10:33:24 GMT
I'm new to Birkin. (I'm new to most Brit-pulp as a matter of fact and Lord P has my eternal devotion for both re-animating and re-educating me!) Anyway, he told me about "A Lovely Bunch of Coconuts" quite a while back and I'd been dying to read it ever since. And the story didn't disappoint. It's just the sort of nasty-edged non-PC bleakness I adore. So I'm really looking forward to more. The book arrived today - hooray! If the rest of the stories are anything like that one I'm sure to be a devotee. That cover, incidentally, is one of the most disturbing things I've ever seen!  If I'd had this book as a kid I'd have had to hide it under a stack of other, bigger books. |
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Post by Johnlprobert on Jul 1, 2010 20:10:43 GMT
Away we go with some Birkin at Probert Towers!
My Name Is Death - An odd alternative title for 'Terror on Tobit' but at least this story has given us an interesting holiday destination when we once again venture 'down South', if only so we can look out for the monolith with the 'bloodstained mouth', but we'd probably better beware the seaweed as well...
Hard to Get - A great double-meaning of a title for a story where you only realise halfway through that the characters you've been reading about are giant alien 'spiders'. Then it's full steam ahead with detailed descriptions of how young women are bred, gagged, trussed up and basted to be displayed in a Colosseum before being eaten alive as the specialite de la maison. Really good, nasty stuff.
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Post by dem on Jul 2, 2010 7:44:28 GMT
I'm new to Birkin. (I'm new to most Brit-pulp as a matter of fact and Lord P has my eternal devotion for both re-animating and re-educating me!) Anyway, he told me about "A Lovely Bunch of Coconuts" quite a while back and I'd been dying to read it ever since. And the story didn't disappoint. It's just the sort of nasty-edged non-PC bleakness I adore. So I'm really looking forward to more. The book arrived today - hooray! If the rest of the stories are anything like that one I'm sure to be a devotee. That cover, incidentally, is one of the most disturbing things I've ever seen! If I'd had this book as a kid I'd have had to hide it under a stack of other, bigger books. Welcome, your ladyship. Thank you for joining the crab fetishist alliance and i hope you enjoy your time with us. i am relieved to learn you survived your terrible ordeal - and the Right Hon. Lord Probert's dancing - in the legendary Corruption remake. we've an interesting thread for A Lovely Bunch Of CoconutsHERE, interesting in that the opinions are either very pro or anti the story (and, indeed, Charles Birkin himself). i think the great man would be very proud to know his work still retains the power to inspire and upset in equal measure. Next time you escape from the cellar, see if the Right Hon. Lord Probert keeps a copy of Hugh Lamb's Wave Of Fear in the library. It contains a Birkin classic Marjories On Starlight, quite the most laugh out loud funny nasty-minded story this side of Alex White's The Clinic! and now settle back and get ready for the heartwarming tale of little Kitty Fisher ... |
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Thana Niveau
Devils Coach Horse
We who walk here walk alone.
Posts: 109
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Post by Thana Niveau on Jul 4, 2010 14:31:16 GMT
Thanks for the welcome, Demonik! My education in pulp horror continues apace and I look forward to much more - either seared into my own retinas or read to me in His Lordship's mellifluous voice. I will certainly seek out the stories you recommended. I hope I'll be able to contribute more to other authors' threads in future too (though I think I'll spare myself Eat Them Alive). Elsewhere it was mentioned that the Tartarus Press Aickman volumes are too unwieldy for me (ie, difficult to hold up in bed comfortably!) but I love his weirdness too much to be daunted and am determined to work my way through them. "The Swords" was fantastic and of course I loved "Ringing the Changes" and "The Hospice". And I fear I haven't fully escaped Corruption. The threat of future performances looms. |
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Post by Johnlprobert on Jul 4, 2010 19:34:20 GMT
Kitty Fisher- Mr Birkin seemed to have a thing about irresponsible babysitting as the theme has turned up a few times in his stories. Would you trust seven year old Kitty to look after baby Lucy, who won't stop bawling and there happens to be a handy silk ribbon within reach? Thought not.
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Post by Johnlprobert on Jul 7, 2010 21:42:35 GMT
King Of The Castle - It's the snowman one! A fair bit of political incorrectness in this, spouted by father Jack Tetbury about his 'idiot son' Harry, who of course gets his revenge, and a chance to show Dad what it might feel like to have a birthmark like the one Harry was born with, with the aid of the flat iron he's got heating up on the stove...
Parlez Moi D'Amour - I love a good nasty artist story and this one is lots of fun. It's even given me a few ideas (story ideas I mean - I'm not going up to the attic to do something astoundingly evil to Lady P. Not tonight, anyway...)
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Post by dem on Jul 7, 2010 22:06:14 GMT
Parlez Moi D'Amour - I love a good nasty artist story and this one is lots of fun. It's even given me a few ideas (story ideas I mean - I'm not going up to the attic to do something astoundingly evil to Lady P. Not tonight, anyway...) Lord P. don't read the spoiler-infested first post on this thread! Glad you're getting along with My Name Is Death. It could be me, but i think of it as his most commercial offering, affable ol' uncle Charlie settling the little ones down for the night with a cheerily horrible bedtime story. Job done, he takes pipe, decanter and glass, lies back in the armchair and awaits the screams from the nursery once the nightmares kick in ... |
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Post by Johnlprobert on Jul 10, 2010 19:36:42 GMT
Who's Your Lady Friend? - Dem's summarised this one perfectly above. All I'll say is that it's definitely one for inclusion in a 'scary ventriloquist dummy' antho, or a 'what to do with your dead child' antho. Or a 'I hate aging hasbeen actresses' antho come to think of it.
The Finger Of Fear - Aging, pissed up, rish and miserly Miss Cornelia Jameson doesn't believe in spending money unless it's on her bottle of gin a day habit, so when her housekeeper's grandson develops a dental abscess she realised it's going to be far too expensive and far too much trouble to take all of the little boy to the dentist, and so she proposes a novel solution that involves a knife and a handy hatbox...
Hosanna! - Yes indeedy, hosanna for Mr Birkin and his story of rich, insane French artist Cassius Lamont who insisted on painting his beautiful wife after he burned her face off (but before she killed herself) and has a studio filled with pictures of, for example, a highwayman hanging from an old gibbet, just like the one M. Lamont has on his extensive and very very isolated grounds. A couple of spare planks of wood, some nails, and a fixation on the New Testament might just spell spells trouble for poor old bearded hitchhiker Noel who might just be what the artist has been looking for as his latest inspiration.
And that's the lot. Overall I'd say it's topnotch Birkin, with his utter disdain for human foibles and his cruel obsessions, especially those towards old ladies, babysitters and children, well to the fore in this book.
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Post by andydecker on Jul 11, 2010 12:19:30 GMT
Enlighten me!
Why isn´t this stuff being reprinted?
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Post by marksamuels on Jul 11, 2010 13:06:50 GMT
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If I'd had this book as a kid I'd have had to hide it under a stack of other, bigger books.