Stephen King’s informative introduction provides background to a writer I wasn’t familiar with. William Sloane wrote To Walk the Night in 1937 and The Edge of Running Water in 1939. Both stories contain elements most of us would consider Lovecraftian. There are a couple of strange deaths, a beautiful but mysterious woman, cryptic mathematics, peculiar machines, bizarre science, and all around weirdness.
To Walk the Night is narrated by Barkley whose friend has just died. Barkley relates the events leading up to the death to the father of his friend. Barkley and his friend, Jerry Lister, discovered the burnt body of Professor LeNormand who was investigating some arcane mathematics. Somehow, LeNormand’s body looked like someone had taken a blow-torch to it…in the locked observatory. Jerry becomes obsessed with the mathematics LeNormand was working on…and equally obsessed with LeNormand’s beautiful, but eerie, wife.
The Edge of Running Water is narrated by Richard Sayles, friend of polymath Julian Blair, who calls for help when his weird project hits a sticking point. It takes time for Sayles to discover what Blair is secretly working on. Meanwhile, Mrs. Marey, the housekeeper, is found dead. Is it related to Blair’s secret project? Stephen King praises the first line of The Edge of Running Water: “The man for whom this story is told may or may not be alive.” You know from that moment that this story will be creepy!
William Sloan worked for a number of publishing housing and served as the managing director of the Rutgers University Press. He also established and managed his own company, William Sloan Associates and served on the faculty of the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference in Vermont. Stephen King laments that Sloan didn’t continue to write in this sophisticated horror genre. But, at least we have two scary stories to enjoy in The Rim of Morning. GRADE: B+ (for both)
Perhaps closest approximation to King in his time…or to Ira Levin.
Todd, I was impressed by William Sloane’s writing style. As Stephen King points out Sloane could have dominated the sophisticated horror market of the 1930s and 1940s if he wrote more stories of this quality.
As it was, he was the biggest deal of his sort at the time in the US…
I never did read these, but I’m familiar with them. They were published in hardcover separately and then together before this version. They were published in paperback by Dell in the 1950s, by Bantam in the 60s (these are the editions I know), and by Del Rey in 1980. They’ve been around.
I’m pretty sure I had the Dell edition Jeff mentioned.
I see my library has an e-book copy of the book.
Jeff, Stephen King’s Introduction has some major spoilers so you might want to read the stories first and then King’s Introduction.
Jeff, you’re right about these William Sloane stories appearing in paperbacks…that I unfortunately ignored. I’m glad I finally read them in the New York Review of Books Press edition finally.
Bantam had the best covers IIRC.
Todd, the Bantam covers sure beat the NYRB Press black cover!
I have this edition and highly recommend it. I found “To Walk the Night” a bit of a slow burn but genuinely, subtly creepy. I’ll definitely be giving it a second read at some point. “The Edge of Running Water” (which I also have a nice fifties hardcover edition of) is a brisk page-turner and has a fun Outer Limits meets Thriller vibe though the ending is just a tad of letdown. I actually watched the film adaption, “The Devil Commands,” last week. It squeezes in a fair amount of plot points and details from the book but in a thoroughly B-movie way. Boris Karloff also lays it on a bit thick for my taste and I say that as a fan. It’s a pity Val Lewton didn’t get a hold of the rights. It could have ended up as a gem.
King’s introduction here is a thoughtful read. I agree with him that Sloan did carve out his own little genre (literary weird fiction?) and that it’s a real pity he wrote so little. Still, the fact the books have remained in print and now have a home at NYRB no less is noteworthy.
Byron, I agree with your assessment of William Sloane’s work. I have not seen THE DEVIL COMMANDS but I’ll look for it. Both “To Walk the Night” and “The Edge of Running Water” have their strengths…and weaknesses. The slow burn occurs in both stories. I suppose it designed to build tension…but I thought it made the stories drag a bit. Of course it helps if Stephen King is an admirer!
I read THE EDGE OF RUNNNG WATER (liked it), but somehow never got around to TO WALK THE NIGHT — an oversight I hope to fix sometime in the coming months.
Sloane also edited two interesting science fiction anthologies. SPACE, SPACE, SPACE is onstensibly a juvenile, with ten stories by Walter M. Miller, Arthur C. Clarke, Clifford Simak, and Eric Frank Russell, among others; some pretty good stuff here, but it may be overfamiliar to some readers. STORIES FOR TOMORROW is more ambitious, with 29 stories by Bradbury, Boucher, Simak, Oliver, Blish, Russell, Wollheim, and Clingerman, as well as an orignal short story by the editor (“Let Nothing You Dismay”); a real bargain at the time, and probably still is.
Jerry, once again I regret not buying SPACE, SPACE, SPACE and STORIES FOR TOMORROW when they were commonly available and cheap. I plan to track them down in the months ahead.
The name is new to me. Always interesting how many authors we have missed.
Patti, so many books…so little time!
I got those collections, though I don’t remember Mr Sloane
THE RIM OF MORNING = THE EDGE… + TO WALK THE NIGHT
THE EDGE OF RUNNING WATER = THE UNQUIET CORPSE
Wolf, these books have stayed in print, but it took me a couple decades to finally get motivated to read them.
No picture came through for me,
I used to have a copy of TO WALK THE NIGHT but never read it.
Jeff, William Sloane has some aspects of Stephen King’s writing. I enjoyed the creepiness of both stories.