CULT FICTION: A READER'S GUIDE

By: Denise Dumars
Date: Friday, August 25, 2000

So you've read all of James M. Cain's hard-boiled novels. But have you heard of Paul Cain, the 'hardest of the hardboiled'? Of course you've read William S. Burroughs, but what about Clarence Cooper Jr., 'the black William Burroughs'? If you think you've read it all, think again.

CULT FICTION is a wonderful weird fiction resource written by Andrew Calcutt and Richard Shephard, a couple of Brits who want to take the reader on a journey through the wonderful world of 'literature from the margins and extremes.' That's how they define cult fiction, and this book truly has something for every Fandom fan.

You'll enjoy reading their perspective on some of our favorite authors, such as Harlan Ellison, H. P. Lovecraft, Poppy Z. Brite, Philip K. Dick, and you will discover lots of authors you may never have heard of but will want to read once you've learned about them. Horror, science fiction, fantasy, mystery, and slipstream literature of all kinds are discussed in the book.

The authors also have clever lists for quick access: 'I is for Inbred' lists 10 American Gothic faves, or what we Americans call Southern Gothics. 'E is the Eighties' lists five novels featuring 'upwardly mobile money monsters.' 'D is for Drugs' lists 10 authors who 'just said yes,' and so on. The droll writing style makes this a fun read as well as a good resource.

For me, the worth of this book is in the authors I discovered through it. Who had ever heard, for example, of Frederick Exley, a college classmate of Frank Gifford, who is called 'the fabulous failure' by Calcutt and Shephard. His novel LAST NOTES FROM HOME includes such chapter headings as 'Blowjob' and 'In the Days Before I Shot My Sister.' Exley suffered bouts of insanity and died in 1990, effectively drinking and smoking himself to death.


The afore-mentioned Paul Cain was a pseudonymous author who also wrote for Hollywood under the name Peter Ruric. He'd been a professional gambler among other things and wrote for such detective magazines as BLACK MASK and DETECTIVE FICTION WEEKLY. He wrote the screenplay for the Boris Karloff/Bela Lugosi film THE BLACK CAT, and also wrote for Val Lewton, maker of the original CAT PEOPLE film. His one and only novel, FAST ONE, is considered the 'hardest' hardboiled novel ever by Calcutt and Shephard. Sounds like a must-read to me.

Clarence Cooper Jr., the man our authors call 'the black William Burroughs' was a journalist who became editor of the CHICAGO MESSENGER, but his career was ruined by drug abuse. Interestingly enough, his editor at Regency House was Harlan Ellison, who felt frustrated by the public's lack of understanding of this talented writer. Cooper wrote surrealistic books on crime, drugs, and prison life; he used flashback and flashforward techniques in his novels such as THE SYNDICATE, THE SCENE, and WEED. His novels were not appreciated in his lifetime (he died in 1978) and are only now becoming popular.

Drugs, insanity, and gender-bending are popular themes in the books outlined in this collection. Radclyffe Hall was the daughter of a playboy called 'Rat' and a mother who battered her, according to our authors. Her first name was Marguerite, but she was known in private as 'John' and her novel THE WELL OF LONELINESS has been called 'the bible of lesbianism.' All this, and she was, evidently, an anti-Semite and a fascist sympathizer as well!

Lesser-known genre authors get a good going-over. The reader is given nice write-ups on some of my favorites, including modern Gothic novelist Patrick McGrath; occultist Aleister Crowley, who wrote poetry and novels as well as occult books; Bruce Sterling, whose contributions to cyberpunk far outweigh those of more famous contemporary William Gibson; Cuban-Italian author Italo Calvino who wrote surrealist horror; and Samuel R. Delany, the nephew of the now-famous Delany Sisters, infamous for his impenetrable novel DAHLGREN and famous for many great short science fiction stories and one of my favorite SF novels, THE EINSTEIN INTERSECTION.

The authors' commentary borders on the hilarious at times, as in this quote from the entry on strange Scottish writer Alasdair Gray: 'Gray shows an interest in sex which borders on the unhealthy, as indicated by the title of his 1990 novel SOMETHING LEATHER...' Or consider this understatement: 'Kafka recognised (sic--be alert to examples of Britspell in the book) that not only the world but also writing about the world is problematic.' See, I told you this book was fun.

Whether you are a lover of SF, fantasy, mystery, horror or strange literary works, you'll find something of interest in this volume, which will send you scurrying to the library for the works of any number of forgotten cult geniuses. You'll enjoy the write-ups of some of our favorite authors, also, especially as they appear to a couple of hip Brits. Just reading this volume is fun.

CULT FICTION: A READER'S GUIDE. By Andrew Calcutt & Richard Shephard. 1999 Contemporary Books. $16.95.

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