Authors: Richard Laymon
Here in the states, Thomas Dunne published it as a hardbound for St. Martin’s Press in 1991.
St. Martin’s later (without my knowledge, consent, etc.) sold the paperback rights to
Zebra
for $2,000 of which half would go toward my unearned royalties. While I was extremely upset to find out that
The Stake
and
Midnight’s Lair had
been sold to Zebra and for such trifling sums I did find myself pleased with Zebra’s handling of me and both books. They really did a pretty good job of getting the books into the stores.
Over the years, there has been a lot of TV and movie interest in
The Stake.
It was optioned on at least three different occasions. Some real Hollywood types actually wrote screen adaptations of it. But the story has never made it to the big screen or the little screen.
It has, however, been published in Italy, Spain (and Latin America) and Russia. The Headline paperback edition is now in its 12th printing.
Many of my fans consider
The Stake
to be their favorite book of mine. What some of them say they like best is the portrait of the writer with its behind-the-scenes information about the things that
really
go on in a novelist’s life.
The Stake
is the only book I know of that delves into such nitty-gritty details. And takes jabs at the publishers.
I don’t know if any publishers were offended. Those handling
The Stake
seemed quite amused, and kidded me about it.
Anyway, the book didn’t become a bestseller. Not here in the U.S., anyway. But it did gain me quite a lot of recognition among my fans and fellow writers.
It is still probably my most mainstream book. It is the least outrageous and offensive, and one of my best overall accomplishments. It is the book I’m most likely to recommend to a reader who has never tried anything of mine.
ONE RAINY NIGHT
Though I began writing
One Rainy Night
on January 21, 1989, two days after finishing
The Stake,
I had already spent a great deal of time thinking about what my next novel should be.
After finishing
One Rainy Night
on May 11, I sent a copy to my English agent, Bob Tanner. He was not exactly delighted by the book, and let me know about his problems with it in three letters that I received in early December, 1989.
To give you a special insight into several matters, here is the letter that I wrote in response to Bob’s criticisms.
Dear Bob,
I just received your three letters regarding
One Rainy Night
and thought I should respond to your comments right away.
First, thank you for giving me your honest reaction to the book. I much prefer criticism to being kept in the dark. Also, I’ve been heeding your advice and writing my books accordingly ever since
Tread Softly,
and I’m sure that my career has improved as a result of it.
As for some of the characters not “ringing true,” I am concerned. I tried to make them as real and multidimensional as possible, but maybe I failed. As far as Trev goes, I regret it if he seems wishywashy, but I never intended him to be a “hero.” He’s just a normal guy (a grown man who’s nervous at the start of the book about asking Maureen for a date) who gets caught up in a mess and tries to deal with it. In attempting to make my characters seem like real people, I give them weaknesses as well as strengths. But as I say, maybe I screwed up with some of them.
To address your concern about me “reverting” to the “Kelly” type of novel, I have a few observations.
I wrote
One Rainy Night
after I had written
The Stake
but before I got any reactions to
The Stake.
During the entire writing of
The Stake,
I was extremely nervous about it. I thought of it as “my novel in which nothing happens.” I rather expected you to find it a disappointment. I thought you would probably tell me that it doesn’t have enough horror.
(This was, in fact, the reaction of some editors here in the States. Bantam, which had been eager for
Resurrection Dreams,
wanted nothing to do with
The Stake
while those at NAL considered it a great step forward.)
Therefore, while writing
One Rainy Night,
I was completely unaware that
The Stake
would be appreciated at all.
So I was writing a book that I intended to be more true-to-form.
In fact, I intentionally went in the opposite direction from that I’d taken with
The Stake.
My purpose was to write prime Laymon, fast-paced with loads of action and violence.
I do, however, think
One Rainy Night
is no more a “Kelly” book than were the dozen “Laymon” books that came before
The Stake.
Here are a few things that I think are strengths of
One Rainy Night.
1. Like
The Stake,
it is not very occult or supernatural. It isn’t a monster story. It’s mostly about the reactions of normal people to a crisis situation that happens to have been brought about by supernatural means.
2. It is probably my first book with a rather serious theme. At its core, this is a story about the effects of racism. It might almost be seen as a parable. More than just another trashy blood-and-sex book.
3. From the outset, it is non-stop. I tried to create a few likable main characters, put them into deep trouble, and keep the trouble coming to the very end. I think this book probably has more forward narrative thrust than any book I’ve ever written. Its action takes place almost in “real time.” The entire story occurs over a period of about five hours. And I think that an enormous amount of suspense, action and shock goes on from beginning to end, almost without letup.
4. I don’t think it will disappoint any of my readers who like such books as
Funland, Resurrection Dreams, Flesh, The Cellar and
so on.
However, as I indicated above, I wrote it during a period when I had no confidence in
The Stake.
I do think that the way to go in the future is toward mainstream books with more characterization and somewhat tamer nasty stuff. I realize that it may present difficulties to publishers if I keep switching back and forth. At the same time, it seems important to give readers enough of the shock to keep them interested. I’m trying to strike a balance of sorts.
I do hope that W.H. Allen will accept
One Rainy Night
as the second book of the contract. We’re after the audience that likes my stuff, plus people who enjoy books by such people as Koontz and King. While this book is a trifle rougher than what readers would get from those two fellows, I think it will help hold onto the people who like Laymon some of whom I’m afraid might find
The Stake
a little timid for their tastes.
My next book, let me assure you, is more along the lines of
The Stake.
It is unfilled, as yet, though I’ll be done with it in a couple of months and it should run over 500 pages. It is about six college students who embark on a quest for treasure on the advice of a Ouija board. It is also about their professor and her boyfriend, who realize the kids may be heading into trouble, and set out to find them. It’s part mystery, part adventure, and part horror. And it’s one of those books in which “nothing happens.”
Again, thank you for letting me know how you feel about
One Rainy Night.
After what happened with
The Stake,
I had rather expected (with some dread) a bit of negative response. But of course,
One Rainy Night
was already done by the time I found out that I’d made a big stride forward with the previous book.
I hope all is going well with you and that you have a great holiday season.
Best Regards…
The main problem was that, while I had felt that
The Stake
would be my most significant book to date, I’d had strong worries that my agents and publishers might see it otherwise.
I figured there was a good chance that everyone would think it too mild. “Just not what we expect from Laymon.” But I didn’t wait around to find out. Before I got
any
reactions to
The Stake,
I went ahead and wrote
One Rainy Night.
I wrote it like the old stuff.
Only more so.
But surprise, surprise! The general opinion was that
The Stake
was a giant improvement over my earlier stuff. So some people saw
One Rainy Night
as a giant step backward.
Indeed, it was rejected by Onyx, publishers of my two previous books,
Resurrection Dreams
and
Funland.
According to an editor at Onyx, they turned down my book because the “black rain” was caused by a black man to get revenge for the killing of a family member. If that
is
the reason
One Rainy Night
was rejected by Onyx (and editors don’t always tell authors the truth about such matters), then my book was a victim of the “political correctness” that has been sweeping away free expression in our country for the past decade or so.
However,
One Rainy Night
was accepted in England by W.H. Allen as the second book of my contract. When W.H. Allen went under, it was taken over by Headline, and a hardback edition was published in March, 1991.
The book club in England also gave it a try. They ordered 500 copies. Then they ordered 4,500 more copies. Then 1,000 more. Then 2,000 more.
In a letter telling me about the book cub situation, Bob Tanner wrote to me, “This letter is sent to prove what a lousy judge of a book I am! I am now off to drink a cup of cold poison!!!”
(He is actually a terrific judge of books and has a great sense of humor.)
One Rainy Night
was subsequently published in paperback by Headline. Foreign language editions have been published in Spain, Lithuania, and Belgium.
It has never been published in the United States.
DARKNESS, TELL US
This is the Ouija board book.
After finishing
One Rainy Night
on May 11, 1989, I wasted some time with a false start on my third Beast House book. Then I answered some interview questions, spent a week in New York City (where
The Silence of the Lambs
beat me out of the Stoker award), and wrote the short story “Slit.”
I finally got started on
Darkness, Tell Us
on June 28. My working title was
Ouija.
This was to be another “mainstream” novel along the lines of
The Stake.
Like
The Stake,
the supernatural elements were played with ambiguity. Sure, the characters seem to be getting coherent messages from a Ouija board. But what is
really
going on? Are the messages really coming from a spirit named Butler? Maybe not. Maybe someone is guiding the pointer. Who knows what is going on when these Ouija boards seem to make sense?
I sure don’t.
But I do know that, for some reason, the darn things do sometimes seem to communicate in a coherent fashion.
They frighten me.
I dedicated
Darkness, Tell Us
to the Boyanskis Chris, Dick and their children, Kara and Kyle. Chris was my wife’s childhood friend, and we get together with her and Dick whenever we visit Ann’s hometown of Clayton, New York. We always have a great time when we see them. And we usually tempt fate.
In 1980, I had my first experiences with a Ouija board late one night at Chris and Dick’s house.
It was an old, dark house.
The four of us sat in the kitchen and messed around with their Ouija board. We did it by candle light, which increased the eeriness and made it impossible to read the writing on the board.
I was very skeptical at first.
But wary. After all, I’d heard stories about Ouija boards.
I’d spent quite a lot of time in Roman Catholic schools, and knew that priests and nuns considered the boards to be extremely dangerous. Not only does using such a device break the First Commandment (and is therefore a sin), but it may open the way for evil forces to enter your life.
And of course I’d seen and read
The Exorcist,
in which all the trouble begins with a Ouija board.
I’d heard other stories, too. Frightening tales, purporting to be true, about awful things happening to people who fooled with the things.
Still, I sat down to play with the Ouija board in the Boyanski house with a strong expectation that nothing would happen.
I was so wrong.
We sat around the kitchen table, fingertips lightly resting on the plastic pointer, and asked questions. And the pointer soon began to glide around as if it had a life of its own.
Each time it stopped, one of us would shine a flashlight on the board to see what response it was making.
The responses started to make sense.
But not because anyone in our group was manipulating the pointer. For one thing, you can easily feel the difference if a person pushes it; instead of gliding, it shoves heavily across the board. Secondly, none of us could see well enough in the dark to direct the pointer to anywhere specific.
And yet the answers made sense.
The pointer drifted all over the board, answering “Yes” and “No,” spelling out actual words, actual sentences.
Over the course of time, our “spirit” identified himself as Timmy. He told us that he’d died in the house, at the age of sixteen, a long time ago. He told us a lot.
Strange enough that the sliding pointer should seem to be communicating with us but the communications reflected a definite personality.
And then another.
It seemed as if we had an intruder. While one personality (Timmy) seemed childish and sad, the intruder seemed sly and malicious.
I spent a lot of time muttering things like, “Holy shit!” and “I don’t believe this,” and “This can’t be happening.”