What do you think?
Rate this book
Something in the Shadows
Joseph Meaker was a shy, dedicated scholar. To his brash wife, Maggie, and her advertising friends, he was a cipher, easily dismissed. But behind his gentle façade he carried the seeds of violence, subtle and understated. Until the day his pet cat was accidentally killed by a neighbor’s car.
Joseph’s desire for revenge became an obsession that could only be satisfied by a ''punishment'' so gruesome it makes the skin crawl.
180 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1961
40 people want to read
About the author
Vin Packer
38 books35 followersMarijane Meaker (born May 27, 1927) is an American novelist and short story writer in several genres using different pen names. From 1952 to 1969 she wrote twenty mystery and crime novels as Vin Packer, including Spring Fire which is credited with launching the genre of lesbian pulp fiction (although few of Packer's books address homosexuality or feature gay characters). Using her own observations of lesbians in the 1950s and 1960s, she wrote a series of nonfiction books as Ann Aldrich from 1955 to 1972. In 1972 she switched genres and pen names once more to begin writing for young adults, and became quite successful as M.E. Kerr, producing over 20 novels and winning multiple awards, including the American Library Association's lifetime award for young-adult literature (Edwards Award). She was described by The New York Times Book Review as "one of the grand masters of young adult fiction." As Mary James, she has written four books for younger children.
Regardless of genre or pen name, Meaker's books have in common complex characters that have difficult relationships and complicated problems, who rail against conformity. Meaker said of this approach, "I was a bookworm and a poetry lover. When I think of myself and what I would have liked to have found in books those many years ago, I remember being depressed by all the neatly tied-up, happy-ending stories, the abundance of winners, the themes of winning, solving, finding — when around me it didn't seem that easy. So I write with a different feeling when I write for young adults. I guess I write for myself at that age."
Regardless of genre or pen name, Meaker's books have in common complex characters that have difficult relationships and complicated problems, who rail against conformity. Meaker said of this approach, "I was a bookworm and a poetry lover. When I think of myself and what I would have liked to have found in books those many years ago, I remember being depressed by all the neatly tied-up, happy-ending stories, the abundance of winners, the themes of winning, solving, finding — when around me it didn't seem that easy. So I write with a different feeling when I write for young adults. I guess I write for myself at that age."
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
March 22, 2015
Vin Packer was the pseudonym that Marijane Meaker used for her pulp writings, the second of which, Spring Fire (1952), attained instant notoriety and enormous sales as the first lesbian pulp novel.
Joseph Meaker (note the surname), an introverted folklorist, lives in the wilds of Pennsylvania with his extroverted, ad-agency wife Maggie (note the forename), who must commute daily to NYC. They're an ill matched couple. When Maggie brings home NYC friends and colleagues at the weekends, as she almost always does, Joseph spends his time in retreat in his upstairs study, as often as not poring through his "Varda file" -- the folder of letters from the first and perhaps only love of his life, a Hungarian woman with whom he was at university. His companion in solitude is his cat Ishmael.
One night Joseph witnesses a driver deliberately run over Ishmael. He discovers that the car in question belongs to the alcoholic Dr Louis Hart, who lives with wife Janice further along the rural road upon which the Meakers' house stands. In grief and fury, the quiet Joseph plots his revenge . . .
If you think you know how all this is going to turn out, you're wrong. The narrative starts taking unexpected directions; the crimes that you anticipate don't in fact occur, while other ones do. The proceedings overall are very Patricia Highsmith, a conclusion I think I might have come to -- despite my limited exposure to Highsmith's fiction -- even had I not known that Packer and Highsmith lived together as lovers for a couple of years. There's even a (very minor) character called Highsmith, a man consulting Hart about his impotence. This novel has all the strengths, I'd say, of Highsmith's writing, and very much the same feel.
In her introduction to the Stark House twofer of which this is the first half, Packer reminisces that one source of friction between the two writers was that Packer was getting paid a lot more to write her pulp novels than Highsmith was getting for her hardbacks; worse still, a couple of prestigious critics, Anthony Boucher for one, had noticed the quality of Packer's pulps, so the two writers were even getting reviewed on equal terms in the same newspapers. I think Highsmith had the last laugh, though, because these days everyone knows about Highsmith but only a few about Packer. It's a situation that's due for a change.
I learned of this book through a review of it by Admiral Ironbombs; to him my thanks.
Joseph Meaker (note the surname), an introverted folklorist, lives in the wilds of Pennsylvania with his extroverted, ad-agency wife Maggie (note the forename), who must commute daily to NYC. They're an ill matched couple. When Maggie brings home NYC friends and colleagues at the weekends, as she almost always does, Joseph spends his time in retreat in his upstairs study, as often as not poring through his "Varda file" -- the folder of letters from the first and perhaps only love of his life, a Hungarian woman with whom he was at university. His companion in solitude is his cat Ishmael.
One night Joseph witnesses a driver deliberately run over Ishmael. He discovers that the car in question belongs to the alcoholic Dr Louis Hart, who lives with wife Janice further along the rural road upon which the Meakers' house stands. In grief and fury, the quiet Joseph plots his revenge . . .
If you think you know how all this is going to turn out, you're wrong. The narrative starts taking unexpected directions; the crimes that you anticipate don't in fact occur, while other ones do. The proceedings overall are very Patricia Highsmith, a conclusion I think I might have come to -- despite my limited exposure to Highsmith's fiction -- even had I not known that Packer and Highsmith lived together as lovers for a couple of years. There's even a (very minor) character called Highsmith, a man consulting Hart about his impotence. This novel has all the strengths, I'd say, of Highsmith's writing, and very much the same feel.
In her introduction to the Stark House twofer of which this is the first half, Packer reminisces that one source of friction between the two writers was that Packer was getting paid a lot more to write her pulp novels than Highsmith was getting for her hardbacks; worse still, a couple of prestigious critics, Anthony Boucher for one, had noticed the quality of Packer's pulps, so the two writers were even getting reviewed on equal terms in the same newspapers. I think Highsmith had the last laugh, though, because these days everyone knows about Highsmith but only a few about Packer. It's a situation that's due for a change.
I learned of this book through a review of it by Admiral Ironbombs; to him my thanks.
August 6, 2021
A reverential rip-off of Deep Water that was written by Pat Highsmith's girlfriend, Vin Packer. Astonishingly, it is as good as Highsmith's Deep Water.
Joseph Meaker makes me want to puke. He is a professional folklorist and a 50s-style eco-terrorist who lives in Bucks County, PA with his mad-woman wife and their Siamese cat. He seeks revenge on an intemperate country doctor. "R.I.P. … You know what it stands for … Retaliation Is Promised."
The plot is clever: All the characters think they are involved in a series of unfortunate coincidences. But the narrator (and readers) know otherwise.
Joseph Meaker makes me want to puke. He is a professional folklorist and a 50s-style eco-terrorist who lives in Bucks County, PA with his mad-woman wife and their Siamese cat. He seeks revenge on an intemperate country doctor. "R.I.P. … You know what it stands for … Retaliation Is Promised."
The plot is clever: All the characters think they are involved in a series of unfortunate coincidences. But the narrator (and readers) know otherwise.
September 11, 2021
This was surprisingly good story. Was mindlessly reading books from Prolouge books not expecting much but i found some gems and this was one of them. Interested in looking up if Vin Packer. Never heard of her before.
March 7, 2015
Joseph Meaker is a quiet and gentle soul, wishing for nothing more than to study barn hexerei—of which there are plenty in rural Bucks County, Pennsylvania, where he moves after obtaining a school grant. His ideal life would be to study, write, and pet his cat. Joesph is nothing like his wife Maggie, a bold advertising exec who brings her coworkers home from New York City for wild weekend parties. The odd couple’s relationship is deteriorating in the rustic farmland, Joseph becoming more distanced and withdrawn, Maggie looking to her big-city coworkers for companionship. While they’re not the ideal happily married couple, things stay status quo.
Joseph’s world is flipped upside-down when he watches a Mercedes hit-and-run his prized feline companion—and, for the first time in his meek, ordinary life, he vows revenge. He tracks down the killer, finding him to be Doctor Louis Hart, and sets about needling the man with the topics of murder and death, breaking him down for a final assault. Little does he know that Hart has turned raging alcoholic and gained a local reputation of murderer—having passed out drunk in his car on the way to an accident, Hart’s negligence caused the deaths of two people. And while Joseph is set on revenge for his cat, Hart’s blood is boiling over Joseph’s topics of blood and death…
I picked up Something in the Shadows after seeing it called “Vin Packer’s best,” as I knew I wanted to start off with her best. And I was very impressed by the novel. It was interesting to compare Marijane Meaker (the real person behind the Vin Packer alias) and Patricia Highsmith after reading them back-to-back, given the similarities and history between the two authors (they were in a relationship living in Bucks County when Meaker/Packer wrote this novel). Something in the Shadows compares favorably; I’m not sure it’s the most tense or suspenseful, but it comes within striking range, and it has its own strengths—its well-drawn, realistic characters for one. It’s a complex social drama that takes a dark turn down the road of suspense, and near the end there’s some developments that make it a very suspenseful book indeed. An excellent pageturner, it’s a quick read. Recommended for suspense/thriller readers, particularly readers who enjoy those of the psychological kind.
Joseph’s world is flipped upside-down when he watches a Mercedes hit-and-run his prized feline companion—and, for the first time in his meek, ordinary life, he vows revenge. He tracks down the killer, finding him to be Doctor Louis Hart, and sets about needling the man with the topics of murder and death, breaking him down for a final assault. Little does he know that Hart has turned raging alcoholic and gained a local reputation of murderer—having passed out drunk in his car on the way to an accident, Hart’s negligence caused the deaths of two people. And while Joseph is set on revenge for his cat, Hart’s blood is boiling over Joseph’s topics of blood and death…
I picked up Something in the Shadows after seeing it called “Vin Packer’s best,” as I knew I wanted to start off with her best. And I was very impressed by the novel. It was interesting to compare Marijane Meaker (the real person behind the Vin Packer alias) and Patricia Highsmith after reading them back-to-back, given the similarities and history between the two authors (they were in a relationship living in Bucks County when Meaker/Packer wrote this novel). Something in the Shadows compares favorably; I’m not sure it’s the most tense or suspenseful, but it comes within striking range, and it has its own strengths—its well-drawn, realistic characters for one. It’s a complex social drama that takes a dark turn down the road of suspense, and near the end there’s some developments that make it a very suspenseful book indeed. An excellent pageturner, it’s a quick read. Recommended for suspense/thriller readers, particularly readers who enjoy those of the psychological kind.
February 3, 2025
I am new to the writing of Vin Packer, and began with this, widely thought to be the best of her psychological thrillers. The intentional running down of a cat by a car driver, grows into a murder, though the real suspense in the story is the watching the mental disintegration of the protagonist, Joseph Meaker, reminiscent of a Patricia Highsmith novel..
Published in 1961 and set in the late 1950s, at the time when the advertising industry was in its heyday, as observed in the TV series Mad Men, Meaker's wife, Maggie, is in advertising and commutes daily from their home in rural Pennsylvania to New York City. Meaker himself, is an academic, studying hex-signs on local barns, though he spends much of his time ruminating on his ex-lover, Varda, a Hungarian woman whose activism contrasts starkly with his pseudo-intellectual apathy, even more so than Maggie’s. In 1948 at a rally for President, he fled racist hecklers of Henry Wallace, for whom Varda was of course working.
Vin Packer is the pen name of Marijane Meaker, who wrote under several other names. As Packer she wrote twenty crime novels, and in these she is credited with launching the genre of lesbian pulp fiction. She wrote several books of non-fiction also on her observations of gay women in the 1950s and 60s, as well as several novels for young adults and books for children. Quite a range..
This however, is more literary than pulp, and in addition to being a gripping thriller it has very strong characterisation and is excellent as a record of rural Pennsylvania at that time.
Amongst Meaker's claims to fame, is that she was the lover of Patricia Highsmith. They lived together for two years in a converted barn in the same area of rural Pennsylvania where this is set. Meaker's own memoir is entitled Highsmith: A Romance of the 1950's. She died in 2022 at the age of 95.
It is therefore easy to see how this particular novel is far more Highsmith than Packer, intentionally so I am sure, especially in the character of Joseph, who has her own surname.
Published in 1961 and set in the late 1950s, at the time when the advertising industry was in its heyday, as observed in the TV series Mad Men, Meaker's wife, Maggie, is in advertising and commutes daily from their home in rural Pennsylvania to New York City. Meaker himself, is an academic, studying hex-signs on local barns, though he spends much of his time ruminating on his ex-lover, Varda, a Hungarian woman whose activism contrasts starkly with his pseudo-intellectual apathy, even more so than Maggie’s. In 1948 at a rally for President, he fled racist hecklers of Henry Wallace, for whom Varda was of course working.
Vin Packer is the pen name of Marijane Meaker, who wrote under several other names. As Packer she wrote twenty crime novels, and in these she is credited with launching the genre of lesbian pulp fiction. She wrote several books of non-fiction also on her observations of gay women in the 1950s and 60s, as well as several novels for young adults and books for children. Quite a range..
This however, is more literary than pulp, and in addition to being a gripping thriller it has very strong characterisation and is excellent as a record of rural Pennsylvania at that time.
Amongst Meaker's claims to fame, is that she was the lover of Patricia Highsmith. They lived together for two years in a converted barn in the same area of rural Pennsylvania where this is set. Meaker's own memoir is entitled Highsmith: A Romance of the 1950's. She died in 2022 at the age of 95.
It is therefore easy to see how this particular novel is far more Highsmith than Packer, intentionally so I am sure, especially in the character of Joseph, who has her own surname.
September 5, 2025
Far from Packer's best, this reads like minor league Highsmith in the Bucks County exurbs with more dreariness than dread. Joseph Meaker (in-joke #1) gets bent out of shape when his cat is killed and sets out to exact vengeance as only a neurotic animal lover/people hater can. Succeeds in being unpredictable and uncliched, but not much else as the literary allusions flow almost as fast as the cocktails. Bonus in-joke #2: one of the drunk doctor's patients is named Highsmith.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews