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Echo of a Curse
A beastly man of possible supernatural lineage, Vincent's unnatural bloodlust is aggravated by his experiences in the first World War and he finds it impossible to fit into his domestic situation when he returns home. Fearful that his ghoulish appetites are the expression of a family curse, he exchanges his son at birth for the child of another woman in the hope that it will terminate his blood line. However, years later a stranger takes up residence in their town, arousing suspicions that he is the long lost son come back for revenge. Reprint of a novel first published in England in 1939.
264 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1939
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November 12, 2022
In several of my earlier musings here, I made reference to the list that editor/author Karl Edward Wagner released in the pages of "Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone Magazine" back in the summer of '83; the so-called Wagner 39 List. This overview of KEW's favorite horror novels, and those that he felt were most in need of being brought to the public's attention, was divided into three categories: The 13 Best Supernatural Horror Novels, The 13 Best Science-Fiction Horror Novels, and The 13 Best Non-Supernatural Horror Novels. But of all the author names on those lists, both famous (Mary Shelley, Abraham Merritt, John Wyndham, Robert Bloch) and impossibly obscure, only one managed the hat trick of being represented in all three of those categories, and that author is R.R. Ryan, whose "Echo of a Curse" was included in the first list, "Freak Museum" in the second, and "The Subjugated Beast" in the third. This newcomer to all things R.R. Ryan opted to begin with "Echo of a Curse," supposedly one of the author's finest works, and I am so glad I did!
"Echo of a Curse" was initially released in 1939 as a hardcover volume by the British publisher Herbert Jenkins, which rightfully proclaimed, on the book's dust jacket, that this was a "gruesomely fascinating novel." The book would then go OOPs (out of prints) for a full 63 years, until Midnight House books, spurred on by the Wagner 39 List, reissued it in 2002. After going OOPs for another 12 years, the novel was resurrected again by the fine folks at Ramble House in 2014, who have rendered this once-impossible-to-find masterwork a breeze to purchase today. As for Ryan, for many decades, no absolutely definitive information was available about the author or his/her life, and reading the conflicting theories online really might be enough to induce a full-blown migraine. Apparently, for many years, Ryan was believed to have been the pen name of the English playwright and theater manager Evelyn Grosvenor Bradley (1882 - 1950), who many falsely assumed to be a woman. But as John Pelan and D. H. Olson reveal in this Ramble House edition's fascinating intro, Ryan was in actuality Denice Jeanette Bradley-Ryan, the playwright's daughter, who, it is further believed, wrote the first four of the seven R.R. Ryan novels with her father's assistance. In his introduction to another Ryan novel, Pelan confirms that this fact was later substantiated by Bradley-Ryan's son, so that would seem to be that. Complicating matters for literary scholars over the years is the fact that Bradley-Ryan also seems to have written some other novels under the pen names Noel Despard and Cameron Carr, and, after the last R.R. Ryan novel in 1940, several others under the name Kay Seaton. But it would appear that the seven macabre Ryan titles are the ones for which she is best remembered today, and largely thanks to Karl Edward Wagner.
Okay, as to "Echo of a Curse" itself, with some slight and unavoidable spoilers: The book introduces the reader to Terry Cliffe and Mary Rodney, who had been next-door neighbors and best friends since childhood. Terry had been in love with Mary for many years as Ryan's story begins, although Mary is happy to remain just friends. (Sound familiar, guys?) In the WW1 trenches, Terry chances to meet a handsome, blue-eyed, curly-haired fellow Englishman named Vincent "Vin" Border, who, despite his Adonis-like looks, is a holy terror on the battlefield, reveling in the carnage and atrocities. Vin comes very close to frightening Terry, his superior officer, especially when Border tries to kill him in a drunken fit, and when Terry sees him dipping his hand into the bloody remains of a slain soldier. Still, Terry does bring Vin home with him while on leave in England, and Border and Mary, to Terry's chagrin, immediately fall in lust and later marry. But after the Armistice, we see that the Borders' marriage is hardly a happy one. Vin has lied about his financial affairs to Mary, and is actually destitute. Worse, he is prone to drunken bursts of rage, during which he physically abuses his defenseless spouse. Terry believes Vin to be a madman, a suspicion that is only strengthened when a local circus freak, THE INEXPLICABLE (always represented by Ryan in capital letters), escapes from captivity and begins to murder the local populace...a creature that Vin proclaims to be his father! During the night of a titanic storm, after Vin and his now-pregnant wife have another terrible knockabout row, Mary lifts her arms to the heavens and places a curse upon her unborn child, after which THE INEXPLICABLE enters their room and places its hand upon Mary's womb! Vin, in full expectation that their child will now be born a freak itself, arranges with an unethical nurse to have that child replaced with a normal one immediately after its delivery, and, during another night of violent storm, Mary does indeed give birth to a monstrosity...as well as a beautiful, normal little girl, Faith. The monster child is given to the nurse's gypsy father to be displayed in another freak show, while a normal little boy, Don, is substituted in its place.
In the second part of Ryan's jaw-dropping book, we jump forward 10 years. Vin has significantly amended his savage ways and is wholly devoted to his daughter Faith. He and Mary are barely on speaking terms, while Terry, still hopelessly devoted to Mary, has moved in with them so as to better look after his old friend. All seems well, until Vin notices, in the morning paper, that a sideshow freak in a small town in Austria has escaped and killed its handler. Meanwhile, a very strange man, one Mr. Govina, has answered Mary's ad looking for a lodger. Mr. Govina had recently been injured in a fire and thus wears dark sunglasses and a drapery covering his face. But, as Don reports to Terry one evening, he had accidentally seen Mr. Govina in the hallway without his mask, and had seen Govina's glowing eyes, and fangs, and his face like a wolf's....
Now, I realize that the above capsule description might make it appear as if the central objects of horror in Ryan's book are of the ho-hum, mundane variety, but trust Karl Edward Wagner; they're not! Ryan's book earns its supernatural credentials by dint of the fact that its central monstrosity has qualities of both the vampire (supposed immortality; nonreflectiveness in mirrors; a propensity to lay at night in rat-infested cellars; the ability to use hypnosis to bewilder its victims) and the werewolf (a fanged and furry face; great viciousness and speed; a tendency to tear its victims to shreds). Described as being a combination of man, wolf and ape, THE INEXPLICABLE really does make for a terrific supernatural creation; it is a monster unlike any you may have previously encountered. Adding further supernatural elements to the book are the stories told about Vin's father, who "believed in vampires, [and] had a religion founded upon the undead," and the Black Commune that Vin undergoes to abet his abilities. But there are many other horrors besides the supernatural variety in Ryan's stunning book. There's also the horror of the WW1 trenches, and the numerous scenes of domestic violence in the Border household; the first instance of the latter, in which the drunken Vin beats his wife, tears her nightdress off, thrusts a pin into her shoulder, and throws her down the porch steps, is quite shocking, indeed! The book also features the horror of animal abuse, when Vin gives his wife a freshly mutilated puppy for her birthday, as well as the horrors of patricide, filicide, and attempted matricide. And Ryan gives the reader at least five scenes that should please any jaded horror fan: Faith's birth and the substitution of Don; Vin's Black Commune; a savage attack by the monster on Terry by night; Govina's conversation with Faith; and, most especially, the extended sequence in which THE INEXPLICABLE stalks the neighborhood, Vin and Mary clash savagely, a storm rages, Mary curses her child, and the monstrosity arrives. This last is a tour de force of both horror and suspense that will surely leave most readers gaping.
For the rest of it, "Echo of a Curse" is an exceptionally well-written horror novel, both stylish and surprisingly modern. This does not feel like a book written and set in the 1930s. Ryan is guilty of a few ungrammatical bits here and there (such as when she writes "...nothing is more foolish than to try and convince others of their folly," instead of "try to convince"), and seemingly revels in the use of 10-cent words on occasion (thus, "dephlogistication" and "antelucan" in the same couple of paragraphs), but is at the same time capable of a lovely turn of phrase (such as when she describes Mary's servant girl Ruth as being "flushed, lovely, like a truant petal that had yielded to a summer breeze"). Still, Ryan's book is ingeniously plotted, features some truly fascinating backstories, is genuinely nerve racking in segments, and often, as mentioned, shocking. Terry, Mary and Vin make for interesting lead characters, and the novel's lesser characters are also finely drawn. The book is relentlessly brutal and grim--so grim, indeed, that there is no way to predict which characters will survive--but yet does have an occasional glint of humor, such as when Vin tells Terry about how the neighborhood's fill-in doctor is becoming senile: "Locum's loco"! And speaking of Terry, readers will surely marvel over the depth of platonic love that the man holds for his old friend Mary, spending decades of his life watching out for her. It is quite touching, really, and we sincerely do hope that Ryan will vouchsafe a happy ending for the two. Does that indeed happen? You won't hear from me; I've probably already revealed too much.
"Echo of a Curse" would have made for a terrific movie back in the 1940s, if only the restrictive Production Codes back when hadn’t automatically rendered it unfilmable. A pity. Still, it remains ripe material for a smashing big-screen treatment today, if handled correctly. Admittedly, several details in the book do go unexplained, but that only adds to the novel's mysteriousness. Somehow, it all works, and Ryan pulls all the outrageous and grisly elements together neatly. Readers should be prepared for a bit of the ol' Brit slang before venturing in here ("Golly, I've wind-up"; "This is a topping home"; "I'm not talking wet"), but that's hardly a reason to be put off from reading this terrific exercise in supernatural horror. As Karl Edward Wagner wrote back when, "Undeservedly forgotten, Ms. Ryan was the best of the British thriller writers"...a seemingly hyperbolic statement, until one reads what is deemed one of her finest works. As Mr. Govina himself puts it, this is "a very long and very strange story"; as Mary later reflects, "In all the books she had read, in all the films she had witnessed, [she] had seen nothing so appalling as the raw truth obtaining in [her] house...."
Readers turning over the final page of this, Ryan's sixth, novel will surely come away with a desire to read her others, those being "The Right to Kill" (1936, and, according to Pelan, the least of the author's works), "Death of a Sadist" (1937), "Devil's Shelter" (1937), "The Subjugated Beast" (1938), "Freak Museum" (1938), and "No Escape" (1940, and which Pelan deems Ryan's other great work). Happily, all those other Ryan titles, with the exception of "The Right to Kill," are also available from Ramble House. Trust me, "Echo of a Curse" will only leave you wanting to read more. As Pelan says of it in his introduction, it is "arguably Ryan's masterpiece." As D. H. Olson opines in that same intro, it is a work "so essentially flawless as to be considered a true classic." And as to Olson's comment, this reader could not agree more....
(By the way, this review originally appeared on the FanLit website at https://fantasyliterature.com/ ... a most ideal destination for all fans of supernatural literature....)
"Echo of a Curse" was initially released in 1939 as a hardcover volume by the British publisher Herbert Jenkins, which rightfully proclaimed, on the book's dust jacket, that this was a "gruesomely fascinating novel." The book would then go OOPs (out of prints) for a full 63 years, until Midnight House books, spurred on by the Wagner 39 List, reissued it in 2002. After going OOPs for another 12 years, the novel was resurrected again by the fine folks at Ramble House in 2014, who have rendered this once-impossible-to-find masterwork a breeze to purchase today. As for Ryan, for many decades, no absolutely definitive information was available about the author or his/her life, and reading the conflicting theories online really might be enough to induce a full-blown migraine. Apparently, for many years, Ryan was believed to have been the pen name of the English playwright and theater manager Evelyn Grosvenor Bradley (1882 - 1950), who many falsely assumed to be a woman. But as John Pelan and D. H. Olson reveal in this Ramble House edition's fascinating intro, Ryan was in actuality Denice Jeanette Bradley-Ryan, the playwright's daughter, who, it is further believed, wrote the first four of the seven R.R. Ryan novels with her father's assistance. In his introduction to another Ryan novel, Pelan confirms that this fact was later substantiated by Bradley-Ryan's son, so that would seem to be that. Complicating matters for literary scholars over the years is the fact that Bradley-Ryan also seems to have written some other novels under the pen names Noel Despard and Cameron Carr, and, after the last R.R. Ryan novel in 1940, several others under the name Kay Seaton. But it would appear that the seven macabre Ryan titles are the ones for which she is best remembered today, and largely thanks to Karl Edward Wagner.
Okay, as to "Echo of a Curse" itself, with some slight and unavoidable spoilers: The book introduces the reader to Terry Cliffe and Mary Rodney, who had been next-door neighbors and best friends since childhood. Terry had been in love with Mary for many years as Ryan's story begins, although Mary is happy to remain just friends. (Sound familiar, guys?) In the WW1 trenches, Terry chances to meet a handsome, blue-eyed, curly-haired fellow Englishman named Vincent "Vin" Border, who, despite his Adonis-like looks, is a holy terror on the battlefield, reveling in the carnage and atrocities. Vin comes very close to frightening Terry, his superior officer, especially when Border tries to kill him in a drunken fit, and when Terry sees him dipping his hand into the bloody remains of a slain soldier. Still, Terry does bring Vin home with him while on leave in England, and Border and Mary, to Terry's chagrin, immediately fall in lust and later marry. But after the Armistice, we see that the Borders' marriage is hardly a happy one. Vin has lied about his financial affairs to Mary, and is actually destitute. Worse, he is prone to drunken bursts of rage, during which he physically abuses his defenseless spouse. Terry believes Vin to be a madman, a suspicion that is only strengthened when a local circus freak, THE INEXPLICABLE (always represented by Ryan in capital letters), escapes from captivity and begins to murder the local populace...a creature that Vin proclaims to be his father! During the night of a titanic storm, after Vin and his now-pregnant wife have another terrible knockabout row, Mary lifts her arms to the heavens and places a curse upon her unborn child, after which THE INEXPLICABLE enters their room and places its hand upon Mary's womb! Vin, in full expectation that their child will now be born a freak itself, arranges with an unethical nurse to have that child replaced with a normal one immediately after its delivery, and, during another night of violent storm, Mary does indeed give birth to a monstrosity...as well as a beautiful, normal little girl, Faith. The monster child is given to the nurse's gypsy father to be displayed in another freak show, while a normal little boy, Don, is substituted in its place.
In the second part of Ryan's jaw-dropping book, we jump forward 10 years. Vin has significantly amended his savage ways and is wholly devoted to his daughter Faith. He and Mary are barely on speaking terms, while Terry, still hopelessly devoted to Mary, has moved in with them so as to better look after his old friend. All seems well, until Vin notices, in the morning paper, that a sideshow freak in a small town in Austria has escaped and killed its handler. Meanwhile, a very strange man, one Mr. Govina, has answered Mary's ad looking for a lodger. Mr. Govina had recently been injured in a fire and thus wears dark sunglasses and a drapery covering his face. But, as Don reports to Terry one evening, he had accidentally seen Mr. Govina in the hallway without his mask, and had seen Govina's glowing eyes, and fangs, and his face like a wolf's....
Now, I realize that the above capsule description might make it appear as if the central objects of horror in Ryan's book are of the ho-hum, mundane variety, but trust Karl Edward Wagner; they're not! Ryan's book earns its supernatural credentials by dint of the fact that its central monstrosity has qualities of both the vampire (supposed immortality; nonreflectiveness in mirrors; a propensity to lay at night in rat-infested cellars; the ability to use hypnosis to bewilder its victims) and the werewolf (a fanged and furry face; great viciousness and speed; a tendency to tear its victims to shreds). Described as being a combination of man, wolf and ape, THE INEXPLICABLE really does make for a terrific supernatural creation; it is a monster unlike any you may have previously encountered. Adding further supernatural elements to the book are the stories told about Vin's father, who "believed in vampires, [and] had a religion founded upon the undead," and the Black Commune that Vin undergoes to abet his abilities. But there are many other horrors besides the supernatural variety in Ryan's stunning book. There's also the horror of the WW1 trenches, and the numerous scenes of domestic violence in the Border household; the first instance of the latter, in which the drunken Vin beats his wife, tears her nightdress off, thrusts a pin into her shoulder, and throws her down the porch steps, is quite shocking, indeed! The book also features the horror of animal abuse, when Vin gives his wife a freshly mutilated puppy for her birthday, as well as the horrors of patricide, filicide, and attempted matricide. And Ryan gives the reader at least five scenes that should please any jaded horror fan: Faith's birth and the substitution of Don; Vin's Black Commune; a savage attack by the monster on Terry by night; Govina's conversation with Faith; and, most especially, the extended sequence in which THE INEXPLICABLE stalks the neighborhood, Vin and Mary clash savagely, a storm rages, Mary curses her child, and the monstrosity arrives. This last is a tour de force of both horror and suspense that will surely leave most readers gaping.
For the rest of it, "Echo of a Curse" is an exceptionally well-written horror novel, both stylish and surprisingly modern. This does not feel like a book written and set in the 1930s. Ryan is guilty of a few ungrammatical bits here and there (such as when she writes "...nothing is more foolish than to try and convince others of their folly," instead of "try to convince"), and seemingly revels in the use of 10-cent words on occasion (thus, "dephlogistication" and "antelucan" in the same couple of paragraphs), but is at the same time capable of a lovely turn of phrase (such as when she describes Mary's servant girl Ruth as being "flushed, lovely, like a truant petal that had yielded to a summer breeze"). Still, Ryan's book is ingeniously plotted, features some truly fascinating backstories, is genuinely nerve racking in segments, and often, as mentioned, shocking. Terry, Mary and Vin make for interesting lead characters, and the novel's lesser characters are also finely drawn. The book is relentlessly brutal and grim--so grim, indeed, that there is no way to predict which characters will survive--but yet does have an occasional glint of humor, such as when Vin tells Terry about how the neighborhood's fill-in doctor is becoming senile: "Locum's loco"! And speaking of Terry, readers will surely marvel over the depth of platonic love that the man holds for his old friend Mary, spending decades of his life watching out for her. It is quite touching, really, and we sincerely do hope that Ryan will vouchsafe a happy ending for the two. Does that indeed happen? You won't hear from me; I've probably already revealed too much.
"Echo of a Curse" would have made for a terrific movie back in the 1940s, if only the restrictive Production Codes back when hadn’t automatically rendered it unfilmable. A pity. Still, it remains ripe material for a smashing big-screen treatment today, if handled correctly. Admittedly, several details in the book do go unexplained, but that only adds to the novel's mysteriousness. Somehow, it all works, and Ryan pulls all the outrageous and grisly elements together neatly. Readers should be prepared for a bit of the ol' Brit slang before venturing in here ("Golly, I've wind-up"; "This is a topping home"; "I'm not talking wet"), but that's hardly a reason to be put off from reading this terrific exercise in supernatural horror. As Karl Edward Wagner wrote back when, "Undeservedly forgotten, Ms. Ryan was the best of the British thriller writers"...a seemingly hyperbolic statement, until one reads what is deemed one of her finest works. As Mr. Govina himself puts it, this is "a very long and very strange story"; as Mary later reflects, "In all the books she had read, in all the films she had witnessed, [she] had seen nothing so appalling as the raw truth obtaining in [her] house...."
Readers turning over the final page of this, Ryan's sixth, novel will surely come away with a desire to read her others, those being "The Right to Kill" (1936, and, according to Pelan, the least of the author's works), "Death of a Sadist" (1937), "Devil's Shelter" (1937), "The Subjugated Beast" (1938), "Freak Museum" (1938), and "No Escape" (1940, and which Pelan deems Ryan's other great work). Happily, all those other Ryan titles, with the exception of "The Right to Kill," are also available from Ramble House. Trust me, "Echo of a Curse" will only leave you wanting to read more. As Pelan says of it in his introduction, it is "arguably Ryan's masterpiece." As D. H. Olson opines in that same intro, it is a work "so essentially flawless as to be considered a true classic." And as to Olson's comment, this reader could not agree more....
(By the way, this review originally appeared on the FanLit website at https://fantasyliterature.com/ ... a most ideal destination for all fans of supernatural literature....)
August 10, 2018
This novel from 1939 has an interesting reputation. It was highly recommended by Karl E Wagner, and for many years it was virtually unavailable, or it would easily have cost you over a grand. I am always cautious of books that are considered "rare masterpieces" -- more than a few times I've been rather unimpressed by the hype.
This book begins like a tragic, classic novel; a romance, but this merely disarms us for what is ahead. Soon the story is punctuated by moments of shocking violence and horror. Later it stokes an increasingly Gothic atmosphere with many overwrought, intense scenes. There's a strange creature prowling the countryside. Attacks on stormy nights, a violent husband who may be insane. A very mysterious lodger.
The story is somewhat predictable, yet original too in the directions it chooses to take. Some sections are belabored in terms of dialogue and plot-points, and some elements of the plot toward the end which help wrap things up are a bit hokey. Certainly this isn't a perfect novel, yet it's still quite impressive. I would say in this case the hype is somewhat warranted, and fortunately this book will no longer cost you an arm and a leg.
This book begins like a tragic, classic novel; a romance, but this merely disarms us for what is ahead. Soon the story is punctuated by moments of shocking violence and horror. Later it stokes an increasingly Gothic atmosphere with many overwrought, intense scenes. There's a strange creature prowling the countryside. Attacks on stormy nights, a violent husband who may be insane. A very mysterious lodger.
The story is somewhat predictable, yet original too in the directions it chooses to take. Some sections are belabored in terms of dialogue and plot-points, and some elements of the plot toward the end which help wrap things up are a bit hokey. Certainly this isn't a perfect novel, yet it's still quite impressive. I would say in this case the hype is somewhat warranted, and fortunately this book will no longer cost you an arm and a leg.
April 10, 2009
Continuing with the KEW essential reading list, we now arrive at Echo of a Curse, a book I've been trying to read for the past 25 years. The R R Ryan novels on the list are some of the most difficult to find and this reprint wasn't cheap ( my limited edition copy is #6 out of 450 offered for sale). It's still no where near as expensive as the 1940 edition, if you can locate one. Oddly enough, this reprint was taken from an original edition which had belonged to KEW.
One of the more amusing things I've encountered in the introduction to this book (by DH Olson) is the assumption that RR Ryan was a woman. From what I understand, many people (most notably Karl Edward Wagner) had made this assumption as well. For years no one knew a thing about RR Ryan and the few people who had read the scarce books by this author assumed the identity to be female (because of the writing style). There's even a small artist's
rendition of the woman RR Ryan in the front.
All of which was proved WRONG when some literary sleuth went and checked the original publishing contracts. He found out RR Ryan was a MAN named Evelyn Bradley.
I like to imagine the day this information was revealed was greeted by the sound of thousands of feminist literary scholars shrieking because now they would have to revise an entire footnote (heh, heh).
The tone of the novel is slow and dark. For all the reputation of Ryan novels, I didn't find this one to be any where near the gut-punching cruelty in the average Charles Birkin story. It also assumes the reader is familiar with the King's English language of the day. All the "What, ho?" dialogue can wear on the Thames-impaired, but the book does deliver a good story.
The novel follows the lives of three people as they interact with each other over a period of twenty-five years. The first two of them are Terry Cliffe and his next-door neighbor Mary. Both have grown up together. Terry goes off to fight in WW1 where he meets Vincent Boarder, a strikingly handsome young man with a tendency to turn into a dangerous drunk. Vin goes home with Terry on leave and meets Mary. Vin woos and weds Mary.
Then the story gets nasty. Not only is Vin a dangerous drunk, but he's a mean one as well. Terry catches Vin trying to kill Mary one day and flattens him. But by now Mary is pregnant with Vin's child and divorce is out of the question. Vin sobers up and promises Terry to go on the wagon. Furthermore, Terry makes Vin promise to get a job and sleep in a separate room in the house. Vin agrees, but offers one strange reason for his sadistic behaviour: his father was an occultist who'd founded a religion on the undead and believed himself immortal.
Meanwhile a circus attraction known as THE UNEXPLICABLE has escaped and is killing innocent people right and left. Vin thanks it might be his father, but offers no reason why. The creature, which seems to be some kind of werewolf, gets close to Vin and Mary's house, but vanishes for good.
The second part of the book takes place over twenty years later. Terry has moved out of his house and in with Vin and Mary (to keep a better eye on Vin's behaviour). Vin has appeared to be the model father for their twin children (Faith and Don). But what neither Terry or Mary know is that Vin had paid a nurse to switch his real son at birth with another boy. It seems the real son was born with the features of a wild animal. This little substitution may have gone unnoticed, but Vin finds out the former nurse had a carnival background and returned to her former profession once she acquired Vin and Mary's real son. And the latest news is that her star attraction killed her, then fled the sideshow.
And now there is a very strange lodger at the house....
I have to give the novel bonus points for subtlety. It grew on me until I sat reading the final 100 pages straight-through. It's a work of quiet horror, where the real scares are the evil deeds which live on long after their commission.
March 26, 2012
I did not really know what to think going into this tale. I had heard comparisons made to Birkin (who I love as a supreme modern conte cruelist). As I have a particular aversion to horror novels though... I braced myself for disappointment... despite the recommendations I had received.
Well the cruelty in this one was particularly vicious and did not disappoint. Likewise, I found the plot tight enough for a horror novel so that the story could be sustained for 250+ pages... something that I find to be a particular flaw in most horror long fiction. Unless the setting and atmosphere is done well enough, much horror long fiction simply collapses under the weight of a bloated plot (and superfluous character), and the horror/tension/menace etc., simply can't be sustained.
Echo of a curse did not have that problem... particularly due to the outstanding atmosphere development and also due to one character in particular... Vincent Border. This character was a rumbling, tumbling, train wreck that came off the tracks from the very start and left wrecked lives strewn in his own personal landscape. I had not come across such a compelling character in such a long time.
More importantly though, our author, RR Ryan, adds an incredible amount of depth to this character, not painting him as a simple antagonist. Although, for some readers not accustomed to a Birkinesque cruelty in their stories, there is one scene that is breathtakingly horrific. I won't ruin it for future readers, but if you read this tale, as you approach a scene involving our lead female character and her preparing to open her birthday presents on her b-day... go ahead and brace yourself for the gut punch... because it is delivered like a hammer blow. It is an awful scene (involving a sweet puppy dog) that will convince you that Vin Border is a bastard among bastards. Nevertheless, despite the wanton cruelty inflicted by Vincent on those around him, this character actually has a few redeeming qualities... and even in the end, we have a highly flawed character that manages to rise above it all and acquit himself nicely when faced with a difficult choice.
Such an intricately developed antagonist though can often bea double edged sword unfortunately. Where Ryan does a beautiful job developing this character, our other key characters (particularly when juxtaposed to Vin Border) appear to be a bit shallow and under developed... a minor gripe given the strength of this story.
Its frankly hard to imagine how this book (published in 1939) wasn't simply banned upon publication, given its brutality. I was really blown away by how horrific this story was for its time.
For those aficionados of fine horror fiction from the earlier 20th century, this one is not to be missed. We can all give John Pelan a hardy thanks for bringing this one out of obscurity.
Highly recommended!!
Well the cruelty in this one was particularly vicious and did not disappoint. Likewise, I found the plot tight enough for a horror novel so that the story could be sustained for 250+ pages... something that I find to be a particular flaw in most horror long fiction. Unless the setting and atmosphere is done well enough, much horror long fiction simply collapses under the weight of a bloated plot (and superfluous character), and the horror/tension/menace etc., simply can't be sustained.
Echo of a curse did not have that problem... particularly due to the outstanding atmosphere development and also due to one character in particular... Vincent Border. This character was a rumbling, tumbling, train wreck that came off the tracks from the very start and left wrecked lives strewn in his own personal landscape. I had not come across such a compelling character in such a long time.
More importantly though, our author, RR Ryan, adds an incredible amount of depth to this character, not painting him as a simple antagonist. Although, for some readers not accustomed to a Birkinesque cruelty in their stories, there is one scene that is breathtakingly horrific. I won't ruin it for future readers, but if you read this tale, as you approach a scene involving our lead female character and her preparing to open her birthday presents on her b-day... go ahead and brace yourself for the gut punch... because it is delivered like a hammer blow. It is an awful scene (involving a sweet puppy dog) that will convince you that Vin Border is a bastard among bastards. Nevertheless, despite the wanton cruelty inflicted by Vincent on those around him, this character actually has a few redeeming qualities... and even in the end, we have a highly flawed character that manages to rise above it all and acquit himself nicely when faced with a difficult choice.
Such an intricately developed antagonist though can often bea double edged sword unfortunately. Where Ryan does a beautiful job developing this character, our other key characters (particularly when juxtaposed to Vin Border) appear to be a bit shallow and under developed... a minor gripe given the strength of this story.
Its frankly hard to imagine how this book (published in 1939) wasn't simply banned upon publication, given its brutality. I was really blown away by how horrific this story was for its time.
For those aficionados of fine horror fiction from the earlier 20th century, this one is not to be missed. We can all give John Pelan a hardy thanks for bringing this one out of obscurity.
Highly recommended!!
August 19, 2014
I stayed up ridiculously late on a school night to finish this novel. Why? Because among horror novels pre-1950, this book is as legendary as J.U. Nicolson's FINGERS OF FEAR and very few others. ECHO has never been available in paperback until a very recent Ramble House reprint, and it was one of those extremely elusive novels that made Karl Edward Wagner's famous list of the top (did he just mean the most obscure?) horror novels of all time. So should you read this? Yes and no. It's well-written enough...in fact, but for some moments later in the story where it goes comically over the top, this novel is a sober, frank, ahead-of-its-time portrayal of domestic violence. Shockingly realistic, especially when you consider that it was originally published in the UK in 1939. Horror fans should seek this novel out for the experience of reading an early "pulp" novel of the British style (there was no UK equivalent to the American pulp magazine "Weird Tales" at the time, and mass-market paperbacks didn't exists there until the 1950s, so there are only a few isolated examples of
British "pulp"), but otherwise...it's a well-done curio, so take it from there.
British "pulp"), but otherwise...it's a well-done curio, so take it from there.
November 9, 2017
While a bit melodramatic at times, ECHO OF A CURSE is a fine little thriller.
September 7, 2020
A fun and bizarre romp complete with whiskey-crazed wifebeating werewolf/vampire husbands and their progeny, freak shows, cursed twins, and changelings. This edition had a lot of annoying typos.
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