Today’s (April 30) birthday post looks at story by someone who should not exist. Jane Rice(1913-2003) wrote fantasy and horror for the pulps, primarily Unknown.  As all right-thinking people know, women weren’t allowed to write for the pulps.  They were kept out by chauvinistic such as John W. Campbell, Jr., the editor of Astounding and, well, Unknown. Just goes to show what  some right-thinking people don’t know.

“The Idol of the Flies” is probably Jane Rice’s best known story.  I had not read it until a few minutes ago.

There’s a subgenre about evil children, Jterome Bixby’s “It’s a Wonderful Life” being a prime example. This story falls firmly into that category.

Pruitt is an orphaned boy who lives with his aging, somewhat ill, and more than somewhat naive. His tutor, Miss Bittner, is deaf and deathly afraid of flies. The cook’s husband is a hunchback.

And Pruitt, well he’s a vicious, sadistic little monster.  A catalogue of his redeeming qualities would total in the negative numbers. He tears the wings off flies and leaves them in the lemonade for Miss Bittner to find. He puts a string across the basement stairs so the cook will trip and fall. Among other boyish pranks.

He also makes an idol of a fly which he worships and asks for favors. Finally he goes into these trances where he tries to catch dream creatures. And one day he does.

He deserves everything he gets, and I had no sympathy for him. What I did find intriguing was the last small section, told from one of the supporting characters’s point of view. It was a little ambiguous, but it implied, at least to me, that maybe Pruitt wasn’t the most evil person in the story.

Jane Rice only had one collection published, The Idol of the Flies, by Midnight House.  As far as I know, this story isn’t in print.  It’s most recent reprints was 2012 in The Century’s Best Horror Fiction 1900-1950.  Good luck getting your hands on those. They’ve both been long out of print and aren’t cheap if you can find them.

Your best best would be to find a reprint of the original issue of Unknown online or on a set of CD’s.  This particular story wasn’t to my taste, as none of the characters except the cook and her husband were presented in anything approaching a positive light.