Charles L. Grant
September 12, AKA today, is the birthday of Charles L. Grant (1942-2006). Grant was a practitioner of what is known as quiet horror. It’s the type of horror I prefer. In addition to being an amazing writer, he was one of the most influential anthology editors of the late 1970s and 80s.
I first became aware of Shadows, the groundbreaking anthology series he edited when I was in the 8th grade. We had recently moved to Paris, TX. The public library had a good selection of anthologies for a library of that size in those days, including at least one, and probably more, titles from the Shadows series. The first volume I read was Shadows 3. I was hooked. I hunted down the others, especially Shadows 2, which had “The Chair” by Jane Cozart and Alan Dean Foster, Foster being my favorite writer at the time. This was about a year before I discovered Kuttner and Brackett.
It wasn’t until a few years later that I discovered Grant’s own fiction. His brand of quiet horror fit nicely into tastes that had been formed by reading Ray Bradbury, Robert Bloch, and well, the authors he published in Shadows.
Normally for these birthday posts I’ll take a look at something written by the subject of the post. Today has been pretty full. It’s been a good day, especially compared to the rest of the week, but I’ve not had a chance to read anything of Grant’s. I wanted to get this post up, so I haven’t read anything yet. I’ll probably pull a volume of Shadows down from the shelf and read something at random.
As a point of interest, today is also the birthday for Kathryn Ptacek (b. 1952). She is Charles Grant’s widow.
Just a note that this is probably going to be how any birthday posts I do will be for a while, a brief tribute without a review. Trying to coordinate labs for 2k+ students when some have to have online versions of what f2f labs we’re teaching is pretty time consuming. Especially dealing with the amount of email I’m getting. There were times this week when the emails were literally coming in faster than I could answer them. (I’ve also discovered that it is possible to kill brain cells if the email to which you are replying is of sufficient stupidity.)
I read “Mrs. Clendon’s Place” by Joseph Payne Brennan from Shadows 7. It’s an excellent story that has never been reprinted.
Although I’ve waned on horror as part of my steady reading diet, this time of year, at least, I read more of it.
Kicks me that Grant used to attend Necon regularly, but long before my time. I would love to have met him.
Same here. He never attended a convention, at least not one that I was at, in my neck of the woods.
In a Halloween mood (already) I got down my copy of Grant’s collection Glow of Candles and reread Come Dance with Me on My Pony’s Grave.
Really one of the most weirdly poetic and memorable conclusions of any weird tale I’ve read.
Got the same effect from If Damon Comes (which isn’t in that collection but should be) and the story actually hit me harder as a reread than when I first read it, since I wasn’t a father then.
Honestly, I found his novels tough going, but his best short stories are astonishing.
It’s been years since I read A Glow of Candles, but I remember liking it a lot. I’m sure I’ve read If Damon Comes; it was in Tales From the Nightside, which I read, again, years ago. Time to revisit them. I agree with you that Grant’s best work was at short lengths.