Today, March 5, is the birthday of Henry S,. Whitehead (1882-1932}. Whitehead wrote for Weird Tales, and if he hadn’t died so young, I believe  he would have attained a reputation, if not on par with Howard, Lovecraft, and Smith, at least only slightly less well-regarded. Whitehead lived much of his adult life in the Caribbean, and he drew on his first-hand knowledge of the iinhabitants of the region when writing his fiction. He was a popular writer in his day, and was highly regarded by Lovecraft. Unfortunately, he is almost forgotten today.

I reviewed one of his best tales, “Seven Turns in a Hangman’s Rope“, some years back. It remains one of my favorites.

Today I’m going to look at an audio edition of his story, “The Passing of a God”. I’m  on the road today, and I listened to it earlier while I was driving. There are spoilers below the fold.

The story concerns a man named Carswell who was diagnosed with a tumor and given one year to live. He was living in New York at the time and moved to Haiti to live out his last days. The tumor appears to be benign, and he lives for seven years before the events of the story.

I need to say a word about the structure of the story. The unnamed narrator (presumably Whitehead himself since he mentions writing stories) is asking a doctor about a particular patient. This was long before HIPPA. The doctor is the one who tells most of the story, since he treated Carswell.

The black inhabitants of the island have a belief that their gods can possess a person, and will  occasionally do so for a brief period of time. The person possessed is given all kinds of foods and riches as offerings to the god.

Carswell is walking to his gate one day when he loses consciousness and wakes up in a chair in his home hours later. He is surrounded by the local inhabitants, who think his passing out is a sign that one of the gods has possessed him.

Carswell thinks otherwise. He was told that he would begin losing consciousness when the tumor was going to start killing him. So he goes to the doctor. The doctor agrees to operate to remove the tumor. It’s a risky procedure, but Carswell is willing to take the chanice. It’s not like he has many options.

The doctor is shocked to find the tumor is shaped like an evil looking human. He is further shocked to find that it is alive. Alive and evil. I’ll let you read the rest.

The story doesn’t have many surprises, at least it shouldn’t to someone who has read very much fantasy and horror. But it is well told and is worth checking  out. I’ve not read all of Henry S. Whitehead’s work, but I’ve read quite a bit. I think this is one of his better stories. It would be nice if someone would bring him back into print in a hardcover omnibus.