Mary Ann Allen's The Angry Dead

commentary by Jim Rockhill

   

I received a copy of the collected ghost stories of Rosemary Pardoe today. From the dust-wrapper to the interior illustrations -including a header for each tale - to the type-face to the way the text has been laid out on the page, everything has been done with taste, care & obvious affection to make this as attractive a setting for the tales as possible. It is a beautiful little book. It reminds me of the way this sort of thing used to be done before the Second World War. Even if the tales were negligible, this book would still have a welcome place on my bookshelf.

Fortunately, the contents live up to their deluxe trappings. I recall reading most of these tales when they appeared individually in a number of small-press publications during the 80's. Two tales postdate the first edition of this book released in 1986. The first of these, "The Cambridge Beast" is the only tale in the book that does not feature the church restorer, Jane Bradshaw. The last tale, "The Sheelagh-na-gig," appeared in Ash-Tree Press' anthology Midnight Never Comes in 1997. At first glance, most of the tales seem slight, with an unassuming charm reminiscent of E.G. Swain. Such stock and Jamesian supernatural elements as the changing painting, the haunted dream & retributive pursuit appear, but the heroine never raises her voice. It all seems so comfortable, so decorous. The reader soon discovers; however, that Ms. Pardoe's restraint & her use of these standard elements has lulled them into a false sense of security. "Joan" may indeed be gentle, but her history is not, & no seemingly standard supernatural trope is used without an individual twist. An onomastic tale associated with the architectural folly in "The Wandlebury Eyecatcher" reveals a particularly nasty haunting that has persisted for centuries & will likely persist for many more. Few tales featuring entire, authentic, haunted castles pack as much of a wallop as this short tale about a sham ruin (surely "shame ruin" in the text is a rare typo).

Special attention should be called to a few of Ms. Pardoe's linguistic effects. There is a wonderful moment in "Hold Fast" when a sparrow begins flapping hysterically about the roof-beams at just about the time we expect a ghost to appear. This is marvelously handled and dovetails nicely with the actual appearance of the apparition by not only prefiguring it, but also subtly conveying the ghost's agitation. It is a moment worthy of Marjorie Bowen. Another particularly powerful moment is reserved for the very end of the book, when at the conclusion of "The Sheelagh-na-gig," which I consider a small masterpiece, Ms. Pardoe manages to invest a traditional Christian symbol associated with peace & love with terrifying apocalyptic significance without resorting to italics, exclamation points or any other rhetorical device. As Edmund Wilson says, holding up Merimee's "The Venus d'Isle" as an example of the kind of terror of which Lovecraft was incapable, it is narrated with "the prosaic objectivity of an anecdote of travel." Like most of the best ghost stories written since the time of Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, many of these tales hint at much more than they portray.

Anyone who missed this book when it was first issued as a chapbook in 1986 should not hesitate to locate a copy. The wonderful book-design of the new volume & the addition of two further tales should make this a mandatory purchase even for those fortunate to have acquired the now much sought-after first edition.

   

Copyright © 2000 by Jim Rockhill, all rights reserved.
Detail of the book jacket is by Wendy Adrian Wees.

   

You can right now order The Angry Dead
from Violet Books,
for $40.00 plus $5 Priority Air Mail.

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