A Writer's Tale

Uh-oh, I just named names.

And boy, I bet these four little pundits are mighty surprised to find themselves the object of a review by a writer they’ve been so cheerfully smearing in public for so long.

These four are at the top of my list. But not just mine.

Some or all of these same assailants are roundly despised by other writers who have been targets of their snide, mindless bombast.

Here are a few reasons why my four made the list.

1. David Kuehls. In 1989, I received a letter from Kuehls inviting me to contribute a story to an anthology he had in the works. In his request, he was careful to point out that he is “a book reviewer for Fangoria.” I, for one, caught a whiff of threat from this invitation.

Nevertheless, I wrote to Kuehls and politely declined to contribute a story.

No doubt it’s a simple coincidence, but Kuehls subsequently wrote vicious diatribes against my novels for Fangoria. (Hey, if he thought my stuff was so lame, why did he ask me to contribute to his anthology?) I smell foul play.

A friend of mine, who shall go unnamed, received similar treatment at Kuehl’s hands. He had also declined to contribute a story to the reviewer’s anthology I must wonder do the publishers of Fangoria know that Kuehls is using their magazine to clobber writers who didn’t cough up stories for his book?

2. Linda Marotta. In Fangoria #104, this person whom I shall gently refer to as “a piece of work,” wrote about The Stake, “Just how many times can one use the word ‘retarded’ in one review? Reading a Richard Laymon novel is like watching a really dumb splatter flick.” And so on, in the same vein.

A few of my fellow writers happened onto the Marotta review during a signing, and started laughing. They asked me what I’d done to this gal to make her hate me. “Did you murder her children or something?”

The truth is, I don’t know her. I never even knew she existed until she started pulling her Lizzie Borden number on me.

Furthermore, I don’t want to know her.

Whatever else she might be a subject I don’t even wish to contemplate she is obviously a nasty and bitter…  woops, never mind!

By the way, if you think The Stake was retarded, you ought to read Marotta’s latest novel, entitled…

Woops, again!

Far as I know, there ain’t no such thing. My mistake, Linda. But what can you expect from a retard?

Anyway, with a couple of cases like Kuehls and Marotta doing the reviews for Fangoria, I quit buying the magazine.

I can’t take a magazine seriously when it publishes reviews by the likes of Kuehls and Marotta. I know firsthand the crap that this pair has spewn on me, so I don’t care what they say about anyone else.

3. Now, to Ellen Datlow. She appears to share Marotta’s view of my work, but she hasn’t attacked me as blatantly as her soul-sister. I suppose I should thank her for that. She mostly uses the snub. In her big annual summation of the year in horror a while back, one of my novels was banished from existence, not a word mentioned about it in spite of the fact that she seemed to list every horror novel published during the entire year. I mean every one of them. Except for mine. This nonexistent book was either Funland or The Stake.

Maybe I’m paranoid for suspecting that the omission was intentional.

But I’m pretty sure it was.

Hey, it was her list.

And this is mine.

Some more on Ellen Datlow. She opened her big, important essay on “The Year in Horror” with a study of American Psycho. In the course of that, she wrote, “I don’t believe the violence is any worse than that in genre horror writers Richard Laymon and C. Dean Andersson or for that matter in the works of the Marquis deSade.”

That’s such a good remark that I could use it as a cover blurb, but she never intended it to be a compliment.

Somewhere along the line, she also dumped on my stuff in Night Visions 7, which was especially annoying because she had written to me and asked me to send her a free copy of the book and I’d done it! Marotta must be right! I’m retarded!

4. Stefan Dziemianowicz. His review of Midnight’s Lair in the Winter, 1993 issue of Cemetery Dance is what prompted me to write this counterattack. It wasn’t much of a review, but it was enough to push me too far. In his pithy assault, this chap wrote regarding my characters, “By the end of the story, we know more about their underwear than their personalities.” Bravo! Such wit! I am awestruck by his rapier pen.

The line, however, was a standout in a review that was otherwise stunning in its banality.

In other words, he pooped all over Midnight’s Lair, but did a half-assed job of it. I’m sure he’ll try harder on future occasions.

I’ve heard about Dziemainowicz, and frankly it doesn’t surprise me at all that he hates my books.

One question, though: if he’s such a highbrow hotshot, why doesn’t he stop crapping on writers and try to be one himself?

Woops! Maybe he already tried that!