A Writer's Tale

Indeed, it was rejected by Onyx, publishers of my two previous books, Resurrection Dreams and Funland. According to an editor at Onyx, they turned down my book because the “black rain” was caused by a black man to get revenge for the killing of a family member. If that is the reason One Rainy Night was rejected by Onyx (and editors don’t always tell authors the truth about such matters), then my book was a victim of the “political correctness” that has been sweeping away free expression in our country for the past decade or so.

However, One Rainy Night was accepted in England by W.H. Allen as the second book of my contract. When W.H. Allen went under, it was taken over by Headline, and a hardback edition was published in March, 1991.

The book club in England also gave it a try. They ordered 500 copies. Then they ordered 4,500 more copies. Then 1,000 more. Then 2,000 more.

In a letter telling me about the book cub situation, Bob Tanner wrote to me, “This letter is sent to prove what a lousy judge of a book I am! I am now off to drink a cup of cold poison!!!”

(He is actually a terrific judge of books and has a great sense of humor.) One Rainy Night was subsequently published in paperback by Headline. Foreign language editions have been published in Spain, Lithuania, and Belgium.

It has never been published in the United States.

DARKNESS, TELL US

This is the Ouija board book.

After finishing One Rainy Night on May 11, 1989, I wasted some time with a false start on my third Beast House book. Then I answered some interview questions, spent a week in New York City (where The Silence of the Lambs beat me out of the Stoker award), and wrote the short story “Slit.”

I finally got started on Darkness, Tell Us on June 28. My working title was Ouija.

This was to be another “mainstream” novel along the lines of The Stake.

Like The Stake, the supernatural elements were played with ambiguity. Sure, the characters seem to be getting coherent messages from a Ouija board. But what is really going on? Are the messages really coming from a spirit named Butler? Maybe not. Maybe someone is guiding the pointer. Who knows what is going on when these Ouija boards seem to make sense?

I sure don’t.

But I do know that, for some reason, the darn things do sometimes seem to communicate in a coherent fashion.

They frighten me.

I dedicated Darkness, Tell Us to the Boyanskis Chris, Dick and their children, Kara and Kyle. Chris was my wife’s childhood friend, and we get together with her and Dick whenever we visit Ann’s hometown of Clayton, New York. We always have a great time when we see them. And we usually tempt fate.

In 1980, I had my first experiences with a Ouija board late one night at Chris and Dick’s house.

It was an old, dark house.

The four of us sat in the kitchen and messed around with their Ouija board. We did it by candle light, which increased the eeriness and made it impossible to read the writing on the board.

I was very skeptical at first.

But wary. After all, I’d heard stories about Ouija boards.

I’d spent quite a lot of time in Roman Catholic schools, and knew that priests and nuns considered the boards to be extremely dangerous. Not only does using such a device break the First Commandment (and is therefore a sin), but it may open the way for evil forces to enter your life.

And of course I’d seen and read The Exorcist, in which all the trouble begins with a Ouija board.

I’d heard other stories, too. Frightening tales, purporting to be true, about awful things happening to people who fooled with the things.

Still, I sat down to play with the Ouija board in the Boyanski house with a strong expectation that nothing would happen.

I was so wrong.

We sat around the kitchen table, fingertips lightly resting on the plastic pointer, and asked questions. And the pointer soon began to glide around as if it had a life of its own.

Each time it stopped, one of us would shine a flashlight on the board to see what response it was making.

The responses started to make sense.

But not because anyone in our group was manipulating the pointer. For one thing, you can easily feel the difference if a person pushes it; instead of gliding, it shoves heavily across the board. Secondly, none of us could see well enough in the dark to direct the pointer to anywhere specific.

And yet the answers made sense.

The pointer drifted all over the board, answering “Yes” and “No,” spelling out actual words, actual sentences.

Over the course of time, our “spirit” identified himself as Timmy. He told us that he’d died in the house, at the age of sixteen, a long time ago. He told us a lot.

Strange enough that the sliding pointer should seem to be communicating with us but the communications reflected a definite personality.

And then another.