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Nightmares in Dixie: Thirteen Horror Tales from the American South
Nightmares in Thirteen Horror Tales from the American South
- GenresHorrorShort Stories
260 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 1987
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About the author
Martin H. Greenberg
911 books163 followersMartin Harry Greenberg was an American academic and speculative fiction anthologist. In all, he compiled 1,298 anthologies and commissioned over 8,200 original short stories. He founded Tekno Books, a packager of more than 2000 published books. In addition, he was a co-founder of the Sci-Fi Channel.
For the 1950s anthologist and publisher of Gnome Press, see Martin Greenberg.
For the 1950s anthologist and publisher of Gnome Press, see Martin Greenberg.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
July 20, 2019
FIRST TIER: An anthology themed around horror stories set in Southern states, like most anthologies, this is a mixed bag but generally on the worthwhile side. Not everything works, and there's no absolutely outstanding piece, so you takes your chances....
SECOND TIER: A fairly good concept for an anthology theme (for an expanded riff on the same concept, see A Treasury of American Horror Stories where you get all 50 states!), as above - there were no outstanding pieces here, but a few were nice re-reads or discoveries. If it sounds like your kind of thing, Inter-Library Loan awaits!
THIRD TIER: And now, on to the show...
I'll eventually get around to reading "Ooze" (Alabama) by Anthony M. Rud when I process it for my work, but I've got no review at the moment.
The weakest story here is "The Night Of The Piasa" (Texas) by J.C. Green & George W. Proctor. I hadn't liked it when I read it in the past, but thought I'd give it another shot. Nope - quit after a few pages. Something about a Native American woman who passes as white and moves up in her career, but she also has shamanistic powers. Couldn't keep my attention.
Ted White's "Only Yesterday" (Virginia) is set in the early part of the 20th Century and has an anxious and suspiciously-acting young man deliberately meet a woman at a rural train station in order to ingratiate himself into her home, eventually divulging an awful glimpse of the future to her. A sorrowful story, not really horror and more sci-fi.
"Cry Havoc" (West Virginia) is also not exactly horror, more dark fantasy, as an Irish immigrant's son - between the wars - receives a gift of a huge set of lead soldiers and begins reenacting, peremptorily, the second world war to the delight, and then horror, of his father. Pretty good work by Davis Grubb. A nice little find from 1840 is "The Arm-Chair Of Tustenuggee" (South Carolina) by William Gilmore Simms - told as a piece of Catawba Native American folklore, two Indian braves are out hunting when one mysteriously disappears and the other, returning to camp, is sentenced to death for his presumed murder (and then reprieved into a fate worse than death). But ancient demon magic is afoot in the forest. Long-winded (even in its edited form here), with some good action (a battle with a she-wolf), this features a nice bit of Catawba folklore (presuming its not Simms own fakelore invention). Meanwhile, Kentucky gets "Fast-Train Ike" by Jesse Stuart which is a tribute to the lost American culture of railroads, as an eccentric old man rides a specific train during his whole lifetime, periodically suffering fits during which he raves and warns that a crash is imminent. A bit long for what it is, but honestly it seems more intended to be read aloud, as its written in a strange kind of Robert W. Service/quasi-beat rhythmic patois.
In Karl Edward Wagner's "Where The Summer Ends" (Tennessee) (which we presented a free reading of on Pseudopod here) a rootless young man and his girlfriend, on a hunt for antiques, uncover the existence of a tribe of hideous, murderous pygmy creatures that dwell in the sea of kudzu enveloping their town. A solid blend of thoughtful monster story, meditation on war and nostalgia, 70s drop-out lifestyle culture, and pulp action. A man is murdered during a crooked poker game in "The Fireplace" by Henry S. Whitehead (set in Mississippi), and his ghost attempts...and then demands...vengeance. It's a nice little pulp ghost story, set at Christmas, with some great "Southern gentility" on display. We also presented Tom Reamy's "Beyond The Cleft" (North Carolina) on Pseudopod (but for subscribers only, so no link) - it's an interesting story about a zombie outbreak in a rural valley, in which things get progressively worse. Written in 1974, before such stories were in vogue (and then became a cliche), very worth your time. I'd LIKE to run Kit Reed's "The Wait" (Georgia) on PSEUDOPOD (we'll see...), in which a young woman and her mother are stranded in a remote Georgia town, and the girl discovers that there's quite a disturbing tradition that must be followed when women "come of age." Understated and eerie, like THE TWILIGHT ZONE doing a Southern Gothic version of "The Lottery," it's all Southern Hospitality and implied threats. Finally, a Civil War vet in Arkansas runs afoul of a satanic cult in Manly Wade Wellman's "Coven" - a fun, two-fisted action romp with an actual demon and some last minute philosophizing.
Two stories were outstanding. In John D. MacDonald's "The Legend Of Joe Lee," a seemingly uncatchable hot-rodder is tearing up Florida's backroads, despite every effort to catch him - while the solution to the mystery is familiar, MacDonald does a really nice job evoking the desperate teenage car culture of the time. "Dark Melody Of Madness" (aka "Papa Benjamin") - one of those Cornell Woolrich classics that's been adapted (and ripped off) many, many times in all forms of popular media. In a nutshell - a jazz musician steals the sacred voodoo music rhythms and is cursed. Exceptionally well done - atmospheric descriptions of seedy Louisiana backstreet alleys and the secretive haunts of a voodoo cult (love the recurring details like the woman in the window of the alleyway who acts something like a sentry). Also, of course, race issues creep up here in interesting ways - voodoo is representative of primitive, atavistic beliefs (coded "black") and how can they possibly trump modern rationalism (coded "white")? (There's also a minor-note theme about miscegenation worries in your past - not as virulently presented as in, say, H.P. Lovecraft). The last minute "rational" explanation (as I said in another review of Woolrich, effectively dismantling a secret society in short story is a tall order for any writer, and Woolrich does a better job here than in "Graves For The Living" by focusing even more on relentless police procedures) may seem to take some air out of the tale but then, in what's become a Woolrich trademark, the "rational" world then has its own rug pulled out from under it, by a small capper scene that reasserts a world shared by the scientific and the "Unconscious" - here presented with a killer last line focusing on average people caught between huge, unknowable and implacable forces like The Law, Religion, the Occult, Science and Random Chance. Excellent!
SECOND TIER: A fairly good concept for an anthology theme (for an expanded riff on the same concept, see A Treasury of American Horror Stories where you get all 50 states!), as above - there were no outstanding pieces here, but a few were nice re-reads or discoveries. If it sounds like your kind of thing, Inter-Library Loan awaits!
THIRD TIER: And now, on to the show...
I'll eventually get around to reading "Ooze" (Alabama) by Anthony M. Rud when I process it for my work, but I've got no review at the moment.
The weakest story here is "The Night Of The Piasa" (Texas) by J.C. Green & George W. Proctor. I hadn't liked it when I read it in the past, but thought I'd give it another shot. Nope - quit after a few pages. Something about a Native American woman who passes as white and moves up in her career, but she also has shamanistic powers. Couldn't keep my attention.
Ted White's "Only Yesterday" (Virginia) is set in the early part of the 20th Century and has an anxious and suspiciously-acting young man deliberately meet a woman at a rural train station in order to ingratiate himself into her home, eventually divulging an awful glimpse of the future to her. A sorrowful story, not really horror and more sci-fi.
"Cry Havoc" (West Virginia) is also not exactly horror, more dark fantasy, as an Irish immigrant's son - between the wars - receives a gift of a huge set of lead soldiers and begins reenacting, peremptorily, the second world war to the delight, and then horror, of his father. Pretty good work by Davis Grubb. A nice little find from 1840 is "The Arm-Chair Of Tustenuggee" (South Carolina) by William Gilmore Simms - told as a piece of Catawba Native American folklore, two Indian braves are out hunting when one mysteriously disappears and the other, returning to camp, is sentenced to death for his presumed murder (and then reprieved into a fate worse than death). But ancient demon magic is afoot in the forest. Long-winded (even in its edited form here), with some good action (a battle with a she-wolf), this features a nice bit of Catawba folklore (presuming its not Simms own fakelore invention). Meanwhile, Kentucky gets "Fast-Train Ike" by Jesse Stuart which is a tribute to the lost American culture of railroads, as an eccentric old man rides a specific train during his whole lifetime, periodically suffering fits during which he raves and warns that a crash is imminent. A bit long for what it is, but honestly it seems more intended to be read aloud, as its written in a strange kind of Robert W. Service/quasi-beat rhythmic patois.
In Karl Edward Wagner's "Where The Summer Ends" (Tennessee) (which we presented a free reading of on Pseudopod here) a rootless young man and his girlfriend, on a hunt for antiques, uncover the existence of a tribe of hideous, murderous pygmy creatures that dwell in the sea of kudzu enveloping their town. A solid blend of thoughtful monster story, meditation on war and nostalgia, 70s drop-out lifestyle culture, and pulp action. A man is murdered during a crooked poker game in "The Fireplace" by Henry S. Whitehead (set in Mississippi), and his ghost attempts...and then demands...vengeance. It's a nice little pulp ghost story, set at Christmas, with some great "Southern gentility" on display. We also presented Tom Reamy's "Beyond The Cleft" (North Carolina) on Pseudopod (but for subscribers only, so no link) - it's an interesting story about a zombie outbreak in a rural valley, in which things get progressively worse. Written in 1974, before such stories were in vogue (and then became a cliche), very worth your time. I'd LIKE to run Kit Reed's "The Wait" (Georgia) on PSEUDOPOD (we'll see...), in which a young woman and her mother are stranded in a remote Georgia town, and the girl discovers that there's quite a disturbing tradition that must be followed when women "come of age." Understated and eerie, like THE TWILIGHT ZONE doing a Southern Gothic version of "The Lottery," it's all Southern Hospitality and implied threats. Finally, a Civil War vet in Arkansas runs afoul of a satanic cult in Manly Wade Wellman's "Coven" - a fun, two-fisted action romp with an actual demon and some last minute philosophizing.
Two stories were outstanding. In John D. MacDonald's "The Legend Of Joe Lee," a seemingly uncatchable hot-rodder is tearing up Florida's backroads, despite every effort to catch him - while the solution to the mystery is familiar, MacDonald does a really nice job evoking the desperate teenage car culture of the time. "Dark Melody Of Madness" (aka "Papa Benjamin") - one of those Cornell Woolrich classics that's been adapted (and ripped off) many, many times in all forms of popular media. In a nutshell - a jazz musician steals the sacred voodoo music rhythms and is cursed. Exceptionally well done - atmospheric descriptions of seedy Louisiana backstreet alleys and the secretive haunts of a voodoo cult (love the recurring details like the woman in the window of the alleyway who acts something like a sentry). Also, of course, race issues creep up here in interesting ways - voodoo is representative of primitive, atavistic beliefs (coded "black") and how can they possibly trump modern rationalism (coded "white")? (There's also a minor-note theme about miscegenation worries in your past - not as virulently presented as in, say, H.P. Lovecraft). The last minute "rational" explanation (as I said in another review of Woolrich, effectively dismantling a secret society in short story is a tall order for any writer, and Woolrich does a better job here than in "Graves For The Living" by focusing even more on relentless police procedures) may seem to take some air out of the tale but then, in what's become a Woolrich trademark, the "rational" world then has its own rug pulled out from under it, by a small capper scene that reasserts a world shared by the scientific and the "Unconscious" - here presented with a killer last line focusing on average people caught between huge, unknowable and implacable forces like The Law, Religion, the Occult, Science and Random Chance. Excellent!
March 25, 2013
The stories in this anthology are wonderfully written and full of vivid details. Each story is set in a different southern state giving it a completely unique feel.
July 16, 2022
I liked the concept of the collection and that each story was set in a different state of the Southeast. That being said-- I did not finish most of the stories held within. Many of these tales were too challenging stylistically and long winded-- not what I'm looking for here. I'm sure I'm being a pleb about it but many ended up feeling like a required reading assignment & I shan't be doing homework. I want to be entertained!
Stories in here that I did like:
Where The Sumner Ends (Tennessee) by Karl Edward Wagner very much. It was the reason I picked up this collection in the first place. It had a great vibe and an assured storytelling voice. I'm looking forward to checking out more of his work where I can find it.
Beyond The Cleft (North Carolina) by Tom Reamy. Genuinely chilling, starts with a bang right out of the gate.
The Wait (Georgia) by Kit Reed. In any other collection this would feel insubstantial but here it's a standout. Creeping dread that blessedly gets to the point before long. Also, may I say: ick!
Stories in here that I did like:
Where The Sumner Ends (Tennessee) by Karl Edward Wagner very much. It was the reason I picked up this collection in the first place. It had a great vibe and an assured storytelling voice. I'm looking forward to checking out more of his work where I can find it.
Beyond The Cleft (North Carolina) by Tom Reamy. Genuinely chilling, starts with a bang right out of the gate.
The Wait (Georgia) by Kit Reed. In any other collection this would feel insubstantial but here it's a standout. Creeping dread that blessedly gets to the point before long. Also, may I say: ick!
September 4, 2023
Uneven collection of short stories. Most stories seem to be from the 20th century, a fluke for those of us who've heard the scary stories of the old South.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews