Getting In The Wind

by Harlan Ellison

a collection of short stories published in the fifties under the name Paul Merchant

176 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1959

About the author

Harlan Jay Ellison (1934-2018) was a prolific American writer of short stories, novellas, teleplays, essays, and criticism.

His literary and television work has received many awards. He wrote for the original series of both The Outer Limits and Star Trek as well as The Alfred Hitchcock Hour; edited the multiple-award-winning short story anthology series Dangerous Visions; and served as creative consultant/writer to the science fiction TV series The New Twilight Zone and Babylon 5.

Several of his short fiction pieces have been made into movies, such as the classic "The Boy and His Dog".

Reviews

[Craig · Rating 3 out of 5]

Getting in the Wind is one of four collections that Ellison published quite late in his career that brought back into print stories written very early in his career. The stories are about juvenile delinquents and crime and sex (quite tame by more modern criteria) and are, for the most part, kind of clumsy and florid and lacking in the artistry and finesse for which his remarkable career was renowned. Instead of stories like Delusion for a Dragon Slayer or The Deathbird, Getting in the Wind includes tasty fare such as The Girl With the Horizontal Mind, God Bless the Ugly Virgin, and Gang Girl. Everybody had to start somewhere, right? One example of clumsiness is to be found in Dead Wives Don't Cheat, originally published under the pseudonym of John Magnus. A man kills his unfaithful wife, sails away with a suitcase full of loot, and sits in a rubber raft as part of an elaborate escape plan that's supposed to culminate with him being picked up by helicopter and flown away to safety. All good so far. The helicopter appears and the pilot tells him to first send up the bag, and then he can climb up to escape. They have quite a conversation, no radio and long before portable phones, the murderer learns the man with whom his wife had been having her affair was the helicopter pilot, and events proceed as one might imagine. The problem is that there they are, out on the ocean, and there's no explanation as to how they are having this conversation over the noise of the helicopter. I mean, aren't those things noisy? It is, however, interesting to see how Ellison started, developed, and improved, though I suspect only hardcore Ellison fans will really like this one. He contributed an entertaining (and semi-apologetic) introduction to the book, which has a cover featuring an obviously delinquent young man cowering from and being menaced by a young lady wielding a razor knife. It's an entertaining counterpoint to the cover of the first printing of the pseudonymous collection from which many of the stories came (Sex Gang as by Paul Merchant), which portrayed a lingerie clad girl cowering before a gang boy. Anyway, interesting nostalgia and a picture of urban life in the 1950s.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gang Girl was a great 30 page story.

[Craig Childs · Rating 3 out of 5]

For over half a century, the hardest to find book from Harlan Ellison's bibliography was the 1959 short story collection Sex Gang under the pseudonym Paul Merchant. It was published by Nightstand Books, a line of sleaze paperbacks which Ellison was secretly editing for Bill Hamling. It was a last-minute project to fill a hole in the publishing schedule.

In 2012, the author finally agreed to bring the stories back into print. He decided to add some additional material from the same era and turn it into a double-volume set. Getting in the Wind is the second volume and includes a new forward from Ellison.

The front cover depicts a scared, bloodied juvenile delinquent cowering in front of a faceless woman with a switchblade. This is a gender reversal of the original 1959 cover. If you place the covers of Pulling a Train and Getting in the Wind side by side, they form a single painting.

It is fun to see these old chestnuts back in print after sixty years. However, these feel more amateurish than the first volume:

"This is Jackie Spinning" (1959) -- An influential disc jockey backs a singer in whom he has a financial stake, rather than a musician owned by the mob. An interesting crime story; I had no idea how corrupt the recording industry used to be.

"Dead Wives Don't Cheat" (1957) -- An old, overweight millionaire strangles his unfaithful twenty-something-year-old wife. However, he does not realize his getaway pilot is the man who has been schtupping her behind his back. Originally appeared with the byline John Magnus.

"Pride in the Profession" (1966) -- Matthew Carty is the unofficial hangman of the US, and his grisly profession affords him a lifetime of traveling the 50 states and putting to death some very interesting people. But one hanging goes desperately awry after he meets his victim face to face. A fun satire.

"Portrait of the Artist as a Zilch Writer" (1959) -- A young writer's only opportunity to break into print is to write sleaze, but he doesn't know how. By way of training, a beautiful secretary initiates him into the mysteries of physical love. This is Ellison poking fun at Nightstand and, by extension, the novels his friends Robert Silverberg, Lawrence Block, and Don Westlake were writing at the time. Originally "The Lady Had Zilch".

"God Bless the Ugly Virgin" (1957) -- Katy Pascal has a "fantastically proportioned body" and a homely face. She attempts to lose her V-card with a rugged trucker at a roadside diner, with unpredictable results. Originally "The Ugly Virgin".

"A Blue Note for Bayou Betty" (1958) -- A dark-skinned beauty pursues a pale-haired cornet player in hopes he will murder her rich husband. A trite attempt to mimic James M. Cain's classic trope. Originally "Bayou Sex Cat" by Derry Tiger.

"Gang Girl" (1956) -- Julie wants nothing to do with street gangs, until she falls in love with Puff. Now she is an initiate to the Cavaliers Debs auxiliary, but will they survive their feud with the crosstown Eagles?

"The Girl with the Horizontal Mind" (1958) -- A window washer peeps a pretty girl changing in her room. She pretends to be offended, but it is only prelude to her all-consuming voyeurism. Originally “The Gal with the Horizontal Mind” by Price Curtis.
 
"An Episode of Sunbathers" (1959) – Purvis Gregory becomes a local legend at the nudist colony: “Some men have a talent for sculpture, some for trawling, some for baking. Purvis Gregory’s talent was the most powerful single force for home-breaking the world had ever known.“ Also published as "The Pied Piper of Sex" and "The Pied Piper of Love."

"Carrion Flesh" (1959) – A mobster inspects the goods at a bordello, needing to select only the highest quality girls to promote into the Syndicate cathouse. Originally "Wanted: Two Trollops"

"The Silence of Infidelity" (1957) -- A married man on a grocery run spies an alluring woman standing at the bus stop. They do not speak. Their eyes meet, then they simply walk to her apartment and begin a longstanding, life-defining affair. I am not sure if this story is supposed to support the idea of love at first sight, or maybe it is intended to affirm the fundamental animalism of the human species. Either way, it features a memorable circumstance. Originally "Sin Time".

[Luke Crawford · Rating 5 out of 5]

But some of it was just plain fun. "Portrait of the artist as a Zilch" was my favorite; Imagine the silliest of the self-insert erotica you've read on the internet, and then imagine if the same story was told by a really top-end writer. Yeah. Exactly that much fun.

His "teenage gang" stories in this volume are even less to my taste than those in the previous, but most of the other stuff was pretty great. I mean, some of it was context; he had a 'gay gangster' story that within the context of the '50s, as I understand it, would have been a really shocking reveal, but in the context of today, it kinda loses it's punch.

But yes, overall, the collection is a solid five stars and a great way to spend an afternoon.

[Chas Andrews · Rating 4 out of 5]

Straight-up pulp fiction from the noted carmudgeon and sci-fi writer Harlan Ellison. Worth the read if you enjoy his work.

[Steve Klemz · Rating 3 out of 5]

A recent release of Harlan's early stories from the 50's, mostly written for men's magazines. Likely only of interest to Harlan Junkies. You might get a kick out of what was considered risque stuff at the time.

[David Allen · Rating 3 out of 5]

More early stories by Ellison, these with more of a noir bent, but still pulpy and often silly. He writes a satire of sex stories -- about a writer trying to learn to write sex stories -- that's still kind of sexy, and he tells the tale of a homely waitress trying to lose her virginity to a shy trucker. "Gang Girl," told from the point of view of a gang deb, is the print equivalent of a Shangri-La's song like "I Can Never Go Home Anymore." Gloriously inessential.

[Randy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another collection of early Ellison.

These stories were all published over a ten year period, mid-fifties to mid-sixties, in men's magazines of the period. Considered risque at the time, they are rather mild compared to today's fiction.

But they are Harlan Ellison's work as a young man trying to put food on the table for his family.

Worth a look.

[Kevin Braswell · Rating 5 out of 5]

love the lil' fella