Werewolves discussion

Greetings fellow werewolf afficionados. I want to try to get this group going again with either four or six times per year group reads. We currently have not had anything going for about a year. Therefore, I thought I would select a short classic to get the ball rolling.

I wanted an uncontroversial, guaranteed success to begin, but I may have failed. Reviews of this book are all over the place. I'm curious to find out why. So I decided not to switch it out for another classic. This book may suck. It may be great. I have no idea. But you can't say you haven't been warned, or that you've been promised this book is a winner.

The work, some call it a novella, others say novel, is in the public domain. There is therefore probably a way to access a copy for free. I paid $2.99 for the Kindle version. That's about the price for a single gallon of gas now. I can afford to take the chance in order to have a copy of a classic in my e-Library.

I hoped there might be a Wikipedia article on this book I could link folks to, but surprisingly there isn't. That, or I couldn't find it. So I will link you to the article on the book that sold me on wanting to read it. It's a bit geeky and goes hard into the story's weird fiction roots, something I try not to bring up in this group since I know weird fiction is not to everyone's taste. But read it for yourself if you want to know something about this book before taking the plunge: https://deepcuts.blog/2022/04/09/the-...

Discussion of this book can begin at this topic any time. We'll end it May 15, since our voted upon group read will start May 16. Welcome back, everyone!!!

I am a quarter of the way into this novella and astonished at just how good it is. If you decide to read this, I recommend forgoing finding a free public domain version. The $2.99 Kindle version linked to in this topic has a highly informative introduction by the editor and he placed ancillary materials after the Harper Williams' novella that sound of interest for us werewolf fans.

So, if you're curious what the story is about, I'll write a little of that now. This young doctor just graduated and needs a bit of a break before opening his practice. He finds a placement as a substitute country doctor for another doctor eager to leave his family practice for three months or so. The young doctor applies and is immediately accepted. The doctor he is replacing seems eager, maybe even too eager to depart. Why is that? And there are some odd things people are doing and saying in this remote backwater town. What is going on?

This story is a slow and really effective build as we get to know the characters and the situation. It's masterfully told in a style that's direct and thoroughly competent. Great stuff!

Oh, and some reviews are saying, like, it's questionable a werewolf is involved, or unclear somehow. I don't know what story they're reading! There's no question in my mind this is 100% a werewolf story. I don't need to see a transmogrification to know one has taken place!

I finished the fairly long novella. My review is here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show....

One refreshing thing about this novella is that it was made before The Wolf Man (1941), the Lon Chaney, Jr. film which locked in most of the lore we associate today with what a werewolf is and how it can be defeated. Some of that is in this book, of course, the involuntary conversion at full moons, the claws and lack of memory, etc., even silver bullets.

Here is one synopsis I like: "Dr. Haverill is asked to fill in as local physician for the skittish Dr. Lennox in a small Pennsylvania town. The locals seem to be a superstitious bunch, prone to fearing traveling in the woods at night and with good reason. It seems a series of vicious attacks have occurred by what appears to be some kind of large animal. As the bodies begin to pile up, Dr. Haverill starts to question whether the responsible party could be something beyond humanity."

I guess it's that we never see that much of this werewolf that makes this story so different and appealing to a weird fiction audience. It leaves a lot of unanswered questions, but not important ones.

Sounds very interesting, I was going to start a new book, called High Moor but maybe I'll go to this.

I'm glad I read it. It was interesting on its own terms, but it's also an important werewolf work for the history of werewolf writing given that it was earlier than the 1940s films that solidified so much of how we now think of werewolves.