If you’ve been reading the Quick 10s for a while, you know that I have a fascination with horror movies and Halloween and all things creepy. So when I saw The Book of Lists: Horror, it seemed like a no-brainer to add it to my ever-growing collection of trivia books. Scary stuff plus lists?! C’mon! I’ll no doubt share more of these lists as we get closer to Halloween (only 93 days, you know), but for now, here’s one to tide you over at least until Fall gets here.
1. Winston Churchill. Yep, before he was a politician and world leader, Winston Churchill was a writer and journalist. Man Overboard was published in the Harnsworth Journal in the late 1890s, when Churchill was in his 20s. An example of his writing: “A startled brain suggested the word ‘Help!’ and he bawled this out lustily and with frantic effort six or seven times without stopping. Then he listened.”
You can read the whole thing here, if you like – it’s not very long.
2. John Lennon. Beatles fans probably already know this. Lennon penned several books of short stories and poems and musings, and in his first, In His Own Write, there’s a little number called “No Flies on Frank.” Frank murders his wife and then wonders why she is covered in flies and he isn’t. Then he delivers the corpse to his mother-in-law and laments that she didn’t invite him in for tea.
3. Truman Capote. Of course he wrote In Cold Blood, which was horrific due to the fact that those events actually occurred. But Capote also wrote horror fiction on at least one occasion. “Miriam” is a short story about a woman who is pestered by a little girl who shares her name. The girl keeps popping up at strange times, making larger and larger demands and eventually announces that she is moving in. There’s no gore, but the story is more than a little chilling, nonetheless. It’s another quick read if you’re looking to kill some time.
4. F. Scott Fitzgerald. If you saw the recent movie with Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett you might not consider The Curious Case of Benjamin Button to be scary, exactly. But the original short story definitely has some supernatural elements to it that make the reader stop and wonder exactly how Mr. Button got into his peculiar state.
5. Edith Wharton. She’s usually known for her depressing tales, not her scary ones – The House and Mirth, Ethan Frome and The Age of Innocence among them. But Wharton also had a taste for the macabre, which she revealed in several stories: “Afterwards,” “The Triumph of the Night” and “The Ghost-Feeler” are just a few. What’s more, Wharton believed in the supernatural and refused to sleep in a room with books of ghost stories and destroyed any that entered her house.
6. Tennessee Williams. “Desire and the Black Masseur” is so chilling that a horror anthologist has called it the most terrifying tale he has ever read. We know Williams has a bit of a dark side anyway, based on his other works, but this one with masochistic overtones is downright disturbing. A man becomes goes to a masseur on a regular basis to get a massage, and every time he goes, the massage gets more intense, almost painful. You can probably see where this is going… let’s just say the man would have loved Annie Wilkes from Misery.
7. John Steinbeck. You’re going to think I’m making this up, but it’s the truth: Steinbeck, the same man who brought us The Grapes of Wrath, East of Eden and Of Mice and Men wrote a horror story about… bubble gum. I’m dead serious. “An Affair at 7 Rue de M-“ is about a writer who is distracted by his son constantly chomping on bubble gum. But it turns out that young John can’t stop chewing on the gum – no matter what he does to get rid of it, the gum finds its way back into his mouth. The father and son duo do everything they can to destroy it, but nothing works… until the father places the wad of goo under a bell jar and cements it to a table. It takes a week, but the gum finally “dies.”
8. Paul Gallico. He was probably best known for the movie based on one his novels – The Poseidon Adventure, but he was quite a prolific man. I guess with 41 books, lots of short stories, twenty movies, twelve T.V. movies, and one T.V. series, it’s probably not too shocking that at least one horror story slipped in. “The Terrible Story” is about a man who hates people, but loves his computer. I mean, loves his computer. As the HAL 9000 and T2 have taught us, it’s best not to trust machines too much…
9. Raymond Chandler. As the man who brought us private eye Philip Marlowe, maybe it’s not that much of a surprise that Chandler’s “The Bronze Door” also involves an investigator, but unlike the Marlowe stories, this tale takes a supernatural twist: anyone who walks through the Bronze Door is never seen again.
10. Evelyn Waugh. You likely know him for 1945’s Brideshead Revisited, one of Time magazine’s 100 “All-Time” novels. “The Man Who Liked Dickens.” I won’t totally spoil the story for you, in case you want to check it out sometime, but it comes down to Dickens or death. It inspired Waugh’s full-length tale A Handful of Dust.
Do you have a favorite chilling tale? Do share – I’m getting in the mood for the macabre!
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Another surprising horror writer is Drew Carey.
I read his autobiography, “Dirty Jokes and Beer” in Jr High, and at the end he has a collection of short stories. The horror one is about Drew plotting to kill his terrible roommate who gets worse after stealing Drew’s girlfriend.
posted by JetaN on 7-29-2009 at 4:39 pm
The Lottery—Shirley Jackson’s classic
posted by Ken on 7-29-2009 at 5:43 pm
Oh yeah, The Lottery is a wonderful short read.
http://www.classicshorts.com/stories/lotry.html
posted by Johnny Cat on 7-29-2009 at 7:24 pm
Ken, what makes Shirley Jackson a surprising horror writer? That was her best known work.
posted by Jeffrey on 7-29-2009 at 7:43 pm
Jeffrey–I think Stacy just meant “chilling” in general, not necessarily from a surprising source. ;)
Poe’s always been a favorite of mine. When I was in middle school, I subscribed to Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. Totally dorky, but I love it.
reCaptcha: handle sonny
posted by Allison on 7-29-2009 at 9:29 pm
I’m completely hooked on Richard Matheson right now. Try ‘I Am Legend’ not the wretched movie, but the vampire book. Scary stuff!
posted by Kathleen Kaufman on 7-30-2009 at 12:28 am
The Yellow Wallpaper, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, has always been a favorite.
I also love \The Lonely Places\, although I can’t recall the author.
posted by susan on 7-30-2009 at 9:29 am
@Susan – Thanks for calling out “The Yellow Wallpaper”, it’s a phenomenally scary story. Gilman’s description of the paper is so creepy, it literally chilled me.
I’d also recommend Stephen King’s (I know, I know, but he’s a best seller for a reason) “Everything’s Eventual” – it has fourteen short stories that are total page turners.
posted by OkieMelissa on 7-30-2009 at 10:34 am
William Shakespeare. That’s right. The Bard can creep you the hell out. Macbeth, for example, is a chilling tale of unquenchable lust for power including witches, ghosts, and an army of trees. This play most certainly inspired The Tell-Tale Heart. Also check out Titus Andronicus, which is less suspense and more bloodbath, includes rape, cutting off of hands, cutting out a tongue, hanging, and cannibalism. I would also hazard to say the Rape of Lucrece, one of his long poems, is suspenseful from the perspective of a rapist.
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wtf?
posted by Matt R. on 7-30-2009 at 10:47 am
I actually just wrote a literary critic on The Lottery for a class I was in. Also love Yellow Wallpaper. And I definitely second Everything’s Eventual by Stephen King. It creeped me out, and that takes a lot. Now about I Am Legend, I liked the movie better. But some of Richard Matheson’s other short stories are really creepy. Also, I would suggest The Road by Cormac McCarthy.
posted by Nicole on 7-30-2009 at 11:26 am
Hey Stacy, I loved reading the stories you put links up to! In fact, I have an awful lot of down-time in my job, and I pass it by reading short horror stories online at horrormasters.com. I have a link for one of the stories I read yesterday–I can’t quite put my finger on what I liked about it, but I did enjoy it very much!
http://www.horrormasters.com/Text/a0780.pdf
posted by Ophelia on 7-30-2009 at 11:52 am
One of my favorite suspenseful books is Intensity by Dean Koontz. Talk about a page-turner! I was shaking when I finished it.
posted by Kelly on 7-30-2009 at 12:46 pm
“Picnic at Hanging Rock,” by Joan Lindsay. The book is a little more disturbing than the movie, but unfortunately more difficult to find, as well.
posted by Julia on 7-30-2009 at 2:20 pm
“1408″ by Steven King was terrifying, but I don’t think I’ve ever been as scared as I was during the last 100 pages of “The Shining”
Loved the Yellow Wallpaper, and Edgar Allen Poe is a particular favorite of mine.
posted by Megan on 7-30-2009 at 2:29 pm
I LOVE the Yellow Wallpaper, it is completely fasinating. This was a great list and i did enjoy reading the two shorts.
thank you for the post.
posted by Jennifer on 7-30-2009 at 3:24 pm
“An Affair at 7 Rue de M-” isn’t horror, it’s a comedy! I read it in “Bennett Cerf’s Book of Laughs”.
posted by MetFanMac on 7-30-2009 at 4:18 pm
Roald Dahl. The Landlady is one of the scariest short stories I have ever read.
posted by Kelsey on 8-2-2009 at 2:22 am
Graham Greene. He has a short story named “The End of the Party” which ending is so haunting you’ll be shuddering for days. It’s about some twins that share a telepathic link and one of them is afraid of the dark. Then they have to go to a party where it’s scheduled to play hide-and-seek… in the dark.
Read it if you can find it. It’s a masterpiece.
Other writers that sometimes produce extraordinary horror works:
Luigi Pirandello, Guy de Maupassant, Arthur Conan Doyle, Carlos Fuentes, Arreola and Dickens.
posted by maritzac on 8-6-2009 at 1:38 pm
“Dune Roller” by Julian May: one of the scariest stories ever.
posted by ironjade on 8-31-2009 at 10:58 am
why is it that short stories always come out long?
posted by the lorackian idiot on 1-26-2010 at 10:57 pm
“The House Next Door” by Anne Rivers Siddons. Whenever I read it, I am haunted for days. The movie was not as good (especially since Lara Flynn Boyle annoys me to no end).
“The Lottery” is a doozy, too.
posted by Julie on 1-25-2012 at 12:32 pm
And “Fall on Your Knees” by Ann- Marie MacDonald. It is not a horror story (more of a family saga), but haunting nonetheless. I read it once and I don’t think I can ever read it again.
posted by Julie on 1-25-2012 at 12:34 pm