Sat 3 Feb 2018
Stories I’m Reading: CORNELL WOOLRICH “Vampire’s Honeymoon.”
Posted by Steve under Pulp Fiction , Stories I'm Reading[4] Comments
CORNELL WOOLRICH “Vampire’s Honeymoon.” Lead story in the collection Vampire’s Honeymoon, Carroll & Graf, paperback original, 1985. First published in Horror Stories, August-September 1939.
First of all, there’s a reason why this story wasn’t reprinted until the C&G paperback collection came along, almost 50 years after its first appearance in a what’s called a weird menace or “shudder pulp.” It really isn’t very good.
The title tells it all, or nearly so. A man, a well-educated fellow, goes to a party engaged to one girl, and leaves with another — a beautiful woman who he meets on a fourth-floor terrace as she seems about to jump — or float? — off. No one knows who she is, nor did anyone see her enter.
They are engaged the next day and are soon married. The husband, as it turns out, is not the brightest bulb in the box. He cannot figure out why is suddenly afflicted with anemia, with small bites in his neck. Large mosquitoes, he tells the doctor. We the reader know better.
All of the standard tropes about vampires are part and parcel of this tale: his new wife cannot be seen in mirrors, she stays inside in bed all day, is immune to bullets, and I’m sure I’m not giving anything away by telling you that a wooden stake is part of how the story ends.
The story isn’t totally simplistic — Woolrich was too good a writer for that to be true — but it only hints at creepiness and once read, I doubt that anyone will remember it more than a day later. The other stories in the collection, all fairly long, may be better, and you may find me talking about them on this blog as time goes on.
For the record, though, in case I don’t, their titles are “Graves for the Living,” “I’m Dangerous Tonight,” and “The Street of Jungle Death.” I may be mistaken, but I don’t believe that any of these are vampire stories.
February 4th, 2018 at 2:46 am
I reviewed “I’m Dangerous Tonight” recently here, it’s about a haunted dress, haute couture, and dope smugglers. Much better and more like Woolrich than “Vampire’s Honeymoon”, though I would argue brains weren’t a big item on the list for Woolrich protagonists.
February 4th, 2018 at 11:32 am
I don’t know how, David, but I’d totally forgotten your review of “I’m Dangerous Tonight.” The title sounded familiar, but that puzzled me, since I knew I’d never read it. Mystery solved!
Here’s the link:
https://mysteryfile.com/blog/?p=52806
February 4th, 2018 at 8:58 am
“Graves for the Living” is one of Woolrich’s better efforts in this vein.
February 4th, 2018 at 11:44 am
And Woolrich later expanded “The Street of Jungle Death” into the novel BLACK ALIBI, which in turn was adapted into the movie THE LEOPARD MAN.
There’s no getting around it. “Vampire’s Honeymoon” is the weakest story in the C&G collection. I’m sure the only reason it was used as the lead story was to cash in on how well horror fiction paperbacks were doing at the time. (And note how the cover has nothing to do with the story.)