Anyway…
For better or worse, hardly anyone had an opportunity to see this remarkable cover. Out Are The Lights was the second book of my three-book contract with Warner. (The Cellar preceded that contract.) Since Lights followed the fiasco of The Woods Are Dark, it barely got published at all.
I do know it was published, however. I once saw a few copies in a drug store.
Actually, records indicate that the Warner edition sold about 28,000 copies. I think that’s very good for an invisible book.
But it was the end of the line for me and Warner Books.
We mutually agreed that my three-book contract would become a two-book contract, and that Out Are the Lights would finish off my relationship with them.
In summary, my encounters with Warner Books resulted in a highly successful edition of The Cellar, a mutilated version of The Woods Are Dark, the walking wounded Out Are the Lights, the carcasses of Take ‘em, The Keepers, Dead Corse, Allhallow’s Eve, Secret Nights, and Beware!, and the destruction of my writing career in the United States of America.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the Atlantic, .the New English Library edition of Out Are the Lights did fine. Foreign language editions have subsequently been published in Spain, France, Russia and Hungary. In 1987, Out Are the Lights was optioned by a film company in Spain. The film, however, was never made.
In 1993, Headline published a hardbound edition of Out Are the Lights. To give the book a little more heft, the novel itself was followed by my stories, “Mess Hall,” “Dinker’s Pond,” “Madman Stan,” “Bad News,” and “The Tub.” Book Club Associates bought 15,000 copies of the hardbound. A paperback version of the same book, including the stories, was published by Headline later in 1993.
NIGHTMARE LAKE
I wrote Nightmare Lake in 1980, finishing it immediately after Out Are the Lights. It wouldn’t be published, however, until 1983.
By the time I wrote Nightmare Lake, I was pretty sure that Scholastic wouldn’t want it.
But I figured someone might. Though the novel was intended for young adults, I wrote it pretty much like any other novel. Obviously, I kept it “clean.”
No sex, no bad language. I tried not to go overboard with the violence, but the story did end up more violent than most novels written for young adults.
It would be my first published vampire novel.
After the “success” of Your Secret Admirer, I thought I might work on parallel careers writing adult horror and young adult thrillers. I wrote it “on spec” without a contract and with no specific publisher in mind. In other words, I just wrote it because I loved the idea.
Nightmare Lake is the father of The Stake.
A couple of teenagers, a brother and sister, are on a family vacation in Wisconsin. Out exploring a lake one day, they visit a small, deserted island with their dog. Fooling around, the brother tosses a stick for the dog to fetch.
It comes back with a stick, all right. But not the same stick the kid had thrown.
This stick is actually a stake plucked by the dog from the ribs of a skeleton.
The skeleton of a vampire?
And so begins a pretty creepy story.
Too creepy for juvenile editors, in fact. My agent, Jay Garon, couldn’t sell it. Then I noticed a mention (I believe in Publishers: Weekly) that Dell was starting the Twilight series scary books for young adults. So I told Garon about it. He submitted my book to them, and they bought it in 1982.
There were problems, though. (Aren’t there always?)
Here are bits from a letter sent to me by the editor:
We must remove or replace any religious references, i.e. the Devil, the monk’s robes and the crosses. Of these, the cross seems to pose the hardest problem.
Manuscript must be shortened to fit specs.
Burt and Sammi come across as the same age. Burt must be made “older.”
The characters are a little flat. Work on atmospheric logistics. Heighten the visual perception of their situations and descriptive reactions; i.e., instead of “I don’t want to think about it,” said Sammi. -try- “I don’t want to think about it,” said Sammi, backing into the corner of the room and sinking into the old battered armchair, -or- “This place gives me the creeps!” she said, as the wet grass lapped against her legs sending chilling drops down into her shoes.
… (and so on)
Don’t let any of that throw you. We like the book very much. We like it so much that we are putting it in the front position in our scheduling.
There were actually two full pages of comments, criticisms and suggestions. Some made sense, but many didn’t. I wrote a three page response, then knuckled down and wrote a major revision of Nightmare Lake.
At some point in all this (possibly when I first wrote the novel, or maybe in response to the criticisms), I wrote an “alternate ending.” In the alternate, the whole story turns out to be nightmare the boy had while taking a nap on the island.
I made it clear that editors could feel free to use the alternate ending as a way to mollify people who might find the book too scary or violent. With the dream ending, we give the illusion that none of the bad stuff actually happened; there’re no such things as vampires; nobody got killed; everything’s fine and dandy, kids it was just a bad old nightmare.
I feel that I redeemed the cop-out factor in my own eyes by throwing a curve (a trite curve, but the best I could do under the circumstances). When the kid wakes up from his nightmare, along comes his dog with a strange stick in its mouth…So is the bad stuff about to start for real?
I am especially fond of Nightmare Lake because it is based so closely on my experiences as a kid when my family went on vacations to Wisconsin. It’s sort of a Nick Adams story as done by Richard Laymon.
Unfortunately, an editor messed with my language. This is my only published book in which significant parts of the writing don’t reflect my own style.
I was paid an advance of $5,500 for Nightmare Lake. The book was published as Twilight #11 in 1983 and sold (so far as the royalty statements indicate) a total of 53,505 copies.
It has never been reprinted anywhere and is very hard for readers to find.
As a result of doing this piece on Nightmare Lake, I’ve taken steps to get the rights reverted to me. Maybe “my version” of the book will be published one of these days.
ALLHALLOWS EVE
Though Allhallow’s Eve was first published in 1985, after both Night Show and Beware!, I actually wrote it before either of those novels. I wrote Allhallow’s Eve in 1980 after finishing Out Are the Lights and Nightmare Lake.
As of 1980, I’d been working for several years as a library clerk, then as the librarian (or media specialist) at John Adams Junior High School in Santa Monica.
And it shows.
I have just reread Allhallow’s Eve, and found myself amazed by the details of school life that fill the book. Back in those days, it was all fresh in my mind I was living it daily. I knew first-hand about hall passes, the dangers of the school restrooms, the petty tyranny of the “popular” kids like Aleshia. I saw the viciousness of the bullies like Nate and the vice principal, Mr. Doons. I knew their victims, who spent their school days in terror of being hurt and/or humiliated. And I knew great, caring teachers like Miss Bennett.
Reading the book after so many years, I was surprised to run into Mr. Carlson, who was obviously based on myself. When I ran the library, it was a sanctuary for kids like Eric who were being chased by kids like Nate. I remember them bursting through the library doors during the lunch period. And I remember throwing the bullies out, sometimes with a bit more roughness than was necessary or legal.
Quite possibly, the best thing about Allhallow’s Eve is its accurate portrayal of secondary school the institution and the variety of kids, teachers and administrators who inhabit it.
Structurally, it seems to be a mystery novel. A crime is committed at the beginning of the book and much of the action involves the police trying to fi
gure out who did the dirty deed. The structure also, however, brands it as a horror novel. Almost from the very start, we are being led toward a climactic Halloween party at an old, creepy, abandoned house.
Someone has been fixing it up. Someone has put bars on the windows on the inside.
Inevitably, all hell is going to break loose when everyone is gathered there for the big party.
Re-reading the book yesterday, I actually got the creeps, myself, when I encountered a scene near the end of the book.
A scene involving monkey suits suspended from the window bars.
My overall reaction was a mixture of delight and regret.
Allhallows Eve has a lot going on in it. And that is an understatement. I found myself fascinated by many of the characters and scenes. And by several twists in the plot. I particularly like the ironies. My favorite irony has to do with who “saves the day” to the extent that the day does get saved.
My main regret is that the story is too fast-paced. Every scene shoots by so fast that, if your mind strays for a moment, you might miss something vital. I was an equal opportunity writer; I wrote every scene as if it were just as important as every other scene.
They all seem to have about the same weight.
Why did I write that way? For one thing, I believed (and perhaps still do) in a “deadpan”
approach. I’m just a writer telling what happened. Let the readers decide where the emphasis should go.
Also, however, I was dead-set against boring my readers. I hated to read books in which the writer lingered on detailed descriptions. I wanted them to get on with it.
So I got on with it.
Excessively.
Part of it was the result of self-doubt. I felt that I would lose the interest of my readers if I devoted a little time to character development or if I used more than about one sentence to describe anything.
Dean Koontz pointed this out to me several times during my early years. He told me that I needed more confidence in myself, that I was a good enough writer that I didn’t need to have constant breakneck action, that I should slow down and linger and broaden the scope of my stories.
He was, of course, right.
In Allhallow’s Eve, I plunged forward like a sprinter. But I should’ve strolled. I should’ve lingered with so many of the characters and scenes. Dean always talks about “ringing all the bells.” In this book, I left far too many of the bells unrung.
If I’d written it ten years later, it would’ve been two or three times as long, and possibly twice as good.
But I didn’t.
Allhallow’s Eve is what it is, for better or for worse.
In an interview, I once stated that I would like to do a major revision of Allhallow’s Eve and develop it into the novel it should be.
But I’ve changed my mind about that.
It almost seems as if novels are living creatures. A major revision of an old novel often kills it. Like the critters in Pet Sematary, the resurrected, changed novel doesn’t come back quite right. It comes back without its soul.
If I should ever have an opportunity to rewrite Allhallow’s Eve, I would make very few changes. I might add an extra page here or there to clarify a couple of matters. I would want to get rid of half a dozen printing errors, if possible. (Sam’s name turns into Sun at one point, and years become gears.)
I would definitely omit about a thousand commas. Apparently, in those days, I was comma crazy.
But I wouldn’t tamper with the big stuff.
Allhallow’s Eve has its faults, but it also has its charms. I’d hate to risk killing those.
Whatever charms it might possess, they weren’t apparent to my editors at Warner Books. I shipped the book off to Jay Garon on January 24, 1981. It was supposed to be the third book of my three-book contract, but my editor at Warner rejected it.
It would be published by New English Library in 1991. A year later, a British small press named Kennel would publish a limited edition hardbound without my knowledge or consent but apparently with the blessings of NEL. An oddity of the Kennel edition is that its dust jacket illustration depicts the “Cadillac Desert.” My book has nothing to do with the Cadillac Desert, but I believe that Kennel was also involved with publishing Joe Lansdale, author of the short story, “On the Far Side of the Cadillac Desert With Dead Folks.” Maybe a dust jacket designed for Joe ended up on my novel.
Allhallow’s Eve would be reissued by NEL with a new cover in 1992, and bought by Headline in 1993.
BEWARE!
I started working on Beware! on March 13, 1981 less than two months after finishing Allhallow’s Eve. I finished the first draft approximately three months later, on June 19.
Warner Books rejected it.
Somewhere along the line, Dean Koontz read a copy of the manuscript. At that time, it contained some sort of involved subplot full of international intrigue, or something. Dean gave me a very good piece of advice. He said it’s not a good idea to overload readers with too much stuff that’s far out. My main character was invisible. That’s enough weirdness for one book.
Lose the oddball subplot. (Dean didn’t actually use those words, but that was the jist of his suggestion.) I not only wrote a major revision based on Dean’s advice, but I’ve been keeping it in mind ever since. And I think the revised version of Beware! was a major improvement over the original.
It was bought by New English Library in 1982 (at the same time as Night Show). Because NEL had a backlog of my books, however, Beware! wouldn’t be published until 1985.
I’ve always been a bit surprised that anyone dared to publish it at all.
At book signings, I usually get into conversations with the people who’ve shown up for autographs. To break the ice, and because it interests me a lot, I usually ask fans what they do for a living. They’re normally glad to tell me. But they’re even more eager to tell me which of my books they like the best.
Every so often, the favorite book is Beware!
I usually laugh and say something like, “Uh-oh. Gotta watch out for you! If Beware! your favorite, you must be a pretty weird guy.”
Nowadays, I usually advise the Beware! enthusiast to run out and find a copy of Endless Night.
I haven’t actually studied my books. But my impression is that Beware! and Endless Night are probably my most vicious, nasty excursions into bad behavior.
While Endless Night is about a gang of horrible thrill-killers, Beware! is about just one fellow. He’s a sadistic homicidal maniac hitman rapist who is also invisible.
Though there have been several “invisible man” books and movies, they generally avoid the sort of activities that my guy, Sammy Hoffman, engages in.
Visits to shower rooms, for instance.
And much, much worse.
Sammy Hoffman has no conscience, figures he is invincible, and goes on his merry way doing whatever pops into his sick little mind.
A very unsavory character.
But loads of fun, if you like that sort of thing.
THE LAWMEN
Almost immediately after mailing off Beware!, I started writing The Lawmen. I’d been all set to embark on The Cellar II (Beast House) at the time the contract for The Lawmen arrived on July 14, 1981. The completed manuscript was due on November 15, 1981.
That gave me only four months. I dropped everything else, wrote the book, and sent it Express Mail on November 16, 1981.
The Lawmen, a western novel to be published under the pseudonym Lee Davis Willoughby, was a big detour for me. It would be my first novel to take place entirely in an earlier historical period. It would be, by far, my biggest novel so far. And it would be my first “ghostwriting” job. That is, I would be paid to write under a pseudonym and tell a story conceived by someone else.
My agent, Jay Garon, had arranged the deal. He told me I could earn $10,000 by writing a book for The Making of America series. The series was being packaged by a friend of his, James Bryans (who had once worked with Jim Thompson,
I recently learned) and published by Dell. Garon was asking several of his clients to do books for the series.
At that time, my “real” stuff was getting rejected by Warner Books a little too often and I needed the money. Also, it seemed wise to branch out and try some non-horror material.
Plus, I’d always been a fan of the western genre and was eager for the challenge of making my own contribution to it. So I agreed to write the book.
I was sent a fairly involved plot outline about a real-life Pinkerton man named Charles Siringo who spent many years on the trail of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. My book was supposed to be based on the outline. However, I was encouraged to veer off on my own if I felt the urge.
As a result, I pretty much wrote The Lawmen my way.
I began by doing a lot research. I studied the old west and especially Butch Cassidy and his Hole in the Wall gang. To my chagrin, I discovered that Butch was generally considered to be a very nice, friendly guy.
But I couldn’t let that get in the way of my story.
I turned him into a horrible, murdering sadist.
Though the book is full of real historical characters including most of the well-known members of the Hole in the Wall Gang I threw in a lot of fictional extras. Including a one-eyed psycho named Snake who would’ve been more at home in a horror novel.
I threw in a few plot twists that I think were pretty nifty, too.
I’m especially happy with the book’s ending, which I’ve always thought should include a footnote such as: “With my thanks and apologies to William Goldman.”
The finale of The Lawmen is based on a historical fact.
The fact is this: a couple of outlaws from North America were gunned down in a Shootout with the Bolivian military, but nobody knows for sure who they were. Many people assume they were Butch and Sundance.
But who knows?
While my finale stands on its own, it achieves its real potential by playing off the reader’s familiarity with Goldman’s movie, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.