Halloween Week Reading Part Three

The Saga of the Bloody Benders - Rick Geary.  My last read for October was a nonfiction graphic novel about one of the most horrific, chilling chapters in American history. The Bender family, consisting of two old people and their grown daughter and son were supposed to be immigrants from Germany. They settled in the southeastern corner of Kansas in Labette County, and set up a grocery store/inn. Unfortunately, the Benders were serial killers, luring travelers, murdering them and stealing their goods. When there were too many unexplained disappearances and suspicion fell on the Benders, they disappeared and the grisly remains of their victims were found in the cellar. Large sums of cash and goods that could be directly linked to the deceased were also discovered.  No one is sure what became of the notorious family, although rumors persisted, chiefly about Kate, the beautiful and outgoing daughter, who was seen as the main instigator.

As usual, Rick Geary has done impeccable research, retelling the story with the help of several sources. Old photos helped him bring the lonely Kansas plains of the 1870s to life, as well as the faces of the evil Benders and the unlucky people who encountered them.

According to an appendix in Pioneer Girl, Laura Ingalls Wilder's autobiography, Charles Ingalls (Pa)  came close to being one of the unlucky ones. When he was returning from Independence with a heavy load on his wagon, Kate offered him room and board. In this story, Pa was tired, but decided to press on. A little later, the Benders were found out and on the lam and Pa allegedly joined the band of vigilantes in pursuit.

The editor of Pioneer Girl, Pamela Smith Hill, asserts that this anecdote is probably pure fiction cooked up by Laura and her daughter/editor Rose, to make Laura's reminisces a little edgier (This was when Pioneer Girl was still being shopped around as a book for adults).

Research proved that the Benders and the Ingallses weren't in Kansas at the same time, nor would Pa have gone by the Benders' inn because it would have been too much out of his way. Still, it is interesting to see how this heinous bunch fired Laura's imagination even sixty years after hearing about them and fascinating to contemplate the most wholesome family in pioneer America crossing paths with their polar opposite.

Halloween Week Reading Part One

This year, I have really tried to get into the spirit of the season. Here's what is on my recently read shelf:

Salem's Lot - Stephen King.  #SalemAlong I love the way King took his time describing this small town in Maine, slowly and quietly introducing the horror.  The Marsten house is a homage to Shirley Jackson. This story of vampires is now among my favorites from Uncle Stevie.  I'll never forget it. Upon finishing the novel,  I felt...changed in some way...

Hangsaman -Shirley Jackson

It's October, and I'm starting to feel in the mood for a creepy read, but a very particular creepy read.

 If I had a copy, I'd reread Hangsaman, a 1951 novel by the incomparable Shirley Jackson.   Hangsaman, which gets its title from the 15th century ballad "The Gallows Tree" , is about a shy college freshman named Natalie Waite who seems to be losing her already tenuous grip on reality. After a few weeks at school, she meets a girl named Tony and they get along great.  Natalie is blissful, but there's something odd about Tony.

After We Have Always Lived In The Castle and Life Among the Savages, this is my favorite Shirley Jackson book.  But the covers of successive editions make me crabby.  No one ever gets it just right.  Not like they do with Castle.  That one has seen one excellent cover after another.  The edition of Hangsaman pictured above seems to take things a little too literally.

This cover fits more with the spirit of the story, but it's got a 1960s feel.  It's all psychedelic, man, and wow. Yeah, maybe some magic mushrooms would take away those awkward late-adolescent blues.

This is where I start snickering, but I'm wearing my annoyed face, too. The girl in the cover has Jacqueline Kennedy hair and pointy breasts and she's being blown backward towards a forbidding Gothic structure.  It's like the illustrator got mixed up and drew for The Haunting of Hill House, a novel Jackson wrote several years later.  The background and lettering is the obligatory slime green and aqua that you see on so many Phyllis A. Whitney covers.

Out of all the covers, I like this one the best.  Red and black, and a partially destroyed Tarot card.  Suggested twistedness is always the best.  I could be happy with this copy.  So would Shirley Jackson.

Scary Books

It's already Halloween here (a fact which means almost nothing to the Koreans), so I thought I'd write about books that have scared me. There aren't that many -- either I'm not reading the right stuff, or I don't scare easily.

In elementary school, a novel called Jane-Emily scared me mightily. My 6th grade teacher, Mrs. Lemmon, read it aloud. That woman knew how to get ominous! I was awake at night most of the next few weeks. Evertime a branch scratched against the screen on the window, I was convinced that Emily was there to do me malevolent harm. I buried my head under the covers and wondered how to mollify a ghost.

When I was in middle school I had a book called 50 Great Ghost Stories that I enjoyed reading by flashlight. The story about Anne Boleyn walking around the castle with her head tucked under her arm was a little too much for me, though. After reading it once, I couldn't even flip past the page with the small pen-and-ink illustration.

As an adult, a novel that creeped me out was Bad Ronald by John Holbrook Vance (also known as Jack Vance, the science-fiction writer). Around the same time, I read a true crime book called The Stranger Beside Me by Ann Rule. Also around this time, my first husband was taking a lot of business trips. You'd think I would've been more judicious about what I was reading right before bed, alone in a dark house except for a toddler.

The Exorcist irritated me and made me laugh in equal measure. The Haunting Of Hill House by Shirley Jackson, who is one of my all-time favorite authors, didn't really scare me, although I did enjoy the story. (I even read it the proper way -- on Halloween night, several years ago.)

I'm thinking of trying The Turn Of The Screw by Henry James. I've heard that it's chillingly effective. What books have almost literally scared the crap out of you?