RICHARD LAYMON 1947 – 2001
GERALD SUSTER 1951 – 2001
When this website, so ably constructed by Chris Reed, was launched I never for a moment thought I'd be posting obituaries here. I find now that I am. I wish it wasn't so. With a tragic co-incidence two horror writers died during February, both at home, both of a heart attack, and both of nearly the same age. Coincidentally, also, I'd only met Richard Laymon and Gerald Suster twice, although I have corresponded with them many times. They were both talented writers. They were both good men.
RICHARD LAYMON
January 14th, 1947 – February 14th 2001
In Britain, particularly, Richard Laymon (a native of Los Angeles) was considered part of the big three in the horror genre. In the same breath, when talking about best-selling horror authors, people would invoke the trinity: King, Koontz and Laymon. Despite his huge success in Britain, Australia and New Zealand for many years, he only began to break into the American horror market in the last couple of years. By all accounts he was beginning to take his homeland buy storm. His novels were being published by Leisure, he'd been elected president of the Horror Writers of America association. In May, 2001 he was to have been a guest of honor at the World Horror Convention in Seattle.
I first met Richard in Atlanta a couple of years ago. I found a very softly spoken and quite a shy man. That didn't stop him being good-natured and friendly. He and his wife, Ann, and daughter Kelly took me under their wings. It was my first US convention and they introduced me to their friends and re-jigged seating arrangements at the mass signing session so I could sit alongside Richard.
In this short space it's hard to compress all the good things Richard Laymon did to help me. He provided a great quote for my second book. He answered my 'new writer on the block' questions fully and with great patience. He chose a story of mine for his Bad News anthology. The man was a good companion and as I write this I can't but help to recall his beaming smile.
He wrote tersely powerful novels – Bite, The Stake, One Rainy Night to name but a few – and a good many short stories. One work that I would urge you to read also, which isn't so well known, is Richard's A Writer's Tale (Deadline Press, 1998). Part autobiography, part writer's manual, it tells you in no uncertain terms what it is really like to become, and to live, as a professional author. Richard describes the heartbreaks and the joys in uncompromising detail. But without a shadow of a doubt he lived the life he wanted to lead: a writer.
GERALD SUSTER
August 2, 1951 – February 4, 2001
The writer Gerald Suster died suddenly of a suspected heart attack in London on 4 February 2001 at the age of 49. Author of such darkly powerful horror novels as The Devil's Maze, The God Game and The Labyrinth of Satan amongst others, this Cambridge educated man was also an expert on the occult, writing a ground-breaking work, Hitler Black Magician, that linked the Nazi dictator to occultists, and a biography of the notorious Aleister Crowley. Despite Gerald Suster's ability to court heated controversy with his views (which were the product of a first class mind and impeccable research), people who knew him will remember a man of great courtesy and warmth that couldn't fail to remind you of Peter Cushing at his most gentlemanly. His last book is a non-fiction investigation of the infamous club The Hell-Fire Friars which was published by Robson Books in October 2000. He is survived by his wife, Michaela.
Perhaps there's still a little inspiration leaking from those old walls because on his return home Simon wrote a short story "The Whitby Experience": a couple visit Whitby one fog-bound Halloween night and find that their holiday isn't as relaxing as they first hoped. It's to be published in the Autumn Dreams anthology by Cemetery Dance later in the year. So, if you get chance, read the story, sleep in Stoker's old bedroom, drink Black Dog beer in an ancient inn, soak up some of that old Whitby magic and you might enjoy the Experience, too.
The blue plaque commemorates Stoker's stay at Royal Crescent, Whitby.
Simon takes a breather while tackling those 58 steps to Stoker's apartment.
5 Royal Crescent, Whitby. Stoker and family stayed in the top floor rooms; these are the three smaller windows – a pale face gazing from one marks the spot.
I arrived in London early to give myself a chance to visit the Museum of the Moving Image on the South Bank. Whilst the buildings look like a 1960s comprehensive school I highly recommend the exhibits in the museum itself. It's a great place to wallow in all that movie and TV nostalgia. After that I had a highly original meal in an Indian restaurant. You picked the dish from a chill cabinet which was then cooked for you, before your very eyes in a microwave oven. Mmmm, presentation was a bit iffy, but the food tasted superb.
A little later I bumped into Ramsey Campbell and Anthony Brown of SFX magazine. Anthony knowing this part of London like the back of his hand took us to a charming pub for a beer or two, while adding mischievously that it's better to be fashionably late.
At last I made it to the Stephen King Party where 700 hundred guests ate tiny spicy things from silver platters, and were served glass after glass of champagne (and if anyone asks me what it's like to drink your own weight in champagne I can say categorically 'It's not big and it's not clever.') Apparently the Freedom Brewing Co. produced bottles of a special BAG OF BONES 'King Lager' to mark the occasion; these were stored in refrigerators where guests could help themselves. Whenever the door opened a container of dry ice decanted an eerie mist across the floor.
A band that included Ken Follet played a medley of blues and rock'n'roll standards. And after Stephen King had spoken a few words of thanks and was presented with a cricket bat, he joined in on guitar.
It was a low key event but the guest list read like a horror's who's who: Michael Marshall Smith, Graham Joyce, Stan Nicholls, Mark Morris, Kim Newman; they were all there, together with, I suspect a good many more, but the champagne induced a certain amount of forgetfulness.
Roll on Mr. King's next trip to the UK!
At around eleven my fellow conspirators arrive, Matt Williams, Tim Lebbon and Mark Samuels. Within moments were walking through the streets of London, guiding our Des to his appointment with destiny. Little does Des know we are springing a surprise birthday party on him. He's hit his half century and everyone we know agrees that something must be done to mark this auspicious event. At the Princess Louise, High Holborn, we lure Des to an upper room – the trap is sprung. Des is flabbergasted as familiar faces turn to beam at him. Loads of people are there. Chris Reed. Manda Thompson, Stephen Jones, Jo Fletcher, Gerald Suster, Paul Pinn, Rhys Hughes, Gary Couzens, Kirk King and many more.
Then an uninvited guest arrives ... To most people this would be startling, even unwelcome, but considering this party is in honour of Des Lewis the stranger is somehow appropriate. Afterall Des has created so many weirdly wonderful characters you can imagine one might slip from the pages of a story of his to walk through the streets, to a pub, up the stairs to a room where people are drinking, eating, talking. So the stranger entered. He certainly turned heads. A man of around thirty-five, wearing a rather neat suit, he had these wild blazing eyes; repeatedly he raised one hand and told people that this was a claw with which he could cut out your eyes. He prowled amongst party goers, repeated his amazing claim of possessing a clawed hand to a smiling bar man. Then he talked to invisible companions for a while before vanishing as mysteriously as he came.
Shortly after that I left Des eating a massive plateful of fish and chips. I cast a final glance back to see him sitting there, chewing, as a slight, almost enigmatic smile, played on his lips. And as I headed for my train home I couldn't help but wonder if the stranger with the invisible clawed hand had really dissolved down to his component molecules on the pavement outside the pub and then been re-admitted to the imagination that had extruded it just moments before.
A whimsical thought maybe. But with the great Des Lewis you never know ...
I'm here to talk to students at Trinity College about writing. They are an incredibly energetic bunch, constantly locking each other into handcuffs (handcuffs seem an essential requirement at the university ... only don't ask me why). I visit the Flying Pig bookshop and chat to one of the proprietors. He asks do I fancy a drink. Behind the counter the kettle is boiling. OK, I reply. Thanks and expect him to ask, 'How many sugars?' Instead he says, 'Back in a minute, watch the shop for us, will you?' He hares off down the street. I wait and wonder what I've done to drive him from the place. Five minutes later he's back, carrying a pint of beer in a glass. Now, that's what I call hospitality.
That's all for now – but I'll be back.