but they were almost always ambiguous—illusions,
psychological disorders, or simply odd events left
unexplained, suspended somewhere between the
rational and the irrational. One of the few with a
genuinely magical element is “The Enormous
Radio,” a deceptively quiet story with a hint of
humor, although it quickly develops into a simmer-
ing nightmare.
Jim and Irene Westcott are an ordinary upper-
middle-class couple with two children, a happy
home life, and no apparent financial problems
who are united by a common love of music, which
they listen to avidly on their aging radio. When
that instrument finally fails, Jim orders a new one,
a modern device which—common at the time the
story was written—is a piece of furniture in itself,
free-standing and dominating. Irene takes an in-
stant dislike to it, considering it ugly and an in-
truder in her carefully decorated home. To her, the
lights on the instrument panel seem “malevolent.”
When she finally turns it on and adjusts the vol-
ume to her satisfaction, she is quite pleased with
the quality, although as the minutes pass she be-
comes aware of an increasing level of interference,
which she finally realizes is in response to the op-
eration of any electrical device in either her own
or nearby apartments. Jim is similarly discon-
certed, and a repairman arrives the following day
to adjust the set.
The interference disappears, but now they are
able to eavesdrop on conversations taking place
elsewhere in the building. Sometimes they can rec-
ognize the voices or guess the identity of the
speakers through context; at other times it is a
complete mystery. They are amused initially and
feel very little guilt about invading the privacy of
their neighbors, but Irene becomes obsessed and
can barely tear herself away. Her mood switches to
a steadily deepening depression. The more she lis-
tens, the more she hears of illness, bad luck, quar-
rels, worries, and occasional violence. What she
hears begins to influence her reactions to other
people in the building, even strangers, and then to
other people in general.
Jim becomes disturbed by the change in her
demeanor, particularly when she urges him to con-
firm that they are immune to the petty jealousies,
animosities, and misfortunes that affect their neigh-
bors, but her despondency triggers a reaction in her
husband, who reveals a series of complaints about
her behavior and criticisms of her lifestyle. By
dwelling on the unhappiness of others, Irene has
ruined her own life. The radio’s strange power is
never explained, but there are sufficient hints in
the text to tell us that it is not just mischance, that
it is an instrument of evil with a definite, although
unstated, purpose. The story reveals the quiet hell
that lives within even the most peaceful exterior.Etchison, Dennis(1943– )
Dennis Etchison’s quietly chilling horror stories
rarely involve the familiar monsters and menaces
of the genre. His terrors often originate in subtle
changes to the familiar or strange impulses taken
to extremes. Kitchen appliances perform in strange
ways, or a salesman’s pitch seems just slightly too
odd to be comfortable. Most of his stories have an
urban setting, usually California, and he has a gen-
uine talent for creating imperfect but believable
characters and then subjecting them to horrifying
events. His horrors can originate in as mundane an
activity as cleaning a car or involve some bizarre
extreme such as stolen human organs. Among his
many exceptional stories are “The Dark Country”
(1981), a World Fantasy Award winner, “Inside the
Cackle Factory” (1998), “You Can Go Now”
(1980), “One of Us” (2002), and “The Woman in
Black” (1984). The best collections of Etchison’s
work are The Dark Country(1982), Red Dreams
(1984), The Blood Kiss(1988), and Talking in the
Dark(2001).
Etchison’s novels are generally less successful
than his short fiction and usually involve an external
threat to an entire family group rather than a single
individual. Darkside (1986), his best book-length
work, describes the agitation of a man and his family
whose lives begin to fall apart when they inadver-
tently cross paths with a bizarre cult. Their daughter
is transformed into an inhuman creature, and similar
fates may await them all unless they can understand
the rules and find a way to counter the otherworldly
forces that surround them. A bitter man and a trou-
bled child psychologist are drawn into a terrifying
and unsettling series of mysteries in Shadow Man
(1993), eventually discovering the existence of aEtchison, Dennis 109