Unfortunately, just as Wrede began to be rec-
ognized for her considerable talents, she also be-
came much less productive. Other than “Stronger
Than Time” (1994), most of her short fiction has
been minor, usually set in worlds shared with other
writers. Her only collection is Book of Enchantments
(1996).
Wright, T. M. (1947– )
The premise of most of T. M. Wright’s novels is
that the world as we know it conceals secrets that
only occasionally surface, but when they do those
who perceive the underlying truth are forever
changed. He established this with his first novel,
Strange Seed(1978), whose protagonist is newly
married and lives in a house surrounded by dense
woods. To her dismay her husband begins to re-
treat into his own interior world at the same time
that she begins to catch glimpses of mysterious
children playing in the woods, except she is not en-
tirely sure that they really are children. Wright
added two loose sequels. The site of the first novel
has been cleared and turned into a housing project
in Nursery Tale(1982). One of the new tenants is a
woman who experiences a series of visions, includ-
ing some involving ghosts, which she initially be-
lieves to be illusions brought on by her pregnancy.
When the neighbors’ children begin to disappear,
one of the ghosts reveals the truth, that they were
victims of an inhuman race to whom the area is sa-
cred. The Children of the Island(1983) is even more
explicit. The childlike figures are actually the rem-
nants of an ancient race that lived in Manhattan
whose survivors have concealed themselves from
humanity for generations.
The Woman Next Door(1981) is similarly un-
settling. Another happily married woman notices
that people near her have been changing ever
since a new neighbor moved in. Her son’s imagi-
nary playmate has become more aggressive, her
husband has started acting flirtatiously with other
women, and the new neighbor seems to know
things she could not possibly have learned in the
normal course of things. Wright seemed content to
reshuffle similar images and themes for his next
few novels as well. The Playground(1982) involves
evil children, real ones this time, in this case pos-
sessed by demons after some of the adults in the
area unwisely experimented with the occult.
Carlisle Street(1983) also involves ghostly children,
but Wright seemed to have exhausted the possible
variations of his usual theme, and after a strong
opening, the novel wanders awkwardly toward its
ending. On the other hand, A Manhattan Ghost
Story(1984) is remarkably effective, one of his best
novels, placing enigmatic ghosts in an urban set-
ting and avoiding most of the clichés of that form.
The Waiting Room(1986), which has a very similar
theme, is even better and is still his single most im-
pressive work. One of the characters inadvertently
crosses the border between the living and the
dead, although still alive, and seeks help in order
to return fully to the world of the living.
Wright employed more conventional themes
for some of his novels during this period, producing
competent but unmemorable stories such as The
People of the Dark(1985), which involves another
haunted place, and two werewolf novels under the
name F. W. Armstrong, The Changing(1985) and
The Devouring(1987). The first of these innova-
tively has the creature choosing his victims from
among the members of middle management, but
the treatment is otherwise conventional. Island
(1988) is another story of a bad place, in this case
a remote lake. The Place(1989), his weakest novel,
involves a standard serial killer and a potential vic-
tim who is psychically linked to him.
His next novel was more experimental, a trend
that has continued. In Boundaries(1990), the pro-
tagonist is robbed of closure when the murderer of
his sister commits suicide. Determined to discover
what caused her death, he uses an experimental
drug to penetrate into the land of the dead. Wright
used the same concept in reverse for Goodlow’s
Ghosts(1993), in which a murdered man’s spirit re-
turns to solve the mystery of his own death. The
School(1990) is something of a return to his begin-
ning, following the efforts of two people to reopen a
school that is haunted by the ghosts of children.
The Last Vampire(1991) is not entirely success-
ful but has an interesting concept. A vampire 50
years from now, reflects on the possibility that he
may be the last of his kind in a world of humans.
Little Boy Lost(1992) is a somewhat murky novel
about an archaeologist whose family undergoes a392 Wright, T. M.