child who somehow traveled forward in large in-
crements because of her affection for the protago-
nist. It was made into a low-key but very effective
film. He used a similar theme in So Love Returns
(1958) and The Wilderness Stone(1960), and al-
though his novels sometimes have a less-than-
happy ending, his are among the first and best of
the time travel romances that have since become
something of a subgenre of their own.
Nathan’s first significant fantasy novel was The
Bishop’s Wife(1928), which was also made into a
popular motion picture. An angel is secretly living
among humans, having answered a prayer from a
bishop who seeks help in building a new cathedral.
The angel falls in love with the man’s wife, causing
an interesting and doomed love triangle. There Is
Another Heaven(1929) is a very loose sequel. An-
gels and demons appear frequently in Nathan’s
work, although it is not always clear that either side
is entirely good or entirely evil. But Gently Day
(1943) is another time travel story with a hint of
paradox, as the traveler interacts with his own an-
cestors. Lucifer makes a visit to a Halloween party
in The Innocent Eve(1951), and death personified
joins a cruise in The River Journey(1949).
The devil changes tactics in The Devil with
Love(1963), another bittersweet romantic comedy,
and Merlin makes an appearance in The Elixir
(1971). In Heaven and Hell and the Megas Factor
(1975), an angel and a devil are forced to make
common cause. Despite the frequent use of the su-
pernatural, the closest Nathan ever came to true
horror was in the very early The Puppet Master
(1923), in which puppets come to life, and the
closest to mainstream fantasy was Sir Henry
(1955), which involves a dragon. In general, how-
ever, his stories are understated, unmelodramatic,
thoughtful, and often sentimental. He is probably
the most underrated American fantasist.
Neiderman, Andrew(1940– )
Andrew Neiderman wrote conventional thrillers be-
fore edging into supernatural horror in the early
1980s, starting with the very marginal Brainchild
(1981) and the much more effective Pin(1981), the
basis for a mediocre horror film. The latter novel it-
self is quite suspenseful, involving an imaginary tutor
invented to help comfort two recently orphaned
children. The tutor begins to take on a malign life of
his own. Four years passed before Neiderman’s next
horror novel, Imp(1985), but that was the first of a
steady stream that appeared through the mid-1980s
and early 1990s. Impis a variation of the devil’s child
story, popularized in ROSEMARY’S BABY1967) by Ira
Levin and THE OMEN(1976) by David Seltzer, but
with a unique twist. The child in this case lives se-
cretly beneath an old house, protected by the de-
mented woman living above.
Night Howl(1986) is less impressive, although
it also turns a familiar theme slightly askew. The
protagonist is a young boy whose dog dies and
whose spirit returns in a form that allows it to inter-
act with the living, sometimes with deadly conse-
quences. As it becomes more savage, it begins to
turn even on its former owner. Teacher’s Pet(1986)
is much more formulaic. The teacher in question is
using his gift for the supernatural to literally alter
the minds of his students and turn them into vir-
tual puppets he can use to perform various evil acts.
The child in jeopardy was a popular theme in hor-
ror and suspense fiction at the time, largely because
of the success of the novels of V. C. Andrews, and it
is therefore interesting to note that following her
death, Andrews’s family selected Neiderman to
continue writing novels in the same vein under the
name Virginia Andrews, although none of these in-
volve the supernatural.
Lovechild (1986) is a werewolf story. A
teenager has a genetic trait that makes her a kind
of rationalized werewolf. At times she is gentle and
loving, but on other occasions she is consumed by
uncontrollable rage. This transformation gives her
superhuman strength and cunning, so she is able to
conceal her condition from others. Her problem is
to reconcile the two aspects of her personality be-
fore she destroys everyone she loves. Sight Unseen
(1987) is very similar, except that the child in this
case is a young boy with the power of clairvoyance.
Surrogate Child (1988) also covers much of the
same ground. This time a distraught family adopts
a boy to replace their own after he dies, but the
newcomer is not what he seems to be.
Perfect Little Angels(1989) borrows from Ira
Levin again, this time The Stepford Wives(1972).
Someone is using radio waves to control the254 Neiderman, Andrew