"Laymon, Richard - InTheDark" - читать интересную книгу автора (Laymon Richard)

IN THE DARK:

An Introduction by Dean Koontz


_In the Dark_. I like the title. Most of us spend a significant part of our lives in the dark, both literally and figuratively. In fact, if I were honest, I'd have to admit to spending the better part of my first twenty-five years in the dark, clueless about where to find the light switch. After bumbling through two and a half dim decades, I consider myself fortunate never to have stuck my fingers in an electrical outlet, metaphorically speaking. I never _literally_ stuck my fingers in an outlet, either, though I know many people who are certain that I did and that the resultant shock to my brain goes a long way toward explaining why I am the way I am.
Richard Laymon became a friend of mine well after I stumbled out of the dark, and he assumed from the start of our relationship that I'd always had my act together. I never disabused him of this serious misapprehension. We all need our illusions, and I was happy to serve as one of Dick's. When he called me for advice about the mechanics and the byzantine diplomacies of the publishing and film businesses both here and abroad, I shared with him all the wretched experiences of my early career and made clear to him the lessons I had learned from this school of hard knocks -- though in my case, if truth be told, my mistakes were so spectacular and the consequences so dire that it should more accurately be called the School of Ferocious Bludgeoning. Because my survival skills are widely recognized in the writing community, I receive calls every week from writers seeking advice about knotty problems with publishers, editors, copy editors, film producers, movie-studio executives, accountants, lawyers, barbers, greengrocers appliance repairmen, argumentative video-store clerks, persistent mimes, evangelical aluminum-siding salesmen, the cat-eating extraterrestrials who have moved in next door, the occasional homicidally angry reader who feels the author has used the word _hat_ too often in recent books and must SUFFER HIDEOUSLY for this grievous transgression -- and, of course, literary agents, who seem to give writers more problems than all the aforementioned people combined. I always strive to mine my own experience for the best possible counsel; but in Dick's case, I mulled over my advice more carefully than usual, because his unfailing good humor, commitment to hard work, and sense of proportion about himself made me want to steer him _exactly_ right. Among writers, critical-mass egos are so common that if they could melt down like runaway nuclear reactors, then exploding novelists would long ago have been responsible for the destruction of the earth; consequently, Dick's humility is inspiration for his friends to do their best for him.
Some people reading a Richard Laymon novel, who never had the chance to know the author personally, will be shocked, horrified, appalled, and some -- a smaller number -- actually will not like the experience. On hearing of their shock and their horror, Dick would smile that choirboy smile of his, nod his head, and be pleased. Even hearing that some had been appalled, he would smile and say, "Well, yes, they _ought_ to be when the scene insists on them being appalled. What am I writing for if not to _affect_ readers?" And even on hearing that some didn't enjoy the experience, Dick would smile, shrug, and say, "Gee, if I could please all the people all the time, I'd have to stop writing, 'cause I'd know I was doing something _wrong_."
Dear reader, you can't know what a _rare_ attitude that is among writers. Most novelists -- struggling to make a living in a difficult business, aware that success, once achieved, frequently doesn't last long -- desperately want to please everyone. They spend ungodly amounts of time scoping the market, trying to determine what readers want, going to lots of genre conventions to show the flag and maintain connections with the most ardent fandom for their form of fiction, always striving to _please_ because they have seen how many good writers never find audiences and how many others, achieving an audience, pass out of favor in a few years. But here's the secret that, even when they discover it, so few want to believe: Novels written with too intense a concern about pleasing the marketplace may bring temporary success but will never result in a long career, because they will be full of calculation and devoid of originality, crammed full of stuff that the writer thinks other people want, but lacking in any qualities that inspire his or her creative passion. The best way to succeed is to stop scoping the market, write what you most passionately want to write, and not worry when people tell you that you're writing the wrong thing.
I, too, receive an occasional letter from a reader who tells me I've got it all wrong, that I just don't please him, that I ought to write more like [plug in the name of any writer you wish] or just give up altogether. As long as the letter isn't rude, I respond to this well-meaning soul with, "Sorry the book didn't please you. But if I wrote just like the novelist you mention, then I wouldn't write like _me_, in which case, there would be no point in writing at all. Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, but it rots a writer's soul if he engages in it." When they're rude, of course, I have them flayed, dragged behind a runaway horse, mercilessly tickled with duck feathers, subjected to twenty-four hours of _Meet the Press_ videotapes, and finally squeezed in a giant garlic press. I always feel sad about this, but then they _were_ rude.
Anyway, here is _In the Dark_, a novel by a writer who always writes out of personal conviction, who will delight some and offend others, but who will always be himself, word by word, line by line, scene by scene, chapter by chapter. Here is a novel by a nice guy whose perpetual optimism, in real life, never inhibits his unblinking exploration of the nastier side of human nature in his novels, which is a tonic to those who like their fiction brisk and astringent.









Chapter One


Jane Kerry noticed the envelope when she stepped behind the circulation desk. Her first thought was that it didn't belong on the seat of her chair. She hadn't put it there. Had it fallen from the top of the desk? She wondered if someone might've lost it, and whether it contained anything of importance.
She ignored the envelope as she checked out half a dozen mysteries to old Agnes Dixon. Agnes was one of her regulars, a retired school teacher, and the first person to make Jane feel really welcome in her new job as head of the Donnerville Public Library.
While they chatted in quiet voices, a few more people drifted over to the circulation desk. Others wandered out the door. As usual, the library was beginning to empty with the approach of its nine o'clock closing time.
_The envelope._
Jane slipped a dated card into the pocket of Agnes's last book -- a Dick Francis -- flipped the cover shut, and set it atop the woman's stack. Even as she said, "That's one of his best," she took a small step backward. Feeling the push of the seat's edge against her right buttock, she reached down without looking. She fingered the envelope and picked it up.
"Hi," said a teenaged boy who looked vaguely familiar. "I'd like to get this, please."
"Sure thing."
He pushed a book toward Jane, cover open, and held out his library card for her. She took it with her left hand.
She brought her right hand up and glanced at the envelope.
Handwritten in the center, in black ink, was one word:


JANE


_What?_
_Me?_
She felt mildly surprised and perplexed, and a little bit anxious.