MEN, WOMEN AND RATTLESNAKES.
New York: William Godwin, Inc., 1933. Octavo, pp. [i-iv] v-vii [viii] 1-248, original greenish-gray cloth, front and spine stamped in black, fore-edge untrimmed. First edition. While not a horror novel per se, Collier’s first novel is a bizarre, grotesque account of small-town life, calling it strange book is an understatement. Written in carefully crafted, matter-of-fact prose, Collier’s novel is account of everyday life in the isolated rural community of Menham. The primary occupations of the farmers and their wives are drinking and having illicit sex. The chapter titles themselves highlight the book’s lurid content, such as “A Man’s Best Friend is His Whiskey Glass,” “A Secret Sexual Pleasure,” “Arthur Moore Improves on Beating One’s Wife,” and “Alice’s Secret for Fondling.” The book is oddly humorous at times, and to be sure, some of the narrative situations are about as sophisticated as a typical shaggy dog story. Other aspects of the book however, are genuinely jarring in the context of Collier’s relaxed prose style and overall light-touch. Helen Hummer, a middle-aged virgin spinster who hates men, adopts a male infant from an orphanage, names him Henrietta, and raises him as a girl, beating him so severely that the child grows into an idiot youth whose only friend is a tree. Arthur Moore, a farmer who sees women as nothing more than “living latrines,” raises a brood of rattlesnakes in secret and dispatches them to kill neighbors whom he finds offensive. Collier’s characters are definitely comedic rustics, but much of the book’s dry humor is rooted in cruelty and rampant misogyny. As one might imagine, when Helen Hummer finally runs afoul of Arthur Moore, the resulting climax scene is straight out of a Jim Thompson novel. This is a novel that does not fit exactly into the horror genre or a straight noir (or it seems any other), it reads like a gonzo cross between television's Twin Peaks and Anderson's WINESBERG, OHIO. Top of page edges a bit dusty, a fine copy in a very good dust jacket with shelf wear to the spine ends with some shallow chipping, wear to the front corner tips, closed 15 mm tear to rear panel on a 19 mm diagonal to lower spine panel, several brown stains to the verso of front panel with some light bleed through to front panel. An obscure and uncommon book, more so in jacket. (20784). Item #20784
Price: $750.00