Lovecraft's co-conspirator, C.M. Eddy, Jr.-The other Providence horror writer.

7/22/2019 Lovecraft's co-conspirator, C.M. Eddy, Jr.-The other Providence horror writer.

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STURBRIDGETIMESMAGAZINE

N OVEMBER 2013 THE

T HE C HRONICLE OF S TURBRIDGE C OUNTRY L IVING

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6 T HE C HRONICLE OF S TURBRIDGE C OUNTRY L IVING THE STURBRIDGE TIMESMAGAZINE

every post on the Pray for Gray site, but we can’t re-spond because there are so many,” she said. “When

you read how this is impacting other people in their

own lives, it really puts our circumstances into per-

spective.”

In the end, Nate says they are seeing beauty in

the ashes of the ugliness of the disease. “Our hope is

the idea of redemption…the knowledge of how God

takes really bad things and turns them to good. We

read the stories on Facebook of how someone was

touched by what we wrote and turned it into some-

thing meaningful and we are grateful for those

things. We know if things don’t end up the way we

hope, God will take the ashes and turn them into

something beautiful.”

For updates on Grayson on Facebook, search

“Pray for Gray”.

The legacy of Howard Philips Lovecraft is such

that the term Lovecraftian is well known

among horror fans. Though possessing a fol-

lowing in life, his existence eventually became one of

threadbare poverty. Today, he is a giant.

Lovecraft comes across as a strange and driven

man after a little biographical research. Odd then

that he would collaborate with a fellow author

whose normal life seems a mirror opposite?

Near forgotten now, Charles Martin Eddy, Jr. like

Lovecraft, was a Providence native. The stamp of

New England is on all his fiction. Unlike Lovecraft,

his domestic life was orderly and though not

wealthy, Eddy does not appear to have ever been in

dire straits.

The two authors first met face to face in 1923.

Lovecraft was a frequent visitor at the Eddy’s home.

Eddy was part of Lovecraft’s circle of friends and au-

thors. The two men edited each other’s work and

traveled and explored together.

Interestingly, both men worked as investigatorsfor Harry Houdini. The man was the country’s fore-

most debunker of spiritualists. The two writers were

known for stories conjuring the occult. They also

were Houdini’s ghostwriters, preparing works for his

byline. This employment ended with the magician

death in 1926.

The Lovecraft/Eddy relationship is the subject of

The Gentleman From Angell Street: Memories of

H.P. Lovecraft. It is a short book recounting the re-

lationship of the Eddy’s and Lovecraft by Eddy and

his wife, Muriel. Also in the same volume, the

Eddy’s daughter recounts the strange man’s late

night visits to the family home during her child-

hood.

As to Eddy’s writing, it does contrast with Love-

craft’s. In the main, it is not near as dark, though

dark it is. It is similar in style and language, but

Eddy seems to get to the point quicker. This does

not make his work better, just different. The drawn

out tales of Lovecraft allow you to lose yourself in

his mythology. The more succinct stories of his con-

frere are no worse for their dispatch.

The most famous exploration the two men made was the search for the Dark Swamp In 1927, thought

Continued from previous page

Continued on page 8

Hand family

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B OOK R EVIEW

A look at two works by C.M. Eddy, Jr.

B Y R ICHARDMORCHOE

The Loved Dead & Other Tales

By C.M. Eddy, Jr., paperback, 257 pp..Fenham, 2008

List $16.95 Amazon: $116.95Exit into Eternity: Tales of the

Bizarre and Supernatural

By C.M. Eddy, Jr., paperback, 194 pp..

Fenham, 2000

List $14.95 Amazon: Out of Stock

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8 T HE C HRONICLE OF S TURBRIDGE C OUNTRY L IVING THE STURBRIDGE TIMESMAGAZINE

to be between Chepachet, Rhode Is-

land and Putnam, Connecticut.

Whether the two men found it is not

known. No matter, it would be the

background for a story by each of

them. It is the locale for Eddy’s

posthumously published Black Noon.

Fortunately for one of the story’s

main characters Eddy did not live to

finish it. Another chapter and the

man would have had a gruesomedeath as opposed to a professional dis-

appointment.

Eddy’s notorious, The Loved Dead

was a controversy in its day. It is a

grisly tale that had trouble getting

published. According to his grand-

son, Jim Dyer, Eddy’s agent told him

no one would touch it in this country

and to "try to publish it in France. He

thought it might find an audience in

Paris, where they had the Grand-Guignol,

a theater of the bizarre. Eventually the

pulp horror magazine, Weird Tales pub-

lished the story in 1924, even though the

editor still had his doubts. As it turned

out, the controversy helped sell more

copies of the magazine."

Weird Tales needed the help. It was

foundering. The firestorm around the

story was such that it was banned in places

and that made the forbidden fruit all themore popular. C.M Eddy, Jr. was able to

save a journal and scare a country.

The Loved Dead is grisly in the ex-

treme. The story is not a tale of filial piety

toward the deceased. Rather, it is of a

young man who loves, literally, the dead.

An undertaker, by trade, he freelances to

insure the supply meets his demand.

Eventually, he is too reckless and knows

exposure imminent and does to

himself what he had done to others.

It is in that first story you get the

idea of his ability with the turn of

the phrase. The protagonist de-

scribes his dull upbringing thus,

“My early childhood was one long

prosaic and monotonous apathy.”

This ability is something he shares

with Lovecraft and it enhances all

their prose.

With the demise of pulp horrormagazines, Eddy’s career went into

an eclipse. He did not die relatively

young, as did Lovecraft. In Love-

craft’s case this almost seems like

what Gore Vidal said of Capote, “a

good career move.” Eddy, however,

had a life outside horror. He was

employed as a booking agent and a

proofreader. Also, he worked for

the state and as an officer in profes-

sional organizations. It is hard to

picture his friend accepting such a

life.

Grandson Jim Dyer set up Fen-

ham Publishing to produce the

work of his ancestor. His website

implies there is more to come. Whether the books will join the

canon of high literature is doubtful.

As pleasures in and of themselves,

they more than succeed.

Continued from page 6

Book review

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Lovecraft's co-conspirator, C.M. Eddy, Jr.-The other Providence horror writer.

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