Avram Davidson (1923–1993)

In a fictionalised New York the twin pains of the Depression and Prohibition are making life dreary and difficult. Someone, however, is pumping beer to the mouths of the thirsty, which is all very well until one of the pipes is discovered. A rich, vibrant, hilarious period comedy, with hints of darkness round the edges. A pure joy of a read.

It's true, every single story is an absolute gem, but it's really saying something when it was the second-last story in the collection, his last story published while alive, whose cumulative build-up and unexpected catharsis of denoument left me utterly disembodied for a few seconds. A writer of deep, hidden power under layers of casual learning, natural dialogue and seeming digressions.

Updated/expanded 2022 edition of a collection originally published in 1998; a very generous collection -- roughly 650 pages, almost 40 stories -- of Davidson's stories, each with an introduction by one of his friends or colleagues, and with afterwords at the end of the book by even more of them.

Those other writers are not timid about placing Davidson among the very finest writers of short stories. Ray Bradbury imagines himself taking a long train trip with his favorite writers, including show more Davidson as well as Rudyard Kipling, Saki, John Collier, and G. K. Chesterton, then says:

"I realize that is a rare fine company I have put him in, but I have always been one to stick my neck out through affection and admiration. If I would not say he measures completely to their height, I do say this: On such a train, on such a sweet night journey, these men would gladly listen to Avram Davidson and read and enjoy him. You would find his stories in their book bags, even as you would find theirs in his."

Bradbury isn't overstating the case. Davidson's stories are marvelous, and he deserves to be remembered in such company.

I am particularly struck by how well, and how quickly, he establishes mood and tone, and over what a range -- the unsettling grim creepiness of "Naples," the outlandish whimsy of "Help! I Am Dr. Morris Goldpepper," the ferociously dark humor of "Revolver." And he's always in absolute control of those moods, capable of pulling off shifts that might, in lesser hands, cause painful whiplash; the abruptly shocking end of "Crazy Old Lady" is a marvel.

Davidson also has a striking gift for language and dialect. His characters come from a variety of places around the world, and they speak accordingly. He writes dialect in a way that sounds authentic without ever feeling condescending. The elderly Jewish couple of "The Golem," for instance, could easily have slipped into horrible cliche, especially as far back as 1955, but Davidson presents them with a warmth and precision that makes them real people.

In reading this book, I knocked three more stories off my list of award-nominated short SF, and two of those are stunners. "Or All the Seas with Oysters" deftly adds touches of paranoia and the otherworldly to a story of bickering bicycle repairmen (and delivers another jawdropping ending); "The House the Blakeneys Built" is a slow-building gem of both comedy and horror. I was not quite as taken with "Polly Charms, the Sleeping Woman," a Sleeping Beauty variation featuring Davidson's series character, Dr. Eszterhazy, who is sort of a Ruritanian Sherlock Holmes, though it's certainly beautifully written prose.

This book covers Davidson's career from his first published story -- 1954's "My Boy Friend's Name Is Jello," a riff on the games children play -- to his last -- 1993's "The Spook-Box of Theodore Delafont De Brooks," a dryly melancholy look at the weight of self-imposed expectations. show less

Avram Davidson was a master of the short story, regardless of genre, and I agree with Ellery Queen's opinion that the mystery is best suited to the short story form. Hence it is not surprising that Davidson, though best known as a fantasy writer, wrote some very competent mysteries, which are collected in this volume. The first story, "The Necessity of His Condition" is a brilliantly ironic tale of a pre-Civil War slave dealer who makes use of the fact that a slave could not testify in court show more to win a case unfairly --and then find only a slave's testimony could clear him being charged with murder --and of course the slave cannot testify. show less