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otterno11's review
1.0
A collection of weird tales taken from the pages of a variety of early twentieth century pulp magazines, Time Burial represents the fantasy, science fiction, and horror work of Howard Wandrei, selected by his brother Donald, another writer of weird tales. Donald Wandrei is interesting mainly for his role as a correspondent of and, with August Derleth, promoter and publisher of the writing of H.P. Lovecraft. In Time Burial, he attempted to preserve the work of his brother as well. In addition, Time Burial also includes a few of Howard Wandrei’s works of art included with the stories.
Both the Wandreis were long time citizens of St. Paul, living in a home not far from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Summit Hill neighborhood, just a few blocks from where I currently live, so there is definitely a local interest for me. Time Burial includes a lot of biographical information about Howard Wandrei, from his work as an artist and especially his college-age participation in a series of thrill crime burglaries that scandalized St. Paul in the 1920s. Wandrei definitely comes across as an eccentric, troubled personality who had a rather turbulent relationship with his family. However, the stories collected here, mostly written in the 1930s as Howard Wandrei worked in New York for a variety of publications, usually writing under a pseudonym, were less interesting.
Wandrei usually wrote mystery or crime stories, writing in a hard bitten, gritty style, and this definitely shows in these stories as well. His fantasy work also has that hard boiled sensibility, full of femmes fatales, murder plots, and double crosses, in spite of also including sorcerers, time travel, or invisible monsters. For those interested in the Cthulhu Mythos, none of the stories really harken to that style. There is also a lot of misogyny, to a rather distracting extent that I just had trouble getting over. While there are certainly some retrograde social norms that one has to expect as one reads through period writings, including racism (and there is some of that in here, too) the extent of the sexism in these stories is extreme. While part of it may have been Wandrei spicing it up for stories included in the salacious rag Spicy Detective Tales, with the biographical information on Wandrei also presented, this element is rendered even more disturbing.
The stories themselves were, for the most part, not very engaging, being generally standard potboilers with unsurprising twists and stock characters, though he did have a bit of a punchy, energetic writing voice that made them quick reads, particularly The Hexer and The Black Farm. In others he tried for a more literary, character driven style in pieces like ‘Tis Claude and The Monocle, though these mainly came off as boring. Minnesota was an implicit setting for a few of them, though, like his penchant for pseudonyms, he mostly leaves it vague. These four stories mentioned were, I think, my favorites of the twenty pieces included, and also had the least blatant sexism. For the most part, though, I think Howard Wandrei’s work has become obscure and forgotten for a reason.
Both the Wandreis were long time citizens of St. Paul, living in a home not far from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Summit Hill neighborhood, just a few blocks from where I currently live, so there is definitely a local interest for me. Time Burial includes a lot of biographical information about Howard Wandrei, from his work as an artist and especially his college-age participation in a series of thrill crime burglaries that scandalized St. Paul in the 1920s. Wandrei definitely comes across as an eccentric, troubled personality who had a rather turbulent relationship with his family. However, the stories collected here, mostly written in the 1930s as Howard Wandrei worked in New York for a variety of publications, usually writing under a pseudonym, were less interesting.
Wandrei usually wrote mystery or crime stories, writing in a hard bitten, gritty style, and this definitely shows in these stories as well. His fantasy work also has that hard boiled sensibility, full of femmes fatales, murder plots, and double crosses, in spite of also including sorcerers, time travel, or invisible monsters. For those interested in the Cthulhu Mythos, none of the stories really harken to that style. There is also a lot of misogyny, to a rather distracting extent that I just had trouble getting over. While there are certainly some retrograde social norms that one has to expect as one reads through period writings, including racism (and there is some of that in here, too) the extent of the sexism in these stories is extreme. While part of it may have been Wandrei spicing it up for stories included in the salacious rag Spicy Detective Tales, with the biographical information on Wandrei also presented, this element is rendered even more disturbing.
The stories themselves were, for the most part, not very engaging, being generally standard potboilers with unsurprising twists and stock characters, though he did have a bit of a punchy, energetic writing voice that made them quick reads, particularly The Hexer and The Black Farm. In others he tried for a more literary, character driven style in pieces like ‘Tis Claude and The Monocle, though these mainly came off as boring. Minnesota was an implicit setting for a few of them, though, like his penchant for pseudonyms, he mostly leaves it vague. These four stories mentioned were, I think, my favorites of the twenty pieces included, and also had the least blatant sexism. For the most part, though, I think Howard Wandrei’s work has become obscure and forgotten for a reason.
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