Reviews, articles and musings from a pop culture scholar. Female werewolves, speculative fiction, creative writing, medieval culture... and anywhere else my mind takes me.
Thursday, 30 December 2021
Stories to be Read with the Lights On 15: The Bitter Years by Dana Lyons
On to the next story... 'The Bitter Years' by Dana Lyon. This one felt very familiar, as though I've read it more recently. I don't think I have, though, so I guess it's just one of the stories that stuck in my head more firmly.
This one isn't particularly notable in terms of plot or structure. It's a classic 'Tales of the Unexpected' type of story, where the set-up (a woman looking forward to a happy retirement after 'the bitter years') is turned on its head. And there's plenty of just deserts in the story's ending, as you might expect for a story of this sort. I think this one may have stuck with me because of the writing style. I really like the way this one is told. It's so easy to picture the setting and the woman's life. For such a short story, it's really quite immersive.
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Looking for two stories from Alfred Hitchcock Magazine or one of the anthology books--probably 1970's or '80's. In one, a woman sees a picture of a man wanted for murder in the newspaper and thinks it looks like her husband. She spends the day in a panic. Something made her later think it was him but I could not figure out why--I think it involved a Dutch oven. In the other, a man is in a hotel room looking down at the street below. A man is standing on the corner staring up at him with hatred and rage in his face. Life does not go as he planned. Years later, he is standing on that corner staring up at his younger self. Though it is similar to Spur of the Moment, an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Hour starring Diana Hyland as a woman about to be married who is chased on horseback by an older version of herself, it is not.
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