Cemetery Dance is a specialty press which publishes top-quality hardcover editions of mainly horror material: novels, novellas, short story collections, and anthologies. They also publish a regular magazine of the same name devoted to the genre. Virtually everybody who is (or was) anybody in the Horror field has put out something through them, and Richard Laymon was no exception. No fewer than fifteen of his works have been published through Cemetery Dance in special hardcover editions.
These books are gorgeous, manufactured to an absurdly high standard, with incredible cover art, and sometimes interior artwork specially commissioned for those editions. They also received very limited print runs, and have all long since sold out, making them pricy to collect, and uncommon to find in the wild. I'm nowhere close to finding them all, but I've still managed to add a number of them to my collection over the years.
Here's a look at what I have managed to hunt down. As always, all images are scanned from my own sources.
Friday Night in Beast House
This fourth and final story Laymon wrote in his "Beast House" chronicles is a novella rather than a full-length story like the other three. Published in 2001 after Laymon's death, Friday Night in Beast House was a Cemetery Dance exclusive for years, only available in this hardcover edition with dust jacket artwork and interior illustrations by Alan M. Clark, until Leisure bought the paperback rights and put out their own version in 2010.
Despite being the last "Beast House" story he wrote, chronologically this novella happens in between the events of The Beast House and The Midnight Tour, which is only important if you're reading the "Beast House" books in their in-universe order, but still bears mentioning. The story is simple: local Malcasa Point high school student Mark has a major crush on Alison, the most beautiful girl in the school. Finally summoning up the courage to ask her on a date, Alison surprises him by agreeing to go out with him. Her only condition is that for their first date, Alison wants to go to Beast House.
But Alison isn't interested in going during the day for the regular tour. She's obsessed with the stories about the Beasts and wants to learn, once and for all, whether or not they're true. Mark's job is to find a way to sneak her into Beast House after-hours, so they can explore the place together. Of course, since this is a Laymon story, and the Beasts are entirely too real, there's a great chance Mark's first date with Alison will wind up being his last as well...
This is far from Laymon's best work, and the Leisure paperback has the virtue of being much less expensive and easier to find, but Leisure's version lacks the excellent Alan Clark illustrations which really do make this edition pop. Of all the Cemetery Dance releases, this one is probably the easiest, and therefore least expensive, to find, and copies can be had for around $40.
That said, if you only want the story, the Leisure paperback is the way to go. While it lacks the artwork, it makes up for it slightly by containing a bonus novella, The Wilds, which had been out of print since 1988, allowing you to acquire two hard-to-find Laymon works for about $5. If you have your heart set on a hardcover, but don't want to pay the premium for this particular version, Headline published a fine one in the UK, which will cost you about half the price of the Cemetery Dance edition.
Night in the Lonesome October
Night in the Lonesome October tells the story of Ed Logan, a college student who returns to campus for a new school year only to learn his girlfriend Holly has dumped him for a guy she met while working her summer job. Despondent and directionless, Ed goes out walking late one evening only to discover his sleepy little college town isn't quite as sleepy after dark as he assumed it was.
This story, right here, is Laymon at his atmospheric best, showcasing a small college town filled to the brim with a cast of weirdos who only come out after the street lights come on. There's adventure aplenty to be had in the dark, but danger as well. As cathartic as Ed's late-night strolls are, and as harmless as most of the after-hours sorts he encounters are, he's not the only person using the darkness to hide from the ordinary world.
Cemetery Dance's 2001 hardcover was a limited-run publication of only 1,000 copies, making it particularly uncommon even among Laymon's rarities. Sadly, unlike Friday Night in Beast House, this one doesn't contain any interior illustrations (or anything else, really) to set it apart from Leisure's simple mass-market paperback edition. Alan Clark's cover artwork is suitably creepy, but this was always intended for collectors only and will cost you around $75 to pick up a copy today. The paperback, on the other hand, can be had for less than five dollars. If you're dying for a hardcover, Headline's UK edition can be had for about half the price of the Cemetery Dance version.
The Traveling Vampire Show
Published in 2000, this novel is considered by many Laymon fans to be his magnum opus, and it's not hard to see why. This coming-of-age tale with a supernatural twist was the work which finally won him a Stoker award for Best Horror Novel, although the award was posthumous as Laymon died a few months before the votes were cast and tallied.
The story follows three kids growing up in the bucolic summer of 1963: Rusty the protagonist, his best friend Dwight, and their mutual tomboy acquaintance Slim are enjoying the long days and lack of school, but can't help but be intrigued at the flyers posted up on buildings and fences around town, advertising "The Traveling Vampire Show" and its beguiling star Valeria, "the one and only known vampire in captivity".
The show takes place once only: Friday at Midnight. The cost to get in is $10. The only stipulation? "Nobody under age 18 allowed." Naturally Rusty and Dwight are intrigued at the notion of seeing a gorgeous female vampire, and Slim isn't about to let them go in there without her, but none of them is 18. Of course the idea that some carnival has a real live vampire in their employ is ludicrous: vampires don't exist; everyone knows that.
But suppose everyone is wrong...?
This is a beautiful hardcover with some fantastic Alan Clark artwork on the dust jacket, but like with Night in the Lonesome October there's nothing special about this edition except that it's a hardcover which looks awesome on your shelf. Leisure's mass-market edition is the same story, and is available at about 1/10th of the price. And, again, if you're looking for a hardcover on a budget, Headline's UK edition is out there for half the price of the Cemetery Dance version.
The Halloween Mouse
Who would have thought Laymon had it in him to write a children's picture book, of all things? That's right: The Halloween Mouse is an illustrated story for all ages which is not only absolutely adorable, but also a beautiful oversize hardcover that you will struggle to display properly on your shelves.
The Halloween Mouse is the story of Timothy Maywood Usher Mouse, an intelligent and literate mouse who lives in a small-town library and dreams of one day going on a grand adventure after having read so many tales of other people doing daring things in books.
After weeks of plucking up his courage and preparing for the journey of a lifetime, Timothy levers up a window and descends into the outside world, where he discovers dangers aplenty in the form of snakes and cats, but also ghoulies, creepies, and long-legged beasties of the human sort. Timothy has chosen to venture out of his library on Halloween -- a most auspicious evening filled with perhaps a bit more excitement than Timothy was anticipating...
For sheer kitsch value, being the only children's story written by a guy with an ordinary penchant for boobs, rumps, and violence galore, The Halloween Mouse is worth every penny for a devoted Laymonite. Alan Clark's full-page illustrations are top-notch and blend perfectly with Laymon's stripped down (but not dumbed down) prose. Even people who despite horror can get into this story.
The bad news is that this is one of Laymon's works which was only available through Cemetery Dance, and it's long gone out of print. Copies routinely run in excess of $80 on the second-hand market, which, sadly, puts this out of reach for most children. That's a shame, considering they were Laymon's primary audience for a book like this. It's never been reprinted, by Cemetery Dance or anyone else, and is not available in softcover or digital format. You really have to want this one to justify forking out the cash, but it's attractive as hell and is certainly unique.
Once Upon A Halloween
Now we're getting into truly obscure territory. Once Upon a Halloween was published in October of 2001, right alongside The Halloween Mouse, but this ain't no kids' book. This is a Laymon novel through and through, and it's a doozy of a ride.
Shannon and Laura are two local girls who moved into the old Witherspoon place, a house left vacant for years after a grisly murder/suicide in years past. Rumor has it the Witherspoon residence is haunted, indeed it sits right by the town cemetery, but the girls haven't had any trouble.
While getting into their costumes in preparation for a Halloween party and handing out candy to the trick-or-treaters daring enough to go up and ring the bell, Laura and Shannon are startled when a lone teenage boy arrives on their porch, banging on the door and begging to be let in. Exhausted, out of breath, clothes torn and bloody from a struggle, the hysterical kid pleads with the girls to hide him from the crazy people who are chasing him.
The girls suspect it's just another Halloween prank...until the weirdos hunting the boy show up and assault the house. Now it's a fight for survival against a deranged cult who views Halloween as their most sacred holiday, and a time for human sacrifices.
While books like The Traveling Vampire Show and Night in the Lonesome October are slower, more literary works of fiction, Once Upon a Halloween is peak Laymon: a crazy idea taken to its nuttiest extremes, where the reader is dragged along for the roller coaster ride with few places to stop and catch one's breath. It's not going to win any awards, but it's one of the last things Laymon ever wrote which was printed prior to his death, and if you were worried he was mellowing as he entered his fifties, this was proof you had nothing to worry about.
Unfortunately, Once Upon a Halloween is one of the most expensive and hard-to-find of Laymon's works. Cemetery Dance did a single print run of 2,000 signed copies, and that run has been sold out for twenty-one years. Unlike much of the rest of his Cemetery Dance works, this one was never reprinted by any publisher in the world: there are no paperbacks, no UK hardcovers, and no digital editions out there. You want this bad boy in your collection, you'll be throwing down $150 at the bare minimum.
I really hope for the sake of other Laymon fans out there that somebody picks up the reprint rights to this one and puts it out in a more accessible format, whether that's a hardcover re-release, a paperback, or even just a digital edition. As it stands, this is one of the hardest titles to add to your library, and it really should not be that way.
Thanks for taking a tour through my Laymon bits and bobs again. I hope you enjoyed yourself, and will be inspired to create your own digital trips through your own libraries to share with the rest of us.
Until next time, keep being awesome! :D