Richard Laymon Treat

King Connection:

I'd like to introduce you to George Stark. . . his name is Richard Laymon. Seriously, if anyone writes with the nasty evil I imagined Stark from the Dark Half writing, it's Laymon.

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Plastered all over Richard Laymon's paperback novels is a single quote from Stephen King: "If you've missed Laymon, you've missed a treat." He's been called: "Stephen King without a conscience."

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Dead Men Do Tell Tales

Laymon was seriosly messed up - or he was -- he's dead now. The quote from King is pretty short, so I would be interested in what else he had to say about Laymon. His website notes, "Richard Laymon died on February 14, 2001. Many readers are not aware of this fact - especially new Laymon readers. Since 2001, new releases have been sold by Ann Laymon, Richard's wife, and consist of previously unpublished manuscripts that Richard left behind at his death. These previously unpublished manuscripts are: To Wake The Dead, The Lake, Glory Bus."

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Does that remind any of you of this storyline -- "In 1994, while preparing to move to a new house, the widow Bachman discovered a cardboard carton filled with manuscripts in the cellar. The carton contained a number of novels and stories, in varying degrees of completion." http://www.squidoo.com/RichardBachman

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I notice a lot of people really like Laymon -- none of them women. Or, to be more fair, I simply have not seen evidence of female fans. He's gotten popular in America only after his death. He was a real hit in Europe; England mostly. Turned out his American publishers really botched the editing of his second novel, The woods Are Dark, and the results were lasting and negative.

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Since his passing, Leasure books has been serious about putting him out there in the U.S. And by the looks of it, quite successfully. Too bad Richard isn't around to see his success with his home country.

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Personal:

Laymon was married and had a daughter. His daughter rewrote his second novel, The Woods Are Dark, reporting to have restored the novel to Laymon's original intent. To accomplish this she used several manuscripts, churning out a real labor of love and one good book.

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Laymon was a native of my home state, California. As a result, he often writes about places I've been. I've actually been to some pretty bad parts of Los Angeles late at night; but I think I was mroe scared reading about a midnight trip through LA in Laymon's book Body Rides. Beast House is in San Fransisco. Beast House is a place where terrible murders took place, later turned into a museum. (Sadly, closest I ever got to anything like that in SF was the Wax Museum.)

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Laymon was friends with Dean Koontz, whose introductions appear in some of Laymon's books.

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Characters:

I read one person who said, "I love Laymon because I always remember his characters." I can't say that! All of Laymon's characters are, in my opinion, pretty shallow. He is creating bodies to be stabbed or chopped or shot or beaten or mutilated in some other way.

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Gore

The gore factor is definitely worth noting. Laymon loves gore! He dishes it out liberally. Sprinkled in with that gore is subjects that make me a little uncomfortable. Rape's are frequent in some of his books. There is sex -- lots of it. Bondage and a mixture of sex and the creepy. You know what Laymon reminds me of? Old detective novels. I don't mean Sherlock Holmes, either. Anyway, suffice to say: There is lots of gore and lots of sex. Often sex and violence mix together.
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Books By Laymon:
Laymon was extremely prolific (like anyone else you know?). He not only wrote a pile of novels, but short stories, books of short stories, and his own biography. Here's a list of his novels (from wikipedia). It is interesting that none of his books have been made into movies.
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The Cellar (1980) (First book in the Beast House Chronicles series)
Your Secret Admirer (1980) (writing as Carl Laymon)
The Woods Are Dark (1981)
Nightmare Lake (1983) (writing as Carl Laymon)
Night Show (1984)
All Hallow's Eve (1985)
Beware (1985)
The Beast House (1986) (Second book in the Beast House Chronicles series)
Tread Softly (1987) - aka Dark Mountain (writing as Richard Kelly)
Flesh (1987)
Midnight's Lair (1988) (writing as Richard Kelly)
Resurrection Dreams (1988)
Funland (1989)
The Stake (1990)
One Rainy Night (1991)
Island (1991)
Darkness, Tell Us (1991)
Blood Games (1992)
Alarums (1992)
Dark Mountain (1992)
Endless Night (1993)
Savage: From Whitechapel to the Wild West on the Track of Jack the Ripper (1993)
In the Dark (1994)
Quake (1995)
Bite (1996)
Body Rides (1996)
After Midnight (1997)
The Wilds (1998)
The Midnight Tour (1998) (Third book in the Beast House Chronicles series)
Cuts (1999)
Among the Missing (1999)
Come Out Tonight (1999)
Once Upon A Halloween (2000)
The Traveling Vampire Show (2000)
Friday Night in the Beast House (2001) (Fourth book in the Beast House Chronicles series)
Night in the Lonesome October (2001)
The Halloween Mouse (2001) - children's book
No Sanctuary (2001)
Amara (2002) aka To Wake the Dead
The Lake (2004)
The Glory Bus (2005) aka Into the Fire
The Woods are Dark Restored and Uncut (2008)
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Words
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Reading Laymon made me say (possibly out loud), "Ah! I've always wanted to write like that! I just didn't know you could." The way Laymon structures sentences is striking. Generally his sentences are short. They are descriptive; especially if they involve murder or sex. His chapters, likewise, are short. Laymon usually chooses dialogue to carry the story over narration.
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Favorites:
From reading interviews with Laymon, it appears one of hsi favorite novels to write was Island. Since it was a journal, Laymon liked the idea of the narrator not knowing what would happen next.
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My favorite novels: So far my favorite novels have been: Resurrection Dreams, Beware and Body Rides.
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So tell me, what do you think of Richard Laymon?
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Here's a couple of fun links:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ku1ABLqgEDw&feature=related
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Laymon
Richard Laymon Kills: http://www.ains.net.au/~gerlach/rlaymon2.htm