Black Evening [Unabridged] [Audio Cassette]

David Morrell (Author), Robert Forster (Narrator), Scott Brick (Narrator), Stefan Rudnicki (Narrator), Richard Cox (Narrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 10, 2001

David Morrell, whose many bestsellers include Double Image, Extreme Denial, and The Brotherhood of the Rose, has consistently redefined the modern thriller. Now he turns to a darker side of suspense in a powerful collection of tales, many of them award winners, that delve into the weird, uncanny terrors that lurk just beneath the comforting surfaces of daily life.

Fear of loss, fear of pain, fear of madness, fear of being trapped, fear of the inescapable, unspeakable horrors that fester deep within the soul.... No matter who or where you are, fear is always with you, always ready to attack from behind the masks of thought and dream.

Let David Morrell tell you a story...

--This text refers to the Mass Market Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

David Morrell is best known for testosterone-fueled thrillers like Extreme Denial and First Blood (whose excellent movie version, reissued on DVD in 1999, stars Sylvester Stallone as Rambo). But Morrell has also penned many frightfully scary short stories. In Black Evening, he presents 16 of his favorites, each with a fascinating introduction explaining what provoked him to write it.

"The Dripping" (1971) came to the author in a dream that most would regard as a nightmare. In this eerie little number, a father faces his worst fear when his family goes missing. Morrell suffered his own family tragedy in January of 1987, when his son Matt was diagnosed with bone cancer. "Orange Is for Anguish, Blue for Insanity" (the Horror Writers Association's best novella of 1988) was written shortly before Matt's death. Writing about a mad painter kept Morrell sane: "The made-up horror was paradoxically providing a barrier from real-life horror." But after Matt's death, Morrell was besieged with panic attacks, and could do nothing but "stare at the ceiling" for three years. A harrowing story about lost children and a long buried family secret, "The Beautiful Uncut Hair of Graves" (another HWA award-winner) signified Morrell's return to short fiction. The title is taken from Walt Whitman's poem about death and children; John Rambo's name is a pun on Arthur Rimbaud. Morrell is a genre writer with a poet's soul.

And whether he's writing stories of subtle psychological terror or conjuring up scenarios of pure horror, Morrell never fails to scare the bejesus out of us. --Naomi Gesinger --This text refers to the Mass Market Paperback edition.

From Publishers Weekly

Though best known for his high-action thrillers, Morrell has traveled many side roads in his long writing career--horror novels, westerns, even a highly personal account of his teenage son's losing battle with cancer. Now, he offers up a generally intriguing but uneven collection of 15 short stories written over a 20-year period ending in 1992. Many of the entries here are vintage Morrell, featuring dark themes, dark humor, bursts of action, a setting that's slightly askew and a main character driven by fear. "The Typewriter" tells of a writer's panic when his magic typewriter no longer turns out bestsellers. "At My Back I Always Hear" is a haunting account of a college professor (which Morrell once was) stalked by a student. The best of the stories showcase Morrell's ability to capture pure, hard-driving suspense, often culminating in unspeakable tragedy or bizarre discovery. These include "Orange Is for Anguish, Blue for Insanity" and "The Beautiful Uncut Hair of Graves." The weaker links among the entries are those with a decidedly creepy bent representative of Morrell's horror period. Among them are "The Dripping," Morrell's first published work; "Black Evening"; and "For These and All My Sins." Even the less successful stories, however, have a gripping quality--some twist or mood that drives the plot forward and locks a reader's attention. Morrell (The Brotherhood of the Rose) prefaces all the stories with personal anecdotes and other autobiographical reflections that place them in a meaningful context. In a foreword and afterword, Morrell talks about his career thus far.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Audio Cassette
• Publisher: Phoenix Audio; Unabridged edition (December 10, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1590401816
• ISBN-13: 978-1590401811
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 4.5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #9,246,669 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A good chance to look into the evolution of a great writer., March 2, 2000

By 

K. Moots (Helena, MT USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Black Evening: Tales of Dark Suspense (Mass Market Paperback)

This collection of short stories is a great chance to get into the mindset of a wonderful writer! I first met David Morrell's writing in "First Blood", moved on to "The Brotherhood of the Rose" and have been a fan ever since. The group of stories he has put together for this book leads the reader through his early years of writing to the present. Each story is prefaced with his recollection of the how and why the story came to be. This immensely enriches the stories themselves. I had to finish this book from cover to cover in one sitting. A very intense, very scary and truely revealing, must read book!

19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great stories, vintage Morrell!, February 6, 2000

By 

Zes (Washington DC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Black Evening: Tales of Dark Suspense (Mass Market Paperback)

I just read a few of the stories in "Black Evening" and had a lot of scary delights. David Morrell is great when it comes to suspense and thrillers and now, horror. He mixes a sense of his thrillers in with his horror stories making them much more exciting. I could even go on to compare with Stephen Kings short stories in "Skeleton Crew" Well done Mr.Morrell!

15 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars I can't summarize this in one line..., May 31, 2000

By 

Edward Gordon Brown - See all my reviews

This review is from: Black Evening: Tales of Dark Suspense (Mass Market Paperback)

"Black Evening" is sheer evidence of Morrell, a very talented storyteller at work. He keeps the prose going. I always said I don't entirely like the use of the first-person narrative, and going against me is the fact that most of the stories in this book are presented in that format. Well, I guess I had to agree with it. I read the whole book and enjoyed it. I managed to "ignore" the first-person narrative...to forget about it so I could simply enjoy myself with the book.

Although these stories are by and large very good...at least a head and shoulders above other anthologies of the like that I've had a chance to read, there's yet another point I want to make here, and I know, this point doesn't really encourage you, review reader to go out and get this book, I know, but I feel like I should tell you.

For those who weren't familiar, before reading this book, I should let you know now (even though Morrell will tell you this in the book himself) that in the late 80s, he suffered the tragic loss of his 15-year old son, Matthew, to bone cancer. (This story is told in David Morrell's book, Fireflies, available here.) The grief of this tragic loss is something that is present in virtually every story here. For people who don't like to be constantly hammered over the head with that theme, I guess this book isn't a good choice.

Now for why this book IS a good choice, I guess I could simply say it contains one of the best short stories I've ever read..."The Typewriter". "The Partnership", "But at my back I always hear", "The Storm", "For these and all my Sins", "Mumbo Jumbo", "Dead Image" and "Orange is for Anguish, Blue is for Insanity" It's quite a lot of stand-outs, but, yes, these are my personal picks. These are enough to make you want to buy the book, and buy the book, you should!