A Nest of Nightmares: A very fine collection of horrifying ambiguities

A Nest of Nightmares by Lisa Tuttle

And so, I have just come to the end of another lot of nine volumes from the remarkable publisher known as Valancourt Books. And what an ennead they were! In chronological order: Ernest G. Henham’s The Feast of Bacchus (1907), in which a pair of comedy and tragedy masks influences whoever comes into their orbit; L. P. Hartley’s Facial Justice (1960), a brilliantly done feminist/dystopian/postapocalyptic affair; Simon Raven’s Doctors Wear Scarlet (also from 1960), a modern-day vampire novel set in Cambridge and Greece; Arthur Calder-Marshall’s The Scarlet Boy (1961), a slow-burn haunted-house story; Rohan O’Grady’s marvelous Pippin’s Journal (1962), which combines Gothic elements and 18^th century adventure into one ingenious stew; John Blackburn’s Bury Him Darkly (1969), which melds 18^th century doings and science fiction into its horrific story line; Basil Copper’s The Great White Space (1974), which incorporates lost-race fare, sci-fi, and Lovecraftian cosmic horror into its awesome framework; Karl Edward Wagner’s In a Lonely Place (1983), an outstanding collection of short stories that was chosen for inclusion in Newman & Jones’ Horror: 100 Best Books; and now, finally, Lisa Tuttle’s A Nest of Nightmares, a collection that was also chosen for inclusion in the Newman & Jones overview volume but that has been exceedingly difficult to purchase at a reasonable price … until very recently.

A Nest of Nightmares was originally released as a paperback book by the British publisher Sphere in 1986, and featuring a memorably disquieting cover by Nick Bantock. This would be the collection’s last English-language edition for the next 34 years, unfortunately. In 1986, the Dutch publisher Phoenix released Tuttle’s book in paperback under the title Duivelsgebroed (Devil’s Brood); in 1990, the French publisher Denoel released its paperback edition with the title Le Nid (The Nest); and in 1992, the German publisher Goldmann issued its own paperback version bearing the title Ein Netz aus Angst (A Web of Fear). But it wasn’t until Valancourt resurrected the volume in 2020, with that wonderful Nick Bantock illustration on its own front cover, that another edition in English, the first to be published in the U.S., would be made available to customers who, like me, could previously only read others’ highly laudable reports on this hard-to-find collection.

Before proceeding, a very brief word on Lisa Tuttle herself, for those of you who might be unfamiliar with her. The author was born in Houston, Texas in 1952 and, as of this date, has come out with no fewer than 17 novels, seven collections, and over 130 short stories in the fields of science fiction and horror. (I use the word “horror” as a matter of convenience; Ms. Tuttle apparently prefers the term “ambiguity.”) Her first novel, the sci-fi affair Windhaven (1981), was written in collaboration with George R.R. Martin. Tuttle relocated to England in 1981 and, as of this writing, resides in Scotland.

A Nest of Nightmares, her first collection, is comprised of 13 stories, three of novelette length, that were, for the most part, written from 1980 to ’85. Tuttle employs simple, highly readable prose here to tell her tales, some of exceptional grisliness. Despite the author’s disavowal of the term, these are true tales of horror in that something horrible happens to pretty much all 13 of the female protagonists whom we encounter. Nobody in these stories is safe, and even innocent and undeserving young women might suffer a horrible demise or shocking loss before their stories end. Remarkably, children, even babies, are made grist for the author’s fictive mill! Don’t let the simple style of presentation fool you … these stories carry a sting! Perhaps this is why author Neil Gaiman once wrote of Tuttle “…she can chill your flesh and walk you into the darkness with gentle, perfectly constructed prose … [and yet] she’s one of the dangerous ones.” Or, as writer Will Errickson says in his introduction to this Valancourt edition, “Her horror tiptoes, glides, smothers, appears in tiny details, climbing in at the corner of the page, lying in wait till the final sentences, then springing forth fully formed yet all too recognizable.”

Though simply written, some of these stories can be read on more than one level, and some left me wondering if I had indeed correctly understood them. Small details that seem trivial at first blush become significant later on, and some of the tales left me with the nagging suspicion that I had probably missed some ideas that Tuttle wished to convey. Several of them are, as Tuttle suggested, ambiguous, and might leave many readers wanting more in the areas of explication and closure. So yes, the stories are rather deep although deceptively simple, many of them with a feminist slant, but all manage to entertain, stun and even shock. Often, the tales leave one feeling angry at the unfair fates doled out to the characters therein; still, there is not a single story here that fails to score on some level. As Mythago Wood author Robert Holdstock says in the Newman & Jones volume, “…the stories in A Nest of Nightmares are, on the whole, strong, scary and impressive…”

Now, as for the baker’s dozen of stories themselves, the collection kicks off nicely with “Bug House,” a perfect introduction to the precariousness of the lead characters’ ultimate fates. Here, Ellen Morrow, running away from a failing marriage, arrives at her Aunt May’s dilapidated beachfront house, only to find that house infested with destructive insects and her aunt slowly wasting away from … something. A strange young fellow, a deliveryman with a vaguely threatening demeanor, eventually arrives to make matters even more problematic, and a violent and borderline science fictional conclusion will surely manage to stun all readers. It is quite an opening story, trust me!

In the curiously titled “Dollburger,” the next story up, a little girl named Karen is told by her father that dolls that aren’t neatly put away could be victims of the bad men who break into people’s houses, steal those dolls, and turn them into the titular dollburgers to eat! And as we soon find out, something really is consuming the dolls in Karen’s house … but they are not men, and indeed, nothing human. This shortish tale, seen from a child’s POV, certainly does boast a certain amount of charm but ultimately struck this reader as being kind of lightweight, and even silly. For me, it’s the weakest story in this collection.

“Community Property,” however, is as nasty and cruelly suggestive as this book gets! Here, a couple headed for divorce, Ellis and Susie, finds it impossible to decide who should keep the family dog, Gonzo, after they split, and so arrive at the only possible decision: Put the animal to sleep! After a vet reluctantly carries out the deed, Ellis and Susie have a change of heart, reconcile with one another, have a baby … and decide to divorce again. But … how to decide who keeps the baby? I think you begin to see the picture here. As I say, Tuttle stories can get pretty brutal at times!

“Flying to Byzantium” is not only the longest story in this collection, but also one of its finest. And having been written chronologically last, in 1985, I suppose it showcases the author’s talents at their most mature stage. In this one, Sheila Stoller, who has written one fantasy novel, is invited to go to a science fiction convention in the (fictitious) small town of Byzantium, Texas. But her visit turns out to grow nightmarish, her two female hosts become increasingly unsympathetic, and Byzantium itself, poor Sheila soon realizes, might never allow her to go. The reader gets the feeling that some of the experiences that Sheila undergoes at the convention were ones also experienced by Tuttle herself, such as when one attendee expresses surprise that the author doesn’t look “more glamorous,” and asks for her autograph despite never having read her book. With an increasingly tense atmosphere, comedic elements, and meaty food for thought, this story is a genuine winner, indeed!

And it is followed by one of the volume’s eeriest pieces, “Treading the Maze,” the first story in this collection dealing with ancient legends. Here, a happily married couple, Amy and Phil, touring the sights in southwestern England, stop at an inn near Glastonbury and see a group of nighttime revelers in the field below their window. The following day, Phil discovers that the group had been dancing in what’s known as a “turf maze,” and treads the mystical maze himself … to his eternal regret. In one of this collection’s freakier moments, the widowed Amy returns to the maze several years later, stands inside it, and sees, in the nearby inn … herself and Phil, looking out of the upstairs window! Brrrr!

Another story dealing with an ancient legend is to be found in “The Horse Lord.” Here, Marilyn Hoskins, her husband Derek and their five kids move into an old house in upstate New York; a house that was reputedly built on land sacred to the native Indians because of the jealous and vengeful spirit that supposedly claimed it as its own. Soon, the sound of a ghostly horse is heard at night, a centuries-old depiction of a monstrous creature is discovered in the nearby barn, and it becomes very apparent that whatever horrible thing had killed Derek’s great-uncle in that barn a century earlier is now stirring about again. Another grim and horrifyingly downbeat ending is the capper to this well-crafted bit of nastiness.

Still another ancient legend crops up in the next story, “The Other Mother.” In this longish tale, we meet a divorced, aspiring painter named Sara, who lives with her two young kids in a lakefront house. Sara feels guilt about wanting to be a painter instead of a full-time mother, but her life is suddenly upended when she sees the ghostly figure of a white-clad woman on the lake’s farther shore, as well as an oddly behaving white pig and white bird. Her neighbor feels the ghostly woman is nothing less than Cerridwen, the Welsh goddess of death and creation, and indeed, Sara’s painting does soon enter a new and highly productive phase. But there is a horrible price to be paid, in this chilling story’s devastating finale!

In the creepy little tale entitled “Need,” Corey, a ballerina student, meets a strange young man named Harold Walker while sitting in her favorite peaceful spot in the local cemetery. The two start to meet each other there often, Harold promising the engaged Corey that he will always be available for her, whenever she needs him. When Corey is forced to break one of their cemetery appointments, Harold commits suicide, but as he’d promised, he will still always show up whenever Corey has need of him! An ending that takes place on Halloween night, seemingly ripped from the pages of an old EC comic, brings the curtain down here nicely.

Another of my favorite stories in this collection, “The Memory of Wood,” is up next. Here, a married couple, Helen and Rob, buy an antique chest, despite the foul odor that occasionally wafts out of it. But once the relic is ensconced in their living room, the sound of a crying baby begins to fill their house at night, their young son Julian claims to be able to see a baby inside the empty chest, and Helen herself discerns the seeming mirage of old newspapers laying on the chest’s bottom. Soon the realization comes: The chest itself is haunted! The ending of this story is written so ambiguously that I’m not sure if that ending is a tragic one or a case of tragedy narrowly averted. I’d be curious to know what others think…

In what I deem to be the loveliest story in this collection (well, possibly the only story here that could be so termed!), “A Friend in Need,” two women, strangers to one another, start talking while waiting for a plane at the Houston airport. And before long, Cecily Cloud and Jane Renzo come to realize that they have indeed met before, and even stranger, that each was the other’s imaginary playmate from when they were children! This story does not aim to scare or shock the reader, unlike its companions in this volume, but, following a mystical final scene, leaves us wondering about the nature of so-called reality itself. Trust me, reader, you have not encountered a fantasy quite like it. Two points off, however, for Jane mentioning that she’d never been west of the Hudson till recently, after telling Cecily that she’d gone to the Gertrude Folwell Elementary School and Montclair State, both of them in … New Jersey!

Written in 1972, “Stranger in the House” was Lisa Tuttle’s very first published work, yet still displays her nascent ability to stun and puzzle. The tale gives us two parallel story lines. In one, a woman named Sharon approaches her childhood home in Houston, with no knowledge of how she got there, and later observes herself and her sister as children therein. In the other story line, a bickering couple drives around that same neighborhood, before suffering (what we must assume is) a fatal crash. And it is only then that we realize how Sharon has come home again, wraithlike, and no longer a prisoner of time. Some pretty impressive work here, for a first-timer!

In one of this collection’s most horrifying stories, “Sun City,” we make the acquaintance of Nora, who works the night shift in an El Paso motel and is currently separated from her husband after just one year of marriage. And then Nora begins to suffer daily visitations from a cloaked figure wearing a mask of human skin; a figure who stands by her bed emitting a loathsome stench! Locked doors are ineffective at keeping the intruder out, and one day, Nora summons up her courage and somehow faces her intruder down… Mexican mythology and still another ghastly conclusion are also highlighted in this disquieting tale of terror. One-half point off for Ms. Tuttle using the word “cadaverine” here (no such word) instead of “cadaveric,” however.

A Nest of Nightmares is brought to a close with a rather nightmarish story, indeed … “The Nest,” another of the longer ones. Here, sisters Pam and Sylvia move into an old abandoned house in the English countryside. The roof above the attic sports a gaping hole, and one day Pam, the older sister, sees, from a hilltop, a manlike, black thing flap from a nearby tree and land atop that roof! In the days to come, she hears curious thumping noises coming from the attic, and notices Sylvia spending more and more time therein… This final story offers up subtly suggestive yet truly nightmarish mind-pictures for the reader, as it concludes this volume on a note of ambiguity (there’s that word again!) and strangeness.

On a personal note, my thanks to Valancourt Books for enabling me to finally experience this collection after years of wanting to do so. Not all of the stories worked for me, and several left me wondering and scratching my head (as they were no doubt meant to do), but I surely enjoyed them enough to now want to investigate some more of Tuttle’s work. Fortunately, Valancourt does have three more Tuttle titles currently available – the collections The Dead Hours of Night (2021) and Riding the Nightmare (2023), as well as the novel Familiar Spirit (1983) – and I do hope to be able to read those one day, too…