A Night in the Lonesome October — Roger Zelazny

A Night in the Lonesome October
Roger Zelazny
280 pages
published in 1993

A Night in the Lonesome October took me all of October to read, not because it was such a long or difficult book, but because I read each chapter on the day it took place. This has been an ancient tradition in online fandom, or at least it was when I was hanging around rec.arts.sf.written in the late nineties (and I see Andrew Wheeler at least remembers this tradition too). It’s an interesting way to read a novel you’d otherwise read in a day or so. It also constituted my (semi) annual allowed read of a new Zelazny novel; I ration my reading of a “new” Zelazny as he’s one of my favourite authors and the supply is after all limited.

A Night in the Lonesome October in fact is the last solo novel he completed before his death two years later. Sadly to say, it’s also one of his few late novels that’s any good, unlike say his collaborations with Robert Sheckley. Like so many other grandmasters Zelazny had declined somewhat in his later years, for a variety of reasons, but A Night in the Lonesome October was a return to form. Witty, well written and with the characteristic inventiveness of Zelazny’s best work; it’s no wonder it became a cult favourite.

The inventiveness starts with the narrator, Snuff, the canine familiar of a man named Jack, who stalks the streets of London with his master, occassionally running into the Great Detective with his companion, possibly another player in the Game. Snuff tells his story in the present tense, each day setting down the events of the day, starting at October the first and ending of course on Halloween, October 31st.

As the days pass, the other players in the Game slowly gather with Jack in a small village near London and the contours of the Game slowly become visible to the reader. It’s seems there’s a ritual at the right night in October, in which there are Openers and Closers, with Jack being a Closer. So far the Closers have won the Game each time, but the Openers need to win only once to change the world forever.

Apart from Jack and the Good Detective, who may or may not be involved, there’s the mad witch Jill and her cat Graymalkin, the mad monk and his familiar, the snake Quicklime, the Count with his bat, the Doctor, his assistant and the giant man they bring to life who loves kitties, as well as some other strange characters not necessarily part of proceedings. There’s Larry Talbot, who unlike Jack, is able to talk to Snuff at any time, not just after midnight, as well as the local vicar, who seems very handy with a crossbow.

All these characters, when not pastiches of certain well known characters, are of course equally well known horror archetypes and A Night in the Lonesome October takes these archetypes and puts them into a Lovecraftian story, making it one of the few Lovecraft inspired stories that is actually comforting rather than unsettling. The Game and its participants show all the signs of being a long established ritual, with the various parties having adopted somewhat of a comradedly bond between them, not unlike rival Cold War spies thrown together in some godforsaken outpost.

This then is a cozy Lovecraft story, though there certainly is an air of menace behind the geniality. Zelazny is great at handling these switches from comfort to disquiet. His writing in general sparkles here. It was a great pleasure reading a chapter each day on the way to work, then put the book away and read something else.

It’s also of course, quite literally, a shaggy dog story.