As Harlan Ellison described it during his interview with Jim Bohannon on the Larry King show, Angry Candy is a compilation of stories that deal with “the sense of loss and grief that attends the death of loved ones.” However, he didn’t realize this theme until after the stories were collected.
My favorites among them include:
“Paladin of the Lost Hour” – After being mugged in a cemetery, an elderly gentleman named Gaspar is rescued and taken in by Billy, a Vietnam vet. Billy soon discovers Gaspar’s gold pocket watch, but when he tries to pick it up, it levitates away and into Gaspar’s hand. The old man reveals that the watch is stuck at 11PM because it contains the lost hour that resulted from a miscalculation when the world adopted the Gregorian calendar. Gaspar is the latest in a line of guardians of that lost hour, charged with preventing the end of time. This story was translated into an episode of the 1980s Twilight Zone series.
“When Auld’s Acquaintance is Forgot” – Jerry Auld will pay anything to have one last horrible memory erased, even if he has to resort to illegal means.
“Broken Glass” – During a bus ride, a young woman daydreams about a sexual fantasy with two other women, only to have her thoughts invaded by a peeping tom. Elsewhere on the bus, a male passenger with telepathic abilities forces himself into her mind, causing her to panic until she turns the psychic tables.
“The Region Between” – After his death, William Bailey’s soul is reincarnated into different lives throughout the galaxy under the direction of an entity known as Succubus who assigns souls to living bodies for specific tasks. Bailey, however, will have none of it!
“Quicktime” – During an uprising in Galiopolis, a mob of peasants storms the towers and slaughters the royalty. Lord Garth manages to escape to the kingdom’s science building where a professor is developing a time machine. The machine has so far only been programmed to send an occupant back to the Upper Jurassic Period in the Mesozoic era. Garth arranges to travel there for a short time then be brought forward again once the revolution has ended. Best of luck with that plan, Garth.
“The Avenger of Death” – After finding a cryptic note and an uncashed check inside an old book, Pen Robinson learns that he was to be struck down by an agent of death, until said agent spared him. When Pen catches up to the agent, he finds the man dying on the street—the penalty for his failures. Pen learns that these agents are called “Takers” and is given the task of killing as many of them as possible before they claim more victims.
“Chained to the Fast Lane in the Red Queen’s Race” – A traveler in space and time pushes through the membranes between multiple realities, forcing his duplicate in the next reality to do the same until finally, one of the travelers finds the perfect life and refuses to move on.
“The Function of Dream Sleep” – While mourning the loss of several friends, a man wakes up in the morning to witness a fanged mouth appear in his left side, exhale a cold breeze, then vanish. In his quest to find an answer to this vision, he learns that he is not alone. According to Ellison, this story was inspired by an actual dream that occurred when during a brief nap before a meeting.
With his spectacular signing voice and magnetic stage presence, a poor and naive country boy named Luther Sellers becomes the sensational Stag Preston under the guidance of his managers Colonel Jack Freeport and Shelly Morgenstern. However, it becomes immediately apparent to Freeport and Morgenstern that Stag is not as innocent or pleasant as he first appeared. As he rockets to stardom, Stag’s arrogance grows along with his appetites until he pushes his luck too far, jeopardizing his life and career.
I started this book with the hope of finding more insight into how trauma affects the mind and body and I was not disappointed. Decades after growing up with violent—and often sadistic—physical and emotional abuse, I continue to struggle with bouts of depression and anxiety. We all know that the mind and body are inextricably connected, but The Body Keeps the Score taught me precisely how trauma affects mental and physical health at a deeper level. It opened my eyes to new treatments for overcoming toxic stress and trauma-based fears that are far beyond psychiatry’s “assembly line” practice of doling out pills to every patient.