An Appreciation of Barbara Michaels Part III of III - The Dark on the Other Side

”Well, Babs,” Barbara Michaels’ agent said one stormy afternoon in New York City, “Quentin Collins is the hottest thing on television; how about writing something with werewolves, only make it more Gothic this time. Throw in a good thunderstorm and a big old house.”

Barbara went away, and after a shot of vodka or two, sat down and wrote The Dark on the Other Side, her third and final foray into the occult themes so popular in the late 1960s.

2006 Berkley Reprint

This is Barbara Michaels subverting the Gothic Romance as far as she can, with once again predictably mixed results. Again the role of the Innocent thrust into situations beyond his control is played by a male, this time Michael Collins, a writer who becomes involved in the lives of Gordon and Linda Randolph when he visits the estate to interview Gordon for a forthcoming biography. And what an estate it is, a lavish house modeled on a British country estate complete with towers and gardens, servants and a particularly unctuous personal secretary.

Charles Geer jacket painting for the original 1970 hardback edition.

Gordon's wife, Linda, assumes the role of Byronic hero, a brooding, dark haired beauty ravaged by alcoholism and a tendency toward paranoid schizophrenia. In the first chapter alone, the house and its furnishings speak to Linda, commanding her to kill Gordon, and at my count she consumes at least six cocktails before dinner, numerous glasses of wine during dinner, and finally collapses in a drunken stupor and has to be carried to her room, all within the first twenty pages.

But Linda may not be as crazy as she seems. Michael's investigation into the life and career of Gordon Randolph begins to uncover a number of former students and other acolytes whose lives have been shattered by psychosis, drug abuse, and suicide. Remember we're in Barbara Michaels' country and it's not long before Collins begins to suspect that Randolph is flirting with something dark and dangerous, namely getting in touch with his inner beast, or in Michaels' own words, the dark on the other side, a reference to Plato’s Allegory of the Fire.

The Dark on the Other Side is one of Michaels' most interesting works, and also one of her most frustrating. Her attempt at constructing a psychological thriller is weakened by undeveloped characters. Randolph is not nearly interesting enough to merit someone writing a full length biography, or nearly as sinister in his role of Gothic villain as he should be. Like Prince of Darkness' quasi-satanic hooey, it's pretty tame stuff. But how often in the late 60s Gothic Romances did the novelists flirt with not only adultery, overt or implied, female alcoholism, or bondage scenes? Yes, there is a startling moment late in the book when our hero keeps our heroine gagged and tied to a bed allegedly to keep her from doing harm to herself or others.

Harry Bennett's illustration for the 1971 paperback reprint gives away the ending, much like the beginning of this blog post.

Following Michael’s late 60s occult trilogy she returned to less experimental forms of Gothic writing, the ghost stories for which she is most remembered (The Crying Child, The Walker in Shadows) and the historical Gothic Romance (Greygallows, Black Rainbow) before abandoning the pseudonym altogether as her Elizabeth Peters Amelia Peabody mysteries soared to the top of international best seller lists.

Fans of the genre seem to either love or hate Michaels' works with passion either way. For me the experimentalism, edginess, and deliberate subversion of the genre in these early gems make them enjoyable to return to every few years.

An Appreciation of Barbara Michaels Part II – Prince of Darkness

“Black Masses, pacts with the devil,” proclaims the hero in Prince of Darkness, Barbara Michaels’ second foray into the occult, “that’s the thing nowadays.”

And how right he was. First published in 1969, Prince of Darkness came out as America’s love affair with the Occult reached its zenith, fueled in part by the runaway success of Ira Levin’s novel and Roman Polanski’s brilliant film adaptation of Rosemary’s Baby, as well as a burgeoning use of Tarot cards and renewed interest in Astrology, and ultimately, dabbling in magic, both white and black.

I admit I have a weakness for these kind of books, what I call quasi-satanic hooey, for as much as Michaels tries to lend authenticity to her tale of witchcraft in the idyllic countryside surrounding suburban Washington D.C. by name dropping Margaret Murray’s pioneering witch-cult theory, she still manages to confuse black magic with white. For someone with my tastes, it makes the cheese factor all the more delectable. Thanks to Michaels' consummate storytelling skills, Prince of Darkness never veers into the downright silliness of something like Fred Mustard Stewarts’s The Mephisto Waltz or Peter Lorraine’s nearly incomprehensible plot of Day of the Arrow.

I’d be curious to learn if Michaels one and only novel of contemporary witchcraft was her own idea or the suggestion of an agent who, like everyone else in the entertainment industry, saw dollar signs when the devil reared his horned head.

As in Ammie, Come Home, Michaels once again attempts to subvert the Gothic Romance genre, this time making the shady male lead into the vulnerable hero. Part of my perennial fascination with Prince of Darkness is its deliberately oblique plot. The opening prologue reads like a set-up for a low key spy novel, and then more than half the book follows our hero’s antics as he stages some elaborate apparitions and hauntings in an attempt to drive the already fragile minded heroine further insane. What our hero doesn’t count on is his efforts being trumped every step of the way by any number of nefarious characters ambling about quaint Middleburg, Maryland. He also doesn’t count on falling in love with the heroine herself (especially as he has already been panting like a dog in heat after the heroine’s little honey of a niece.) But male readers shouldn’t be put off by this mild romantic diversion. As in many of Barbara Michaels’ books the romance takes a back seat to the suspense, the ghosts, the chills and thrills, and in this case, the unmasking of a certain character during the book’s climax which finally makes sense of the novel’s overly long set up.

Prince of Darkness is not regarded as a favorite even among the most die-hard Barbara Michaels fans, but it manages to be, like so many other fictional forays into the occult during the final days of the 1960s prior to William Peter Blatty unleashing The Exorcist on an unsuspecting world, a fascinating time capsule of a specific time and attitude in America.

Harry Bennett's voyeuristic cover for the 1970 Fawcett Crest paperback edition.