Books: Shivers

Only one story ventures into the supernatural. The endpiece, The Green Road to Quephanda, speaks directly of the plight of the genre writer who cannot get himself taken seriously. The central character is a fantasist who keeps publishing to small sales and critical silence. Unable to bear the inattention any longer, he commits suicide, and in that moment his fantasy world is transferred to the mind of one previously condescending friend. Or, as Rendell puts it in the story's poignant final lines, which perhaps should be read as her own cri de coeur, "He reached his audience, he reached his audience at last." --By William A. Henry III