Partridge, Norman 1958-

views updated

PARTRIDGE, Norman 1958-

PERSONAL: Born 1958; American; married Tia V. Travis (a writer).

ADDRESSES: Home—Lafayette, CA. Agent—c/o Author Mail, Subterranean Press, P.O. Box 190106, Burton, MI 48519.

CAREER: Writer; has also worked in a library and in a steel mill.

AWARDS, HONORS: Bram Stoker Award, Horror Writers Association, 1993, for Spyder and Mr. Fox and Other Feral Tales, and 2002, for The Man with the Barbed-Wire Fists; World Fantasy Award, 1993, for Mr. Fox and Other Feral Tales, and 1997, for Bad Intentions; International Horror Guild Award, 1996, for The Bars on Satan's Jailhouse, 1997, for Bad Intentions and "'59 Frankenstein," 1999, for Wildest Dreams and "Blackbirds," 2002, for The Man with the Barbed-Wire Fists and "Blood Money."

WRITINGS:

NOVELS

Slippin' into Darkness, CD Publications (Baltimore, MD), 1994.

Spyder, Subterranean Press (Burton, MI), 1995.

Saquaro Riptide, Berkley (New York, NY), 1997.

Red Right Hand, Subterranean (Burton, MI), 1998.

Ten Ounce Siesta, Berkley (New York, NY), 1998.

Wildest Dreams, Subterranean (Burton, MI), 1998.

The Crow: Wicked Prayer (inspired by James O'Barr's "Crow" series), HarperEntertainment (New York, NY), 2000.

SHORT-STORY COLLECTIONS

Mr. Fox and Other Feral Tales, Roadkill Press (Arvada, CO), 1992.

The Bars on Satan's Jailhouse, Roadkill Press (Arvada, CO), 1995.

Bad Intentions, Subterranean Press (Burton, MI), 1996.

The Man with the Barbed-Wire Fists, Night Shade Books (Newberg, OR), 2001.

OTHER

(Editor, with Martin H. Greenberg) It Came from the Drive-In, DAW Books (New York, NY), 1996.

Also author of the comic book Wild Times: Deathblow #1, for D. C. Comics.

Work represented in anthologies, including Dark Voices 4: The Pan Book of Horror, edited by David Sutton and Stephen Jones, Pan Books (London, England), 1992; Best New Horror 3, Carroll & Graf (New York, NY), 1992; Love in Vein: Twenty Original Tales of Vampiric Erotica, edited by Poppy Z. Brite, HarperPrism (New York, NY), 1994; Dark Voices 6,edited by David Sutton and Stephen Jones, Pan Books (London, England), 1994; The Earth Strikes Back, edited by Richard T. Chizmar, White Wolf Publishing (Clarkston, GA), 1994; Celebrity Vampires, edited by Martin H. Greenberg, DAW Books (New York, NY), 1995; Rivals of Dracula, edited by Robert Weinberg, Barnes & Noble (New York, NY), 1996; Gahan Wilson's The Ultimate Haunted House, edited by Nancy A. Collins, HarperPrism (New York, NY), 1996; The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror, Carroll & Graf (New York, NY), 1996; The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror, edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 11th annual collection, 1998, 12th annual collection, 1999; Future Crimes, edited by Martin H. Greenberg and John Helfers, DAW Books (New York, NY), 1999.

WORK IN PROGRESS: "The Atomic Highway" series of novels, for Subterranean Press.

SIDELIGHTS: Horror-story writer Norman Partridge is "one of those rare writers who can take the physical world, distort it through a literary lens of their own contriving, and present it to his readers so convincingly that the most absurd events seem plausible," declared a contributor to the St. James Guide to Horror, Ghost and Gothic Writers.

In his review of Partridge's first book, a collection of short stories titled Mr. Fox and Other Feral Tales, Edward Bryant of Locus said that "Mr. Fox bids fair to become every bit the same sort of literary landmark as did Harry Morris' Silver Scarab Press edition of Thomas Ligotti's Songs of a Dead Dreamer several years ago." The seven stories in Mr. Fox includes two previously published ones as well as five new pieces. Among the tales are "The Baddest Son of a Bitch in the House"; "Black Leather Kites," which involves a sheriff's battle against black magic; "Save the Last Dance for Me"; "Sandprint," a story with a Hawaiian setting; "Vessels," a tale of erotic horror centering on three amorous college students; and "In Beauty, like the Night," whose protagonist is a pornographer losing his sanity. Mr. Fox won the 1993 Bram Stoker Award.

A pornographer also appears in Slippin' into Darkness, Partridge's first novel. Eighteen years have passed since the night when four high school boys raped cheerleader April Destino, an act that demoralized her and sent her spiraling into a life of prostitution. Now, a week after her suicide, the four guilty parties, as well as a friend who filmed the rape—he has now become a purveyor of adult entertainment—gather with three others to remember the fateful incident from their teenage years. "The plot has some weak links," wrote a Publishers Weekly reviewer, "but serves up satisfying surprises, too."

Spyder focuses on a vampire-like woman who offers a Faustian bargain. The main character, a celebrity, attempts to cheat her and, according to Don D'Ammassa in Science Fiction Chronicle, "suffers the consequences." D'Ammassa appraised Spyder as "neatly told," though in a comparative review with Out There in the Darkness by Ed Gorman, referred to the Gorman work as "more frightening."

Another short-story collection, Bad Intentions, followed. Originally published only in a limited signed edition, the book comprised more than a dozen tales—two new ones, the others previously published—with diverse settings that ranged from the Wild West to the film world of Hollywood. D'Ammassa of Science Fiction Chronicle called the stories in Bad Intentions "quirky, sometimes frightening," and cited in particular "Johnny Halloween"; "'59 Frankenstein," which draws on the atmospherics of low-budget horror films; and "Dead Man's Hand," a story that places a group of Old West gunfighters in battle against demons. A reviewer in Publishers Weekly noted that the stories make strong use of icons from popular culture: the music of Buddy Holly and Elvis Presley, B movies, and "eerie Southwestern backdrops." "Notwithstanding their echoes of noir fiction, these stories . . . showcase the author's ability to be inventively retro without seeming derivative."

Although Partridge has been better known as a shortstory writer than as a novelist, in the late 1990s he wrote two suspense novels, Saguaro Riptide and The Ten Ounce Siesta, about an ex-boxer, Jack Baddalach, who works for the mob in Las Vegas. "The Baddalach books were a lot of fun," Partridge said in an interview on the Night Shade Books Web site. "Of the two books, Ten Ounce is my favorite. I mean, I got to write a novel with snake-handling satanists, bikini girls with machine guns, komodo dragons, and a really twisted heavyweight champion as a villain. I don't think I could have more fun than that."

Around the same time, Partridge wrote and published another novel, Wildest Dreams. In this book, Clay Saunders is a professional assassin who finds himself in over his head when he kills the leader of a satanic cult. Saunders, no ordinary assassin, can see ghosts. This helps his career, since he feels more sympathy for the dead than for the living, but his misplaced sympathies do not serve to make him an endearing character. As a Publishers Weekly contributor described the book, "Vivid writing, lightning pace and true originality make this novel a genuine page turner, but an unrelenting and disturbingly amoral one."

In an interview for DarkEcho, Partridge described his most recent short-story collection, The Man with the Barbed-Wire Fists, as his "first doorstop book—twenty-plus stories, two new novellas, an introduction that explains how I became a writer at the drive-in movies, and a complete bibliography. I think anyone who reads Barbed-Wire is going to get to know me pretty well. All my passions are in that book—rock 'n' roll, B-movies, weird westerns, crime, and flat-out horror. There's something for everyone, and I think anyone who reads Barbed-Wire is going to see my genesis as a writer."

Partridge described his upcoming series, "The Atomic Highway" books, on the Night Shade Books Web site: "What I'm trying to do is recapture the spirit of movies like I Was a Teenage Werewolf or Earth vs. the Spider, only set them to a soundtrack by the Cramps and Bo Diddley. I'm having fun writing the first book . . . though I think my wife's getting a little tired of waking up to the sound of Wanda Jackson screaming from my office stereo at the crack of dawn."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Pringle, David, editor, St. James Guide to Horror, Ghost and Gothic Writers, St. James Press (Detroit, MI), 1998.

PERIODICALS

Booklist, March 15, 1994, Dennis Winters, review of Slippin' into Darkness, pp. 29-30.

Library Journal, March 15, 1994, Eric W. Johnson, review of Slippin' into Darkness, p. 102; January, 1999, Jackie Cassada, review of Wildest Dreams, p. 166.

Locus, August, 1992, pp. 19, 21.

Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, April, 1996, Charles de Lint, review of Spyder, pp. 29-30; April, 1999, Charles de Lint, review of Wildest Dreams, pp. 32; July, 2001, Charles de Lint, review of The Crow: Wicked Prayer, p. 46.

Publishers Weekly, February 28, 1994, review of Slippin' into Darkness, p. 74; May 27, review of Bad Intentions, 1996, p. 67; November 30, 1998, review of Wildest Dreams, p. 54; July 31, 2000, "August Publications," p. 77; July 30, 2001, review of The Man with the Barbed-Wire Fists, p. 67.

Science Fiction Chronicle, May, 1996, p. 57; September-October, 1996, p. 80.