Today
I have the privilege of welcoming Tim Prasil, author of Help for the Haunted: A Decade of Vera Van Slyke Ghostly Mysteries(1899-1909). He also writes audio drama, and his anthology Marvellous Boxes was produced and posted
to the Web by The Decoder Ring Theatre. Two of those productions were selected
for broadcast by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. His Chronological
Bibliography of Early Occult Detectives has revised the standard history of occult-detective
fiction, tracing the cross-genre back to 1815. This led to his editing Giving Up the Ghosts: Short-Lived Occult
Detective Series by Six Renowned Authors, published by Coachwhip
Publications. The chronological bibliography along with other features and news
can be found at https://merryghosthunter.wordpress.com/
.
** Be sure to wish Tim a Happy Birthday today!! **
Ghostly
Detecting
By
Tim Prasil
Meet the Characters:
Lovely
to meet you. I’m Vera Van Slyke, and thank you for asking me here to discuss my
ghost hunting. I’m a newspaper reporter, and debunking psychic mediums is my
special crusade. Some people are surprised by this—I mean my being a ghost
hunter on the one hand and a skeptic when it comes to séances and Spiritualism
on the other. When asked how I reconcile my skepticism with believing
wholeheartedly that ghosts do invade
our physical realm, I explain that ghosts are like cats. They’re real—but
they hardly come when called.
A
funny thing is that my journalist’s crusade is how I met my dear assistant.
She’s a woman of many names, so you’ll forgive me for having to consult my
notes. You see, I’m not very strong with names. Yes, here we are. Ludmila
Prášilová immigrated to the U.S. in 1887 when she was a mere child, and her pet
name was Lida. She began to introduce herself as Lucille Parsell, though, about
the time she became a young Spiritualist medium. Her mother was involved in
that, and it’s a delicate subject. I best jump ahead.
It was in 1899 that I met her. I was attending a séance at the Morley mansion,
the house in Boston belonging to the man who inherited all that tobacco money. Well,
as it turns out, the medium conducting the séance was Lida! (I’ve come to call
her Lida. It’s easier for me.) Of course, we didn’t know each other, and I went
ahead and debunked her. Between you and me, I somehow sensed that she was ready to be debunked!
At
the time, I was working on a book about the ruses of Spiritualist mediums, and
I asked Lida if she would allow me to interview her. Within a year, the dear
woman—almost still a girl at that time—was serving as my personal assistant. We
grew to be very dear friends, too. Much later, I learned that all along she had
been chronicling many of the ghostly mysteries we investigated together. Yes,
and sharing them with the man she would marry. That leads to a sad story. For
another time, perhaps.
Now,
remind of the name of that famous detective fellow. Oh, you know! Fictional,
but English. Smokes a pipe and seems a bit smarter than anyone could actually
be. Has a doctor for an assistant. Well, no matter. Lida often compares herself
to that doctor and, I guess, myself to the detective. I’ve never understood the
connection. After all, I’m American, not English. A woman, not a man. I pursue
ghosts, not criminals!
How did you get involved in your
current situation?
How
did I become a ghost hunter? Well, as a child, I had a fascination for ghost
stories — and then for ghosts alleged to be authentic. When still fairly young,
I introduced myself to a man named Harry Escott, a very great ghost hunter and
a kind, wonderful man. He was my mentor. Our investigations into haunted places
and supernatural phenomena convinced me that phantoms really do lurk among us.
Years
later, after I met Lida, I ran an advertisement in newspapers across the U.S.,
offering help for the haunted. The responses to that advertisement introduced
me to some truly baffling—and occasionally quite frightening—cases in a variety
of otherwise perfectly charming locales.
In
fact, I’d best go catch my train. I’ve received a report of coats—ordinary
coats, you understand, that seem to be dancing
in the air. Utterly by themselves! I don’t recall running across anything
like it before. But do promise me we’ll get to get together again soon. Tell
me, do you happen to enjoy beer?
The Author’s Turn: What inspired
the book?
I’d
been researching the history of the occult detective figure in fiction. For a
long time, these have been said to begin with J. Sheridan LeFanu’s Dr. Hesselius—who’s
a pretty sorry start, if he were the first. He fails in his only real case,
“Green Tea” (1869), and then only acts as a framing device for a few other
stories. I found that the roots of fictional occult detectives actually go much
deeper, at least as far back as 1817! This is before Edgar Allan Poe supposedly “invented” detective fiction
around 1841, another claim that’s easy to disprove.
Among
all of the occult detective characters I dug up, I couldn’t help but notice a
glaring lack of women—not even in the years when women were advancing
professionally (think of journalists like Nelly Bly and Ida Tarbell) and when
women were fighting for and winning the right to vote.
So
I invented a female ghost hunter/occult detective from that time period.
Explain the main dilemma/situation
in your book. Could it happen?
Help for the Haunted
is a composite novel or a short story cycle, meaning that it’s made up of
individual investigations—thirteen of them—while including an overall arc. Each
case involves solving the mystery behind a haunting and, hopefully, putting an
end to it. (Vera’s often—but not always—successful.) Across the span of the entire
book, 1899 to 1909, Vera develops a strong friendship with Lida, discovers an
affection for a newspaper editor in Pittsburg, contends with a world where women
face any number of societal hurdles, and deals with a deeply held secret
regarding her past.
Most of the Vera and Lida story, from the professional to the personal, could
very certainly happen. The ghostly activity? Hmm, probably not that. And probably not the distinctive
method the duo uses to confirm whether or not there are ruptures between the
physical world and the Great Beyond, openings that allow for ghosts to cross
over. It involves two oboes, one playing a B-flat and the other a high G. It’s
complicated and probably not at all realistic. Why not? Hmm. Why not indeed?
“According to this gentleman,” I told Vera Van Slyke, “you’re a gentleman.” I handed her a
letter addressed to Mr. Vernon Van Slyke.
Glancing over the correspondence, she replied, “One might expect greater
precision from a coroner.” She looked
up and winked at me.
“Oh, that’s far from the strangest part of the
letter,” I warned.
Vera’s smirk was replaced by a blank expression. She placed two fingers
to her jaw as she leaned back to read.
Peter M. Hoffman, coroner of Cook County, explained that his office had
been tasked with explaining three deaths of a highly peculiar nature. A
possible fourth victim was still being investigated. In each confirmed case,
termination of life was preceded by — as Mr. Hoffman termed it — “manic
vitality,” which he defined as “an exuberant and indefatigable expenditure of
energy on such activities as dance, sport, drink, and less sanctioned forms of
pleasure seeking.”
Vera looked up from the letter. “Does he mean these three people enjoyed themselves to death?”
“He says that each man died with a smile on his face,” I responded.
After another blank stare, Vera returned to Mr. Hoffman’s letter.
The coroner surmised that the condition was somehow related to the
employment of the victims. All three of the confirmed dead men — Cyril Hughes,
Donny Reynolds, and Carl Hanacek — worked side-by-side for the Illinois Tunnel
Company. The man still being sought was their co-worker. This firm had been
organized to dig passageways deep below downtown Chicago, the tunnels designed
for transporting freight, coal, and mail, thereby easing congested street-level
traffic. The four men had performed the initial digging and finishing work
before another shift lined the tunnel with concrete. Sometimes, their work had
taken them as far as forty feet below the surface.
“Forty feet underground,” Vera
muttered. “Must the sun of ingenuity forever be eclipsed by the moon of lunacy?” She began to sneer at the
letter.
Fearing that the deaths might have resulted from some unknown gas or
other substance better left buried, Mr. Hoffman presented his findings to the
city council charged with overseeing the tunnel project. The coroner argued
that informing the public of the early symptoms might prevent future tragedies
and that the digging should stop until more information was gathered. The
councilmen, however, unanimously insisted that the public not be alerted to the danger. Mass panic was likely to result, they
insisted. The digging, they amended, would continue. Mr. Hoffman suspected that
the council was more concerned with its own reputation than with the public
good.
“This Hoffman seems like a well-intentioned fellow,” Vera murmured as
she turned the page over.
Seeking the assistance of a courageous journalist, Mr. Hoffman had been
told that “Vernon Van Slyke” was known among local reporters for being both
daring and otherwise well-qualified
in dealing with strange phenomena. The three deaths certainly counted as strange. The coroner ended his letter
with an urgent request to meet, suggesting a time and location that would allow
an examination of the tunnel where Hughes, Reynolds, and Hanacek had worked
together before losing their lives. In a post-script, he clarified that the
tunnel had been lined with concrete and no workers since had shown any symptoms
of the deadly “manic vitality.”
Vera carefully placed the letter down on her desk. “Jot a note in
reply,” she instructed me. “Say that I’ll gladly meet with him as he suggests.
If at all possible, don’t indicate that I’m a woman. I’d love to see his face
when I arrive in my most frilly and
feathery hat.”
With a snicker, I said, “I’ll do my best, sir.”
"I watch a lot of horror movies and in turn have a lot of
nightmares," she admits. "I write them down and that gives me my ideas. Horror makes me happy. The love of
horror was something I shared with my father and brother, both of them gone
now, so it allows me to feel closer to them."
Evil is back, with a
greater appetite for death. 
About the Author: A. F. Stewart was born and raised in Nova Scotia, Canada, and still calls it home. An indie author with several published novellas and story collections in the dark fantasy or horror genres, she also likes to take a few side trips into poetry and non-fiction. She has a great interest in history and mythology, often working those themes into her books and stories. Visit her blog at http://afstewartblog.blogspot.ca/. 
Today
I have the privilege of welcoming Tim Prasil, author of Help for the Haunted: A Decade of Vera Van Slyke Ghostly Mysteries(1899-1909). He also writes audio drama, and his anthology Marvellous Boxes was produced and posted
to the Web by The Decoder Ring Theatre. Two of those productions were selected
for broadcast by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. His Chronological
Bibliography of Early Occult Detectives has revised the standard history of occult-detective
fiction, tracing the cross-genre back to 1815. This led to his editing Giving Up the Ghosts: Short-Lived Occult
Detective Series by Six Renowned Authors, published by Coachwhip
Publications. The chronological bibliography along with other features and news
can be found at https://merryghosthunter.wordpress.com/
.
