On the evening of Tuesday, 7 September 2010, the New York Review of Science Fiction Readings Series opened (or reopened) its neverending 20th season with a Double Langan—not a golf score nor a wrestling hold, but a duet of readings by horror writers John Langan and Sarah Langan. The event, guest-curated by Amy Goldschlager (a past curator), was presented at the NYRSF Readings Series’ current venue at the SoHo Gallery for Digital Art. Displayed around the room on the SGDA’s screens were covers of novels and an anthology and magazine featuring stories by the two Langans (who are not, to the best of their knowledge, related), a rather nice touch which the Gallery’s screens-instead-of-canvases approach allows. [Photo at right by Mark Blackman.]
In opening remarks, the Series’ producer and executive curator Jim Freund, host of WBAI-FM’s Hour of the Wolf radio program on sf and fantasy, explained the discrepancy; there was, it seems, some question about when the Series began, and one school (Claire Wolf Smith, correcting Jim and Gordon Van Gelder) holds that last year’s season was the 19th. Compromising, Freund welcomed the audience to “20th Season 2.0” before mentioning upcoming readings (there will be two events in October and an author tribute in November), then turning things over to Goldschlager.
After thanking Jim and the Gallery’s proprietor, John Ordover, and staff, Amy introduced the first Langan reader of the evening, John. (Yes, the evening boasted two Langans and at least two Johns.) A nominee for the Bram Stoker and the International Horror Guild Awards, and author of the novel House of Windows and story collection Mr. Gaunt and Other Uneasy Encounters, John Langan has been called “an emerging master of the elegant macabre.” The story from which he read, “The Revel,” which ran in the July-August issue of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, about a werewolf in a small town in Upstate New York, was an engaging bit of metafiction that slid neatly back and forth between character portraits and an explanation of the narrative elements of horror stories. Langan (John, that is) teaches courses in creative writing and Gothic fiction at SUNY New Paltz.
Following a short break, Goldschlager presented the evening’s second Langan, Sarah, the author of the novels The Keeper, The Missing, and Audrey’s Door) and dozens of short stories, and the recipient of three Bram Stoker Awards, an American Library Association Award, two Dark Scribe Awards, a New York Times‘ Book Review editor’s pick, and a Publishers Weekly favorite book of the year selection. Wearing (what Amy described as) a pair of “awesome shoes,” Ms. Langan read her first sf story, “Hindsight.” The tale, horrific and apocalyptic, told of the devastating effect (Black Betty’s Disease) of a black hole-like extrauniversal space anomaly, Black Betty, and the ship, The Second Coming, that rendezvous with it. Regrettably, to the story’s detriment, at times she read too softly to hear and too quickly.
The audience of about 25 included John Joseph Adams, Margot Adler (host, creator, and Freund’s predecessor at Hour of the Wolf), Harold Garber, Ron Hogan, David Barr Kirtley, Barbara Krasnoff, Matthew Kressel, Lissanne Lake, Jon Messinger, J.T. Petty (Sarah’s husband and the writer/director of S&Man and The Burrowers), Terence Taylor, and Genevieve Valentine. Afterward, as customary, the guests and a number of audience members adjourned to a nearby pub, Milady’s, for dinner. (Langan—John—promised to eat a lot.)