Fredric Brown: "Granny's Birthday," "Nightmare in Yellow" and "Little Apple Hard to Peel"

I recently purchased a copy of the big Fredric Brown anthology put out in 2012 by Bruin Crimeworks, Miss Darkness, and from the "Tinglers" section late last month I read four stories first printed in the 1940s.  There are four more stories under the "Tinglers" heading, one of which we read in July 2022 when we read a bunch of critically-acclaimed noir stories, "Don't Look Behind You."  Let's read the other three today, one from the World War II era, two from the early Sixties. 

"Granny's Birthday" (1960)

A mere two pages of text, this is a successful horror trifle; you might call it a portrait of the concept of familial amoralism.  

A guy is at the birthday party of an 80-year-old woman, the matriarch of the successful Halperin family; he is the only person in attendance who is not a member of the family.  He likes all the people and is having a good time, but then a dispute erupts between two Halperins and a reckless impulsive act leads to a sudden tragic death.  The matriarch whips into action, demonstrating her dedication to her family and her dictatorial authority over its members.  To ensure the Halperins are protected from any sort of police prosecution, she instructs her people to murder the protagonist, thus eliminating all non-Halperin witnesses and providing a scapegoat who is in no possession to argue his innocence.  

After its debut in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, "Granny's Birthday" has been reprinted many times in Brown collections in English as well as in translation.

"Nightmare in Yellow" (1961)

"Nightmare in Yellow" was first printed in the men's magazine Dude.  This is another two page story that has been reprinted in many Brown collections; in addition, Helen Hoke in 1969 and Steve Bowles in 1981 saw fit to include it in anthologies of scary stories.

"Nightmare in Yellow" is an adequate twist ending story that shares a theme with "Granny's Birthday": the person who has won the love and affection of others who unexpectedly turns out to be horribly evil.

The protagonist is an embezzler who has reason to believe his thefts will soon be discovered.  His fortieth birthday is today, and, being something of a comedian, he has conceived the plan of starting a new life on this day by skipping town; he will kill his wife at the same time, to the very minute, at which he was born forty years ago, to cover his tracks and because he hates her.  His plan goes awry because his wife loves him and he has plenty of friends, and they have set up a secret surprise party--the surprise is sprunt just moments after he has committed the monstrous dead of slaying his wife, her inert body still warm in his arms.

"Little Apple Hard to Peel" (1942)

The narrator of "Little Apple Hard to Peel" is the sheriff of a small town in the Midwest.  When he was ten or eleven, a new kid his age, John Appel, arrived in town.  Anybody who got crosswise of John Appel suffered terrible, painful, even crippling, mishaps; one kid, Les Willis, suffered particularly grievously.  None of these dreadful misadventures could ever be traced to Appel, or to anybody else, but the sheriff and Willis had little doubt as to who was responsible.

Upon achieving adulthood, Appel left town; word eventually reached the sheriff that Appel was rumored to be a crime boss in Chicago, though nothing could be pinned on him legally--as far as the government could prove, he was a legitimate businessman.  One day Appel returns to town to take up residence in his childhood home, which has sat abandoned since his parents died.  Heartbreaking tragedy is the result when Les Willis and John Appel again cross paths. 

The ending of "Little Apple Hard to Peel" is a little bit on the extravagant side, but on the whole this is a powerful tale of cruelty, grief and revenge.  I like this one.  "Little Apple Hard to Peel" first appeared in Detective Tales, and later would be reprinted in 1985's Carnival of Crime and the 1997 French collection Attention, chien gentil!  

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These are all good realistic horror stories about human evil and the fact that we are never safe, that enemies, suspected or unsuspected, can suddenly appear to torture us or strike us down at any moment; Brown's characters and their behavior are very believable and the stories are all quite disturbing.  Thumbs up for all three--these are stories which justify Brown's high reputation.