Book Review: 'John the Balladeer' by Manly Wade Wellman
'John the Balladeer' (261 pp.) was published by Valancourt Books in 2023. It's a reprinting of the 1988 Baen Books edition, which is long out of print, and copies of which are expensive (one eBay seller / speculator is asking for $355.47 !).
Wellman (1903 - 1986) is of course one of the most celebrated writers of horror, fantasy, and science fiction of the late 20th century. All of his books eagerly are sought by Paperback Fanatics, and it's nice to see Valancourt reprint this particular title, making Wellman's works more accessible to the modern-day readership.
'John the Balladeer' was one of the more prominent characters in Wellman's fiction. Sometimes referred to as 'Silver John,' because his guitar had silver strings, John appeared in both the short stories compiled in this anthology, and novels such as 'After Dark' (1980) and 'The Hanging Stones' (1982). John deployed down-home geniality and a Christian ethos to confront and defeat various occult and supernatural troublemakers running loose in the wild country along the North Carolina - Tennessee border.
This anthology features a Forward by the late David Drake, a friend of Wellman's and a fellow North Carolina writer. David Drake provides an anecdote about visiting the Wellman cabin in Madison County, the real-world inspiration for the locales in which John travels. Karl Edward Wagner, another North Carolina fantasy fiction stalwart, was in attendance at the same time as Drake, so everyone had a good time taking in the high country air and some stringed instrument music.
Wagner in turn provides an Introduction, in which he lays out the history of the John stories and the rationale behind their chronological presentation in the book.
A reality of the Silver John stories is that they utilize a somewhat stilted prose meant to emulate a regional dialect, and accommodating this dialect takes some patience on the reader's part.
He was purely ugly. I'd been knowing him ten years, and he looked as ugly that minute as the first time I'd seen him, with his mean face and his big hungry nose and the black patch over one eye. When he'd had both his eyes, they were so close together you'd swear he could look through a keyhole with the two of them at once.
***
"Been quite a much of blight this season," said the carpenter.
"Yes, down valley, but not up here." Mr Absalom glittered his eyes toward the house across the ditch . "A curse was put on my field. And who'd have reason to put a curse on, from some hateful old witch-book or other, but Troy Holcomb ? I told him to his face. He denied the truth of that."
"Of course he'd deny it," said the carpenter.
***
It was another girl, older than Tilda, taller. Her hair was blacker than storm, and her pointy-chinned, pale face was lovely. She looked at Tilda a-kneeling by the spring and she sneered, and it showed her teeth as bright as glass beads.
***
I found 'John the Balladeer' to be more enjoyable when I read one or two stories at a time, rather than methodically going through the book from cover to cover in several sittings.
Who will like 'John the Balladeer' ? It's not a book of horror stories in the traditional sense of haunted houses, vampires, ghosts, specters, abominable snowmen, and killer crabs. But it does offer a down-home, folksy perspective on the supernatural, mixed in with a healthy leavening of Americana. If that appeals to you, then 'John the Balladeer' well is worth getting.
I'm a boomer who grew up in North Carolina and spent a lot of time in those mountains. The dialect rings pretty true to me although I associate it with people of my grandparents' generation or older, and don't hear it much any more on visits back home.
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