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Keeler, Harry Stephen

Page history last edited by Barry Ergang 2 yrs ago

Harry Stephen Keeler (1890-1967) was a prolific and increasingly eccentric American writer who introduced complicated story lines, wildly improbable in-story coincidences and sometimes sheer baffling conclusions. Born in Chicago in 1890, Keeler's childhood was spent exclusively in Chicago, a city so beloved by the author that a large number of his works took place in and around the city. In many of his novels, Keeler refers to Chicago as "the London of the west". However, he never offers any significant parallels between London and Chicago to buttress that statement. As a young child, his mother inexplicably (most likely due to an inability to adequately care for him) committed him to an insane asylum, thus fostering both his interest with the insane, insane asylums and the sane who had been committed to such places and a life-long violent antipathy towards the psychiatric profession. Beginning around age sixteen, Keeler pumped out a steady stream of original short stories and serials that were subsequently published in many small pulp magazines of the day. He attended the Armour Institute (now the Illinois Institute of Technology), graduating with a degree in electrical engineering. After graduation, he took a job as an electrician in a steel mill, working by day and writing by night. It was at this time that Keeler met his future wife, Hazel Goodwin, whom he'd marry in 1919.

Published in 1924, Keeler's first novel, The Voice of the Seven Sparrows, introduced audiences the world over to Keeler's complex, labyrinthine stories. Keeler began to gain some notoriety in the mid-1930's as a purveyor of new and original material. His popularity was realized when, in 1934, his book Sing Sing Nights was made into two B-grade horror films, one of which starred screen legend Bela Lugosi. During this period Keeler was employed as an editor for "The Ten Story Book" a popular pulp anthology magazine. Keeler proceded to fill the spaces between the stories with his own peculiar brand of humor, as well as illustrations by his wife. (He also included frequent publicity for his own books.) In spite of his popularity, Keeler's fiction and writing style grew increasingly bizarre, often substituting action or plot for laboriously lengthy dialogues and diatribes between characters. These events led to his American publishing company, Dutton, dropping him in 1942. The next eleven years were hard for Keeler as his writing drifted even further beyond the norm and short stories written by his wife (a moderately successful writer herself) were found increasingly within his novels. His novels were picked up by rental library publisher, Phoenix Press, known in the business as the last stop on the publishing bus. By 1953 British publishers Ward Lock printed their final Keeler novel, thus forcing the writer to pen his stories exclusively for an overseas market with stories often translated for publication in and around Spain and Portugal.

For a brief time Keeler was happy again until Hazel died in 1960. Pressing forward, Keeler remarried in 1963 in a marriage that rejuvenated his spirit for writing. Unfortunately, many of the new stories written by Keeler during this time went unpublished, including The Scarlet Mummy. Keeler himself died four years later in 1967, leaving behind a legacy of creativity for his fans everywhere.

In 2005, Collins Books (an arm of McSweeneys') republished Keeler's classic, Riddle of the Traveling Skull

Writing

Keeler is famous for the insertion of skulls into nearly all his stories. While many plots revolve around a skull or the use of one in a crime or ritual, others feature skulls merely as a side diversion, including one case where a human skull is used as a paperweight on the desk of a police detective. Keeler also kept a large file of newspaper clippings featuring unusual stories and incidents. He would paste these into the rough outlines of his novels, adding notes like "Have this happen to....". He also followed a writing procedure of his own; he'd often write a huge manuscript, perhaps twice the length required. He'd then cut it down to size, removing unnecessary subplots and incidents. The removed material (which he called "The Chunk") would sit around until Keeler would write another manuscript to use it- which might result in yet ANOTHER cutting procedure, and ANOTHER "Chunk". He also included stories by his wife - a protagonist searching for clues might find a mysterious book, read it, and for the next chapter or so we're reading an unrelated short story. In his book Thieves' Nights the hero reads a book which is about two other men telling stories: a framing device withing a framing device!. In yet another book, Keeler and his wife turn up as characters in a story.

Ramble House, run by Keeler aficionado Fender Tucker, has issued paperback editions of dozens of Keeler titles, including those left unpublished at Keeler's death.

An official Harry Stephen Keeler website can be found at http://home.williampoundstone.net/Keeler

"We are drawn to the inescapable conclusion that Mr. Keeler writes his peculiar novels merely to satisfy his own undisciplined urge for creative joy. " --The New York Times, 1942

Keeler's series characters were Angus McWhorter and Tuddleton Trotter. A positiver review of his work can be found here.