Extended leave: terminated! Jess, Ryan and Damien return with an explanation of the AWOL (it's lovely, trust us), a beloved classic by Edith Nesbit, and Jess' most wretchedly despised literary couple to date. Plus, Ryan tries to take out his congregation by organ. Welcome to Whiskey and the Weird, a podcast exploring the British Library Tales of the Weird series! This season, we're bowing in reverence to our eighth book in the collection, ‘Holy Ghosts: Classic Tales of the Ecclesiastical Uncanny’ edited by Fiona Snailham. In this episode, our featured story is: Man-Size in Marble by Edith Nesbit.
Bar Talk (our recommendations):
Jessica is reading The Other Valley by Scott Alexander Howard; drinking Labatt's NA.
Damien is reading Vampires in the Lemon Grove by Karen Russell; drinking Hibiki Japanese Harmony.
Ryan is reading Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir; drinking the Lagavulin 16yr.
If you liked this week’s story, watch Oddity (2024; dir. Damian McCarthy)
Up next: "The Parson's Oath" by Mrs. Henry Wood.
Special thank you to Dr Blake Brandes for our Whiskey and the Weird music!
Like, rate, and follow! Check us out @whiskeyandtheweird on Instagram, Threads & Facebook, and at whiskeyandtheweird.com
Jess: [00:00:00] Marble Sized Man, marble Men. It doesn't matter. So I just wanted, is
Damien: it man's size? No D.
Jess: Too bad I'm never gonna know.
Ryan: It's a part
Damien: of
Ryan: the Marble Universe.
Series
Jess: of stories. DD. That was terrible and I love it. That was pretty terrible.
Ryan: Welcome back everybody. I am Father Ryan Whitley.
Jess: I'm the Reverend Jessica Berg
Damien: and I am Deacon Damien Smith.
Ryan: And together this trinity is whiskey and the weird, the podcast that for the past seven seasons has been delivering you detailed and sometimes even correct analysis of the best spooky stories from times gone by.
Each season, we've prayed that you have been enlightened by our disputations on these themed selections from the British Library's Tales of the Weird Series. As [00:01:00] we cover one volume of these canonical classics every season. And each episode we provide careful exegesis of one story, what exit Jesus.
Yikes. Please make sure you read the story first before listening, as we always give a full spoiler summary. This season we turn to a particular testament of terror as we explore holy ghosts, classic tales of the ecclesiastical, uncanny, and now hark. I hear the cathedral bells. Calling us to vespers, hasten to your abbreviations.
Scoop more incense on the coals and join us in the pews before the last candle. Flickers out for tonight's reading comes from an all together different [00:02:00] lectionary. And our master story Planner Jones is here to tell us what it is.
Damien: Hold on. I'm choking on incense Smoke.
Jess: Wowza. We are gonna kick off with man sized in marble.
Bye. Edith Nesbit
Ryan: a famous one. I'm excited for that and I'm excited for this new season. Before we get into it, though, as always, we've got bar talk to do. Damien, what have you been drinking for the last several weeks? Yeah,
Damien: I'll share that in just a second, but I gotta say, as always. Ryan comes to the first episode of a new season with a brand new intro that's themed to the volume that we cover.
And as always, Jess and I are listening to it for the first time along with our listeners. And as always, it is we contribute
Jess: nothing
Damien: chockfull of thematic verbiage. And I have to assume, Ryan, because of your profession, that this one was probably a little easier than most to toss this term. This was, this one was
Ryan: indeed fun.
This was a lot of fun. [00:03:00]
Damien: Well, Jess and I were both Slack jaw listening to that. So kudos on a, on another intro, well written. Thank you. Yep. Thanks for asking. So for bar talk. I'm kicking off speaking of traditions the same way I kick off the first episode of every new season with my personal favorite blended whiskey out of Japan.
And that is the haki Japanese harmony. It is scrumptious, it is delicious. If you haven't heard me rave about it, just go back for the past to seven plus seasons and you can hear more about it. It is a truly wonderful glass of whiskey. Definitely my favorite a sometimes treat 'cause it's a little on the pricey side.
Gorgeous straw honey color, golden on the tongue, and it's a true delight. So go out and find yourself a bottle of bki, Japanese Harmony and drink it. What are you waiting for? As far as stuff that I've been reading, I recently fell into the a couple volumes of short stories by Karen Russell.
Ryan: Oh, fun.
Yes. Oh, I really like
Damien: her work.
Ryan: Yeah.
Damien: I really like her work. So the first one I started with was a [00:04:00] collection called Vampires in the Lemon Grove. The title story being basically an elderly couple who are the undead. Don't follow the traditional tropes of the undead and find that instead of having to drink blood, they can survive by drinking Sicilian lemons from a grove.
And in this in this little Italian villa, a natural
Ryan: substitution,
Damien: A natural, it took some trial and error. It really did. My
Jess: blood is actually just lemon juice, so it makes sense.
Damien: I'm gonna ring Jess out my next Tom Collins. But it's a little bit of the magical realism. A little fantasy play, a lot of like heart.
And Karen Russell actually came to realize later that wrote one of the collections in this Amazon. Audiobook recent collection that was about a guy who went to a wedding and he went stag. The story itself was called Stag. And it was just a really heartfelt character driven piece. And that's what her stories are.
They don't always scratch the itch, but they always, with regards to what I would call a full composed story, but they always demonstrate a really strong [00:05:00] writing prowess. And so I, I fell into vampires in the Lemon Grove. I moved quickly on to Orange World and other stories. And I'm gonna pick up either the Antidote or Swamplandia here real soon and see what Karen does for the novel form.
Really big fan. These have been out for a while, but they're new to me. Again, collected short stories of Karen Russell. Start with vampires in the Lemon Grove. Her Damien, go ahead Jess.
Jess: Her collections too are. Really well put together in a way that like sometimes when I read collections, either they are too similar or too different.
True. And you like for hers it's like the next one has no connection to the story before it. Correct. But they still like flow really well together and seem like a collection that you can sit in one reading and not either feel like you're reading too much of the same thing, or they're, or too different.
Damien: I agree. But you can still almost tell that they're all written by the same author. For sure. Yes. But they just com they completely vary with regards to sometimes structure and format. Other times [00:06:00] cadence and characters that are central. She gives real Amy Bender vibes. And I'm a huge fan of Amy Bender since back in the Girl in the flammable skirt days.
But I think Amy Bender rates more to the fantasy element, whereas it's just a little bit of a byproduct for a Karen Russell story, which are always very character driven.
Ryan: What were you gonna say, Ry? I was gonna say Damien as a fellow native Floridian, you should hasten to Swamplandia Will do.
It is a real joy. Alright. And it's just, it's an elegy for. A Florida that existed all the way up until the early seventies when Disney World starts moving in. And I don't think they ever named Disney World in the mo in the in the book, but you know what she's talking about House of the Mouse.
It, yeah. It's a really, it's a really good story. All that Disney stuff is going on in the background. But for a person that grew up in Florida I would think that would be the first choice of her novels.
Damien: Amazing. All right. Sounds good.
Ryan: What about you,
Damien: Jess?
Jess: Well, I have in my can a labatt blue non-alcoholic beer because for a [00:07:00] twist for this season, I am pregnant.
And so, Hey, drinking whiskey seems ill-advised I would say so we're gonna make our way through maybe a tour of some of our non-alcoholic options, and I decided to start with. Labatt because this is my go-to.
Damien: And is it the hockey in you or the wannabe Canadian in
Jess: you? I think it is. So like I've had probably every NA beer and we'll cycle through a bunch of them, but this is the one that tastes the most like a beer.
So if you had a cannabis most like the
Damien: original or most like a Yes. Both.
Jess: Okay. So if you had a can of labat and a can of non-alcoholic labat, they taste very hilariously impressive. Similar. Impressive. Yeah. Whereas like the fancier you get with your NA beer,
Damien: sure.
Jess: The more it tastes like an NA beer, I think because this mostly just tastes like bad Canadian beer, water, it's fine, it's delightful.
I'm having a [00:08:00] great time. It's just
Damien: water that some Canadians put out their cigarettes in and it's oh, here you go. It's a non-alcoholic beer.
Jess: It also comes in a big 12 pack for $11. Nice. Which is delightful. And so, anyway, that's what I'm drinking. I
Ryan: think you're burying the lead here though.
Do you have a few words you might say about the other subject you brought up?
Jess: It's interfering with my whiskey consumption. I feel like that might maybe the highlight. Yeah.
Damien: Now we gotta give a billing to a half host as well. Yes. So we have a, so this is just ridiculous.
Jess: We have a junior host on the way TBD we're, optimistically shooting for the end of May.
Oh, wow. We know he's a boy and we know very little else about him, but
Ryan: all
welcome whiskey in the weird it's a process. Learning. Learning, getting to know them.
Jess: Yeah, I've read a lot of books about it. I figure I'm a pro by now. No, nothing to worry about.
Damien: All right. Fine. Baby. Sch, maybes.
Going back to beer that tastes like beer when it's non-alcoholic. I recently did have a Guinness Zero, or whatever they call it, and the Guinness. The Guinness is okay. I feel like [00:09:00] stouts can really easily replicate themselves in an non-alcoholic form. I feel like it's an
Jess: ipa, though, is rough.
Damien: Yes, very true's not gonna be a good IPA
Jess: if I'm having a beer.
That's a beer. I like it. An IPA, but if I'm having a beer that's not a beer IPA is rough. Don't, yeah, that's a tough one. They haven't mastered that one yet, so we'll stick with, or she kombucha I think is gonna be the closest thing. So we'll stick with our labatts. But I did read a very good book that I picked up while being a little bit skeptical about it because on the back cover it was like, if you love never Let Me Go by Kazu Ishi Guru, you'll love this book.
And I was like, can't
Damien: do that.
Jess: Absolutely not. I don't believe it and honestly it holds up. This book is lovely. It is called The Other Valley by Scott Alexander Howard. And it is basically told in two different time periods when a woman is like a maybe 16 and then again when she's, I think in her thirties.
And it is about living [00:10:00] in this town where you're in a valley. This book's called The Other Valley. All right. And to the west of you, I may have these reversed. It doesn't matter, is the exact same town you live in, but 20 years in the future.
Ryan: Oh, I've heard of this book,
Jess: yes. To the east of You is a town that is exactly like your town, but 20 years in the past.
Okay. And then on the other side of that town, it's the same town 20 years in their past. So you're on a spectrum of time. It's like the yellow ations. And essentially the book is about, this girl is training to be part of a council that approves or denies visits to other, these other towns. So you can apply to either go for a visit 20 years in the future or 20 years in the past.
So it would be like if you were a parent and you had a child who died, you could go back in time and observe your kid by just hiking through a valley to this other town. Or if you [00:11:00] knew that you were gonna die. And you wanted to see your wife in the future, you could hike in the other direction and go.
But there has a council where they have to approve and, deny these visits based on could they interfere with the future or the past. Huh. But the writing is very similar to never Let me Go Where you are in this strange world and you're a part of it, but you're also like observing it through the eyes of someone who's just so deeply in it that they don't quite realize like, how weird and horrible and magical everything is.
Damien: Okay.
Jess: Honestly, it's one of the best books I've read in a very long time.
Damien: Holy cow.
That's saying something because yeah, honestly, I've, you turned up the criticism and unfold.
Jess: I've been a real bummer about what I've been reading lately. And this is a very lovely exception. I'm still thinking about it.
It's like very sweet and sad and, it's good. Pick it up.
Ryan: Oh, that's incredible. I take it sports betting doesn't come into the plot. [00:12:00]
Jess: Keep that,
Ryan: keep that to Biff
Damien: and and the Deloit.
Ryan: Exactly.
Jess: But it's there are little things like that where it's like, when it's your 20th birthday, you realize that you've just been born in the next town over.
Ryan: Yeah. And it's just like you just live in, you have these little crises.
Jess: Yeah. You just live in a society where it's just oh God. Okay. Yeah. I guess that's how it is.
Ryan: Gotta get on that guy's calendar. We got a few things to share.
Jess: Ryan, what are you drinking?
Ryan: Well, I'm drinking a themed whiskey tonight.
But you might not know it originally. This is the Lagavulin 16 which is a delightful ILO whiskey. It's one of my favorites. I don't get it very often 'cause it's expensive here. But. Yeah. Five years ago I married a couple, John and Jen, and as a gift to say thank you for performing their marriage.
They got me a bottle of the Lagavulin 16 Distillers edition, which was an even better bottle of [00:13:00] whiskey. And on the occasion of their five year anniversary, they brought me a new bottle. The, they were correct in their assumption that the previous one had run out. Sure. That will happen. Yes.
And so I was thinking like, this is a bottle that was given to me in direct response to something that happened at a church. And so here we are in Holy Ghosts tales of the ecclesiastical, uncanny, and I thought that was appropriate. All right. Ryan. Think that's,
Damien: Ryan's gonna be like, Ryan's gonna be like, I'm eating a Jimmy John's sandwich because one day after I left the church, I went and got a Jimmy John's sandwich.
Yeah. I be like this.
Jess: Could apply to almost everything that happened.
Ryan: Exactly. I think. But it's and it's, and if it's not clear, like it was my second choice, because my first choice was a really themed cocktail that I looked up online called Body and Blood. Oh. It was a cocktail crafted by a bartender.
I forget where he was from. Some bar somewhere.
Damien: Sure. Most are where bartenders tend to be. Okay. Where they tend to be.
Ryan: Yeah. And it involved wheated bourbon and red wine. Oh. For body and blood and if and like several other things. And he goes all the way through it. And then he says this drink [00:14:00] was disgusting.
It was like, I'm not making that's really a bearing the lead. Yikes. The Lord would find it blasphemous, but not perhaps on account of the name. Give it any, take it away.
Jess: Good thing you read it before going out and buying all the ingredients pretty right, because some
Ryan: of them were like fairly specialty ingredients.
It's by the way
Damien: this cocktail was made by an 8-year-old who got into his, parents' liquor cabinet. It's okay, great.
Ryan: I do want to give a shout out to to both Damien and Jess because they hailed the, something is killing the Children series of graphic novels some time ago.
Oh, yeah. James Tinney and IV Wether Del Edra and Miguel Muerto are responsible for it. I'm not a graphic novel reader. I just, I never have been. I've never gotten into comics, never really gotten into graphic novels. This is the first one that's ever held my attention and I'm enjoying the series I'm on.
I'm on the fifth. Out of eight. Oh, wow. Now nice. Tear through. They read quick. Yes. And I would say that if, if you're, if you just [00:15:00] want a taste of it, the first three tell a cohesive story. Sure. And then it branches out from there.
Jess: So that's all. The further I've read is the first three, I think.
Ryan: Yeah. So the fourth one was terrible because it was a flashback chapter. And I'm in a part of my life now where I hate flashback chapter. Fair enough. So the fifth one, we don't
Damien: reflect, we're moving on. It's good for a little world building though. It expands the boundaries, but it does divert a lot from the story.
It does. Okay.
Ryan: So, so I wanna say thanks for turning me onto that the other book that I have read recently that was just phenomenal and I guess I shouldn't have been surprised because everybody that's read it has said that it was phenomenal. And that's Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir.
Oh, boy. It was so good. I was, it was one of these ones where I'm waiting for. For it to be bad, I'm waiting for it to be overhyped. And I just couldn't say that. It was fun, it was whimsical, it was charming, it was hard science. It was a very interesting story and every chapter ended.
In such a way that you had to [00:16:00] move on to the next chapter immediately, huh. So I was very surprised by that. I am devastated to learn they're making a film out of it. There's no way that is gonna star Ryan Gosling as the main character, because that is not at all who I picture. I picture more of a Paul Gama type actor being the main character.
You know
Damien: what's interesting and I can respect that, what's interesting is there was a movie that I think was exclusive to Netflix. It was another Adam Sandler John, where he took a serious slant called Spaceman and it gave complete project Hail Mary vibes in watching the preview. And truth be told, I haven't seen the film.
Yeah. But knowing the book and having read the book, I was like, is this a little, is this a take on project Hail Mary? So I don't know if if that's something akin, I'm really curious as to see who plays the second lead or how they Yes, I am too. How they visualize the
Ryan: second lead in that. Yeah. No, it was a really fun story and I, it's one that I could easily recommend to anybody.
Regardless of whether they have a predilection for sci-fi or not. Very [00:17:00] cool. So that's Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir. Alright, that's gonna take us into our author and publication info for tonight's story, mans Size and Marble by Edith Nesbitt. And all the way back in season three when we first covered a Nesbitt story, I shared with you her biography.
We learned that she was born in August of 1858, that she was most well known for her children's fantasy stories. In fact JK Rowling cites her as a major influence. Say what you will XA and that in her social life, she was something of an a iconoclast of more typical Victorian values. The details of her home life were somewhat shocking. Her first husband was in the words of the guardian, a feckless philander. Oh, who in the words of Gore Vidal was also terrible at earning a living.
Damien: Lots of people have commented on this guy can't, he's making weird enemies.
Ryan: Her husband [00:18:00] impregnated Nesbitt out of wedlock, married her, but refused to live with her, instead, preferring to live with his mother, which is odd. Got his mother's nurse pregnant, then decided to move in with his wife, after which he embarked on an affair with her best friend Alice, and then had Alice move in so that the husband, Hubert, bland, Edith and Alice all lived happily under one roof until they didn't.
Some have suggested the three shared in a polyamorous relationship, but I don't know if that's actually been substantiated by real evidence. Depends on how cold it was outside. Perhaps. So it's unsurprising to learn that Edith Nesbitt had some repressed feelings. These tended to come out in her writing.
While absent father figures and financial woes are a part of her children's fantasy settings, her darker skeletons come out in her horror and [00:19:00] gothic fiction. This is readily apparent in her two most famous stories, John Sherrington's wedding and our story Tonight In the former, a bride is driven to the marriage alter, despite her intendeds literally being dead on arrival.
Whether that's more a comment on her husband bland, or the Victorian marriage institution, I'll leave for you to decide. And in our story tonight, there is a brutal savage rep present that is still startling even to our inured ears. The thing Nesbitt does that not only puts her a cut above other contemporaries, but separates her out as one of the best authors of ghost stories.
Is infuse her tales with relatable emotion, which in turn tends to dial up the effect of the horror. We'll probably talk more about that in a few minutes, but suffice it to say here that Nesbitt does this better than just about anyone. She's [00:20:00] unafraid to include humor, romance, and sweetness in her tales of woe fitting foils to the macabre man size and marble.
Indeed, her most famous story was first published in the 19 eight, excuse me, 1887 volume of Home Chimes magazine. The December edition Home chimes was a London-based monthly that ran for a decade between 1884 and 1894. It focused on lighthearted and humorous fiction from younger or unknown authors, so I'm guessing readers of that December issue got quite a shock.
From Nesbitt's Tail, especially given how it's constructed. And now I'm gonna turn it over to Jess for our summary.
Jess: Woo.
To be clear at, I've read this story before and at no point have I remembered that the title is Man Sized in Marble. I'd call it Marble Sized [00:21:00] Man, marble Men. It doesn't matter. So I just wanted, is
Damien: it man's size? No D. That is correct. Man. Size in Marble.
Jess: Too bad I'm never gonna know.
Ryan: It's a part
Damien: of
Ryan: the Marble Universe.
Series
Jess: of stories. DD. That was terrible and I love it. That was pretty terrible. Alright, well we open with our unnamed narrator, giving the old, of course. I don't expect you to believe me. About what happened on those fateful nights in October, but here's my story. Anyway, the standard intro where we're introducing something unbelievable, but he launches right into their situation.
Our narrator and his wife, art Rich, but also don't really seem to have jobs. I bet we'll talk about that later. So they decide to buy a little house in the country instead of living in the more expensive city for not having any money. They are a little picky about what they wanna buy, and it takes 'em a bit to find something that [00:22:00] they like that's nice and cute and clean.
The house they eventually find is pretty old and a little ugly, but there are flowers and vines growing on it, so that makes it okay. There are also some walls remaining from a much older house that once stood on the property, but. The price is right. So they spend their honeymoon buying secondhand furniture and moving in.
He paints and sketches, she writes, and so they quote, got a tall, old peasant woman to do for us. Her face and figure were good though her cooking was of the homeliest.
Ryan: Well, thank God they had their priorities right,
Damien: not the holiest mind you, which sounds like it's good nurturing and cozy, the homeliest.
Jess: So in addition to housekeeping, she also entertains them with stories and like local [00:23:00] legends and gossip.
Laura, the wife, hated housework as much as I loved folklore. That's from the narrator, and so they have her do everything around the house and garden. And then they write up her little local legend so that they can sell them to like newspapers and make money. So thanks Mrs. Doorman. They live a lovely three months in their little house, which is a couple miles from town until one night the narrator leaves Laura alone so that he can go and drink with the Irish doctor, neighbor.
When he returns, she is sobbing on the floor because Mrs. Doorman says she has to leave before the end of the month. She says it's because a niece is ill, but Laura doesn't believe her because this niece is always sick. So who cares?
Ryan: We all know that employee. Yeah. Seriously.
Jess: Husband and wife have a convo where [00:24:00] he affectionately calls her pussy and tells her to stop crying.
Otherwise he'll cry and then she'll never respect him. So we're like now.
Damien: Now pussy, I knew Jess would love this.
Jess: We're like two pages in and I'm already over these two. So Laura unconcerned about the sick, potentially imaginary niece complains because how is she supposed to be expected to cook and clean and do laundry because then they'll never have time for anything else.
And then narrator, who obviously would not be expected to cook or clean or do laundry, it just tells her to relax and then she'll be able to do it. And so they go for a walk to a nearby church. We wander to this traditional old spooky church in the woods. This one's standout feature is two statues of some knights laying on marble slabs, one on each side of the altar.[00:25:00]
The couple knows from their local gossip that they are statues of wicked marauders who are both so evil that the house they lived in was struck by lightning and that house.dot was on the property that they just bought. What a coincidence. Oh, no, it's that bit of old wall or whatever that's still around.
Damien: Love it. Or listen,
Jess: I assume the lightning killed them both. Or they died and the house burned down or whatever, but they had enough money that the family had these statues cooked up and put in the church. Our narrator and wife like to walk around here, especially at night, of course, to sit on a little bench or something and look at the church.
So the next day, Mrs. Doorman shows up for work and our narrator harasses her into confessing what's really going on. They go back and forth about it for a little bit until she eventually says that it's because of [00:26:00] the statues at the church. Every, all Saints Eve, those bad boys, the Knights draw out man size and marble come to life and wander back to where their house was.
They leave muddy footprints and God help anyone who is in the path between here and the church, et cetera, et cetera. Mrs. Dormant panics because she said too much and leaves, but maybe she'll be back in November. So we just gotta get through a couple days. Which means our narrator and wife are without help for literally parts of two days.
Ryan: Yikes.
Jess: Yikes. This is before
Ryan: Lean cuisine, so yikes. They're really dire straits. Where's my Homeliest cuisine?
Jess: So Laura makes a steak and potato dinner, and the narrator congratulates himself on how great he is at washing dishes. So that's their Thursday. On Friday, the narrator had to figure out how to light a fire, and they spend most of the rest of the day just figuring out how to clean and then [00:27:00] eating cold steak.
They're not too busy. These are full
Ryan: blown adults, people.
Jess: They still have time for a leisurely stroll in the afternoon. By that night, Laura is acting a little nervous. She's getting chills, and it's just asking questions about evil. Our dumb narrator connects no dots and just sensor to bed so that he can go for another walk.
This time at night, obviously he did not mention anything about Mrs. Doorman's statue information to Laura. So outside we have some ominous clouds rolling through. Our woods are oddly silent. Our narrator thinks about his wife and their lovely life, and they can't wait to live a long glad life with his dear own little girl.
We use little girl too many times. I would say.
Damien: He does color a pussy again too,
Jess: so he or his pussy
Damien: rather, I shouldn't say a [00:28:00] pussy. It's ownership.
Jess: There's a lot of ownership and young little girl happening. So he's wandering around, comment in the woods. He looks in the window of his own house at one point, and Laura is asleep, so he wanders back over to the church.
But on the way he hears some muffled footsteps and the door to the church is open. That's weird. They must have left it open the other night as he lets himself back in. It's only then that he remembers what day it is. It's the man sized marble Men night, all Hallows Eve baby. He walks up to the altar to calm himself down by looking at the statues to make sure like they're obviously still there and obviously they're not.
It's just empty slabs. So he's panicking and getting ready to run through the woods back to the house. But instead he runs smack into the Irish doctor, neighbor who is also wandering around the woods in the [00:29:00] dark. I guess there wasn't
Ryan: a lot to do. He the ambulation in the evening with the big thing.
Jess: He tries to explain what's going on, but the doctor just calls him an idiot and makes him go back with him to the church so that they can both see that he's wrong and the statues are there and if he doesn't go with it's because he's a coward and our narrator isn't a coward.
So he abandons his plan to check on his wife and goes back to the church with the doctor. And whoa, our knights are back on their slabs. The doctor insults his brain before they both notice that one hand on one of the statues is broken. Weird. I bet that's nothing.
Damien: Nothing at all.
Jess: So the narrator heads back home, the dock goes with him again, still worried about his brain, and they see that this front door is left open also.
And the parlor door. Huh? But where's Laura? Her chair is empty. What is that? [00:30:00] Her book on the floor. Oh. She's over there dead and falling off the window seat.
Her lips are drawn back in fear. Her eyes are wide open, terrified, but also for sure very dead. Her hands are tightly clenched. And what's in her hand?
Damien: What a
Jess: gray marble finger.
Ryan: The end. All right. The end. The end. Well done. Well summarized indeed. So friends, here we are in season eight. I'm particularly excited for this season been pushing for it, in fact, since I saw this book was coming out. But I'm curious what are you two feeling as we get ready to go to church in season eight?
What are your hopes or expectations for this volume? We'll start with Damien because Jessica's already read them all.
Yeah.
Damien: I'm excited how the weird and the holy kind of override. I feel like there have been a couple, one-off stories in previous volumes that have touched [00:31:00] on religious themes, or at least based in religious atmospheres experiences, central characters had holy title.
So it'd be nice to have a full volume. I'm sure we'll probably get to the, did it holy or did it religion? Is it church? So I won't, I, yeah. Does it church? So I won't comment on the churchiness of this first story yet until we get to that piece, but I'm excited. One, it's a new editor that we haven't read from before, that we haven't read.
The anthologies that they put together before. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. And two, just the supernatural elements. Me as an agnostic individual, like seeing how the weird meets what I would call the established weird, which I think a lot of religions kind of fall under that, in that largely unexplained, largely supernatural, ethereal, unknown speculated on, but not proven how those two collide.
I'm really excited about this
Ryan: season. I'm really excited about this volume. Okay. Jess, before you read them [00:32:00] all what were you hoping you might find in this room?
Jess: I wanted a little variety. Okay. My fear going in was that it was going to be 10 stories about a haunted priest. Okay. Or, something.
And I was very pleasantly surprised at Oh, good. How varied these stories are for all being written by, white people of a certain time experiencing Christianity. So there's not, it's, we're not going wild here but there are, some of the stories like this one where they're slightly more church adjacent.
Damien: Yeah. And some
Jess: where they're significantly, like the religious elements are more involved. It's, I think, a good platform for diving into some fun stories. Like it's a good unifying element without it being. Repetitive over and over. Okay.
Damien: Yeah, it just brings up a really good point. I didn't anticipate I went into this volume not anticipating like a glimpse of world [00:33:00] religions and like various cultures coming into play here.
I knew it was gonna be pretty milk toast with regards to, Western Catholic Christian culture. If that's the case, I will be pleasantly surprised, but I think justice validated the fact that we're staying in in God's country from here on out. And that's fine because as long as that variety exists and it doesn't sound like that was said with a disappointed tone, then I'll be impressed.
I,
Ryan: I think I was also I am, I haven't read them all. I've read several previously to this volume, but I think I'm also hoping for variety, but of a slightly different kind. I wanna see stories that have some really beautiful descriptions of old churches. I like that. Okay. I wanna see some stories where the.
The haunt or the scare, or the spook or whatever it is that story is doing, is on account of the theology that the stories world is working in. If that makes sense. In other words, I'm so in line
Damien: with [00:34:00] certain tenets of of a different religion and not just like randomly associated with a holy place or a holy place, right?
Like there was a
Ryan: murder in a church and now it's haunted by the murder victim. Okay, that doesn't have anything to do with it. Sure. So I'm looking for that kind of variety. I'm also looking for, and hoping for stories of that feature clergymen that are not portrayed as bad or evil, just on account of the fact that they're clergymen.
I think that's something that happens a lot in modern day writing. And I'm I'm always sort of longing for well, a few of us out there aren't so bad. But that's also,
Damien: And who knows if this is the case, it might not be the case, but it's by and large, by external observation.
This is a contemporary issue. Yeah. And it didn't necessarily exist well, or it wasn't worth, it could be other civil servants. Well, there could be other civil servants as well that it seems like that, that the nature or the perception of people in those positions were more regarded, historically than they are today.
And we don't need to get political there, but that does exist more so [00:35:00] today. Yeah, sure. Whether or not it happened, different story, but I think the reverence that existed with people of holy stature back in the 18, late 19th century is probably a little higher regard.
Ryan: I think.
I think so. And I, so I'm looking forward to that. There's also something fun that happens in weird fiction writing or horror writing in general around the time that these stories are all published. And that is, that horror is moving out of the Judeo-Christian world and into the realm of the scientific right at the, just after the turn of the 20th century.
So less people writing the kinds of stories that might appear in a volume like this and more people writing stories in the kinds of volumes like Promethean Horrors yeah. That we did. And so that that's happening right. Right now in, in the midst of the run of these stories.
So I'm interested to see if that's chronicled in any way. That's one of the reasons, Lovecraft got famous. He abandoned the Victorian trappings of religion Sure. And moved into the scientific I've always thought [00:36:00] it would be interesting to edit a an anthology series of religious horror of world religious horror where all of the stories centered on a haunt or a spook or whatever it was that was because of the theology of that particular region.
Or drawn from the theology of that particular religion. So if there's any, if there's any publishers out there that are interested in that, lemme know, talk to the interested
Damien: or the British Library, I'm sure they might be interested in this. Especially not just Christianity,
Ryan: not just Judaism, but to really look at a lot of world religions and say what can we take from this?
So, that's, those are some of the things that I'm looking for. One, one of the things this book series does well is to introduce us to lesser known stories by sometimes lesser known writers not So with our story tonight, this is Edith Nesbit's most well-known, most beloved anthology ology story. Yes.
So how did that change how you approached reading it?
Jess: I definitely have read this one like [00:37:00] in high school and or college, and I wanna say it might be in another British library Tales of the weird volume that I've read. Like I had read it more recently than picking this one up too. And so it's a fun story but it is one where you're just well, what about it means it's gotta be in every book?
It's also was. F and this is not going to be news to anyone who's not US Americans, but this story was the BBC Christmas Ghost stories. Anthology, yeah. Movie this past Christmas. It was. So for 2024, they did this story for their Christmas ghost story, but I think they said it was set on Christmas Eve, not
Damien: Halloween.
Jess: Halloween Eve. So it's obviously both well-known and [00:38:00] beloved. And you can find it in, I would just say most books. I think if you opened a book,
Damien: this one's probably
Jess: in there somewhere.
Damien: Dr. Seuss, it's in there. Richard Scary. It's in there. Steven King. It's in the back. It's in there. Yeah.
No, I think that's I, I agree with what you said, Jess. I think it's pretty interesting. I've read the story before. It was my entree and Deeth Nesbit's work. Again, if it was the first story, I think that it was done for a little juice. I think it was done to make people feel comfortable before maybe throwing 'em off their rocker a bit with some lesser known stories.
The fact that it's in a later volume, the fact that it's midway through the book I don't know what the purpose was. I don't necessarily seeing it as being the most church. It's not the most religious of tales. The fact that we're talking about grotesque and there's an Irish doctor who's probably Catholic.
I don't know. It's, there's a, there, there's a couple little toss ins as to why this could be considered thematic. But my question is not [00:39:00] why is this story in every book ever? My question is why is it in this volume? So I
Ryan: just off the cuff, Damien, my answer to that would probably be, because I think you can actually go to the church.
This story was written about okay, fair enough. Like the church exists, it's a Norman church, and these statues or similar statues are actually there.
Damien: Woo.
Ryan: That's fair. So I think if, if you're aware of that, and not everybody is gonna be aware of that, but if you're aware of that, then it's placed in a book like this might make more sense immediately to you.
All right. Good. Fair. I've read this story half a dozen times easily a lot recently, and we'll talk more about that in a minute. But I don't always I really applaud Jess's choice to, to lead the season off with this. 'cause I think it is a great choice. It would be the exact opposite choice that I would make if I were sitting down to read this collection by myself.
Like I would put this one at the end if I had never read it before. But knowing what I know about it. Okay. Because I have this weird choice that I always make. If I know a story is famous, [00:40:00] if I know it's supposed to be super awesome, if I know everybody and their mother loves it, I don't read it until the very end.
Well, because I, I'm like, I'm gonna save it for the last That's, yeah. But lemme ask you this, Ryan, this is weird. I know. It's weird.
Damien: I don't feel like I feel like this is the kind of story that if, it's famous, you've read it. There's no, you don't happen upon this story.
Being a fan of the genre, being a fan of the author, being a fan of this collection and not, and having, or being a fan of a collection that it's in and having not read it. I think that's, I think that, it's famous because you've read it and you've been entrenched in that world That could be, yeah.
With that subculture and all of a sudden it's what got you there almost.
Ryan: That's fair. That's fair. But I do this with my, like my favorite authors too. I don't read all their works. 'cause I want some still left for later for tomorrow.
Jess: That's so weird. And
Damien: they're all dead, so you know, there's no
Ryan: more, yeah.
Jess: Just it is a
Ryan: very strange thing, Jess I just,
Jess: I can't even imagine picking up a book and skipping around, like I've
Ryan: Oh, these I would do it all the time on these books I'm book. That's
Jess: so wild. Yeah. [00:41:00] I can't do
Ryan: it.
Jess: We're doing it as part of how this podcast is made because occasionally the stories are really similar and right next to each other, so it just avoids having two episodes where we go Ugh.
Haunted statue. Yeah, haunted statue. Yeah. But like in the real world, I guess the author or the editor put them in that order for a reason. And so my initial read is always well, the editor put it in this order so I will get something out of it. If I read it in this order, I tend to know better.
Ryan: Yeah.
As a reason. Yeah.
Jess: But Ryan is right and the editor is wrong. I'm not, look, I'm, to what extent do you owe
Damien: the reader set of order in
Jess: your story? Listen, sorry, Fiona, you did it wrong. This story should have been last
Damien: snail and we're calling you out already. Episode one.
Ryan: Okay. Well, let's move on then. To me the way the story is structured and paced is one of its more interesting features. Only at the end does the horror come out to play. [00:42:00] What did you make of the structure and do you agree that it's a master stroke or are you wrong?
Damien: I will honestly, I'll honestly say that the bill, and, again, I've read it before I knew it was coming.
Even if you hadn't read it, I'm sure that the elements, the tropes that existed painted the picture before you got there. Pretty readily. But I think that nesbit's strength is building that sense of foreboding where, something bad is gonna happen and you're just waiting for that shoe to drop.
And I think the pacing to get to that point is exquisite. And I think some of those minor elements that occur, to either delay that payoff or stretch it out just long enough, it just
Ryan: chimes along the way.
Damien: So that's where the mastery in this work comes into play. For me.
Jess: I think Jess is
Ryan: about to be wrong.
Here she comes.
Jess: No. I think this has a very, no, I'm not gonna be wrong.
Damien: This doesn't wrong. All right. It has
Jess: a very, like the tail you tell as a. Camp counselor [00:43:00] around a campfire
Ryan: where you're it's a italicized ending, right?
Jess: It's got the, and there was a hook in the door ending. Sure. But it also has the lead up of you can see what's coming because your characters are doing something wrong, right?
You've gone up to the hill to have sex in your car. And that's why you deserve to get hooked to death or whatever. And this is just like these douses who don't make enough money to take care of themselves properly, but also have enough money that they never had to learn. And, they're leave, he's leaving his wife and he just forgets like oh God, is it Halloween tonight?
What? The night I'm in the haunted church. So it's also like this morality tale where yeah I guess maybe you deserved it in the way that these like
Camp counselor. Don't have sex in your car, teens or something bad will happen, or else is just yeah, don't be douches who [00:44:00] move to the country and ignore all of the local legends, because guess what?
You're gonna get a hook in the side of your car.
Ryan: So I wanna ask you this, Jess. I've had this conversation with a lot of people about this story. About this story. And again, I'll, we lead very different. Alright,
Damien: let's talk man. Size and marble. Okay. We lead very different
Ryan: lives. We do.
But I have talked about this with a lot of people. Do you think Nesbitt is writing them as douches intentionally? Or are we reading that into it from a 21st century perspective? Because I, I would argue to, it's that
Damien: to me it's that it's the word. Yeah. I
Ryan: would argue that she's writing them as a very sweet, loving couple and there is just nothing wrong with the things they say or do.
Jess: I think that's part of it. I think it's hard to read them ignoring the gossip and legends as anything other than mis That's the only part. Misguided.
Ryan: That's the only part that's misguided. The
Jess: things that I jumped on about you cooked one steak in your life and whatever. That's
Ryan: or the, or I can't, how do I wash the dishes?
Like she's just writing what is
Jess: Yes. Like [00:45:00] I give nesbe the benefit of the doubt in my mind because I like some of her other stuff. Like the other story that we covered from hers was the one where it was about how bad, like animal vivisection is Right. And I'm just like,
Ryan: it was the five senses.
Yeah. And
Jess: you're just like, yeah, you're right. Vivisection is wrong. We are mind melded. And she did have a story that we didn't cover in the last volume too, because it was pretty similar to a couple, like a man eating vine story. But I think it ate some like rich teens and so you're just like, yeah.
Deserved
Damien: it.
Jess: Rich teens
Damien: eat the rich.
Jess: And so, I'm coming into this, assuming that me and Edith would probably be buds with very similar politics. And she obviously meant to make fun of the folks who are not self-sufficient and call their maid homely in a, look down on her stories while also selling them to make money.[00:46:00]
Ryan: What do you think, Dee you think she's. Writing them as dfas or
Damien: no, I don't think she was writing 'em as dufus, but I do think she was writing them as,
as Fs with a sense of empathy or Fs that readers should empathize with. I can't do this. I'm lame.
Jess: I'm lame,
Damien: but I'm still cute and adorable. Maybe I'm just naive. I still love my wife. I, yeah, exactly. That naivete.
Ryan: It was published in a magazine called Home Chimes. Well, there you go.
Damien: Yeah, so I think that's, we're a little bit of the cutting commentary on classism may come into play where the, you don't follow the tenets of this village, of this like establishment of these hallowed grounds. You don't follow like the lore and so you pay the price, you
Jess: gotta follow the lore.
Damien: So a little bit of some biting criticism or cynicism towards. Maybe those who are not religious. Who knows.
Ryan: Some have suggested that because of her matrimonial. Toil, yeah. That, that she writes [00:47:00] these two as so loving and so warm towards each other because that's what she desired. And then, you know what, you don't get that.
So guess what? But then the wife is the victim. You get the gray marble finger. But the way, because she's the vic, because she's the victim of her own story too. Exactly.
Damien: So, I don't know. I think for the time, I think that this, I think that this couple embodied like a traditional, it's, it is stuff that was unsaid.
You had a house manager, you had a a servant because you didn. Cook, you didn't clean that. The stuff is, the modern day of someone like, how do I work this dishwasher? And, putting shoes and stuff in it. Who knows? Like somebody who just doesn't get how those things are done because they've never had to do them.
I think that's a timeless commentary and timeless satire.
Ryan: I think you're right. Yeah. But
Damien: I think that the couple themselves were painted to be a very loving, loyal couple.
Ryan: Well, over the years, critics and fans have spent a lot of time on the last horrifying scene. What exactly happened before Our unnamed narrator [00:48:00] stumbled on the terrible fate of his beloved.
What do you think went on in that room?
Jess: I, in my mind, it's like a slow mo. She's at the window like. Oh, where's my dear stupid husband who went for a walk and meanwhile, like if we're on camera, the focus is on her at the window and you can see behind her.
The door opens and a shadowy figure, like slow, I guess two shadowy figures slowly walk in and are getting closer and she turns as they're reaching for her and then she just has a heart attack and dies.
Damien: Yeah. The fact that she's not like it doesn't show that she's physically violated, I think kept my.
Reader's imagination at bay. God, yeah. I know it sounds terrible, right? But I differ in the fact that I think that one of the Marauder statues came into the room and the other one was outside the window, and I think that she Ooh, I
Jess: like that.
Damien: Yeah. So I, there was like nowhere to [00:49:00] run baby, nowhere to hide.
And then maybe as that hand came up, it was one last batted like defensive move that broke off the finger that she gripped. It's that the prevailing theory for the extinction of the dinosaurs now is that it was an instantaneous event because the way that a lot of, the fossilized corpses are found, they're all twisted and contorted, which means that something like asphyxiation or something, they didn't dial peacefully in their sleep.
Because of cold or something to that effect. They were rioting in agony at the time of death, which is why they're, which is why she's quite, quite a leap here. It's the d it's why all the dino skeletons are all writhing, right? So when they found her lips were curled back. She was in a state of fright.
So to Jessica's assumption that she died of a heart attack that makes the most sense. It was some sort of instantaneous fear-driven death in the moment.
Jess: She had a heart attack. She had to worry about what she's gonna make for dinner tomorrow. She's Jesus,
Ryan: no more homely meals. So I'm afraid it gets even darker than that.
A lot of the scholarship on this story, the sexual assault. Yeah. [00:50:00] Yeah. It points to rape. That's where my mind went. Yeah. That's where my mind went. And it centers on the positioning of the body. She's bent over the window sill. Her head is over the edge and her hair is hung down.
Her lips are contorted in Aerus of rage. It is. It is sexual imagery for the late 19th century. And it's pretty awful when you think about it. And more than that if you haven't read much more Nesbitt, and I know Jess, Jess has but sexual assault and sex sexuality play a big role in a lot of her stories.
And so for this one, I at least I'm convinced that this is a sexual violation at the end. And it's particularly given the fact that the two people, but the positioning rots. What do you do when you're a Marauder? Yeah. And so
Damien: that's why I instantly thought of that.
But again, the state of the corpse, yes, you're right, the positioning of the body, but the fact that there was no real visual of violation I don't know, it's terrible to say. 'cause externally it doesn't always present itself. But you. Oh, ooh, this is weird talking about, but if you're like, two [00:51:00] man size and marvel, this is why it's so good.
Whatever's, and you're up against an unwilling participant, then you would think that there would be more than just a an otherwise un or unmolested corpse that's just bent in a precarious position. And I hate to bring it to that level, but sometimes those details in this matter, the fact that, that's the first thing I thought of when the death scene painted itself lens creep.
I think you're, I think you're supposed to, yeah, I think
Ryan: you're supposed to think that. Yeah, that's a good call. They
Jess: mention it like the, when they talk about like the evil men who used to live in this house.
Damien: Yeah.
Jess: Like they mentioned that it was like a house of horrors. And she says nobody said more, but everyone knew.
Damien: Sure.
Ryan: Yeah. All right. So we talked we, or at least Jess has hinted at some of the classist. Oh, really? Did she? That's crazy characters. Isn't that unusual?
Damien: Jess mentioned classism.
Ryan: So my question is, [00:52:00] why is Mrs. Doman an important character for this story? Could the story exist without Mrs.
Doorman?
Damien: She's that vein of sense and sensibility that like really ex exaggerates and like typifies Exactly. How naive and incapable our two protagonists are. She's essential. She's the every man that basically says, are you serious? You can't do this yourself. Yeah, I'll do it because that's my job.
But you're pretty,
Jess: yeah. She knows. Everything. She's grown up here, she understands the legends and the whatever, and they, the couple takes her seriously enough to write down her stories and reprint them and make money off of them, but not seriously enough to take anything that she's saying.
Seriously. Yeah. Yeah.
Ryan: Yeah, she's the wise elder. She, sort, if this were written contemporary America, she'd be like the magic black [00:53:00] person. That tells you what, what really is going on and you don't believe I think she's an essential character. Yeah.
Jess: It's, she's also an an interesting part of the story in the, when Laura is complaining if I have to cook and clean and do laundry, how am I ever gonna have time to write or paint or go for walks?
I'm just like. Well, when do you think your servant has time to write or paint or go for a walk
Ryan: like that? It's not her, it's not her station
Jess: view. But just like the, that statement I think says a lot about yeah, the classes we're dealing with of well, what about my leisure?
Yeah.
I pay you so I can have leisure.
Ryan: You could do a whole study about leisure in this story.
Jess: Yes. Yeah. There, there's a lot of doodling on a hill and, 'cause you hinted at
Ryan: it like, like these people they're not poor, but one's a writer and one's a painter, like they can't make much money.
Oh. But the rich is 7
Damien: million on on [00:54:00] flip or flop or whatever. Yeah. These are the
Ryan: couples that are on those real estate shows, and it's I'm a first grade teacher and I'm a minister and our budget is seven and a half million dollars. I just take your joke, Ryan. I'm sorry.
Well, what did you think of her writing?
Damien: Ne vicious. Ne vicious as it gets. Again, it outta context and if this were anything other than weird horror or had that horror bend to it, I'd probably dismiss it. Okay. But it's very proficient. And it's good, it's biting. It has this undertone that if you read it at its surface, it's got that, late 19th century.
Carry to it. But knowing what, reading it a second time, getting the subtle themes it read, it has a second layer. I think it's very proficient.
Jess: Yeah. I, the writing wasn't distracting in the way that like. Some of these stories can [00:55:00] be, there's a like humor that was probably not the most intentional where he's, talking about how much he loves his little girl and whatever. To me, that's just what are you talking about?
Damien: Yeah. But
Jess: then there are also things that like, are obviously written by humor of this adult man being proud that the knives he washed were clean.
There you can't write that with a
Damien: standing there with like arms at your side.
Jess: Look what I did.
Damien: Yes. It's so ridiculous. It's just literally so
Ryan: ridiculous. I wrote it down as the horrors of housework. Yes.
Jess: Like that was a funny touch and it wasn't written in a way where you're like. Distracted or put off.
Ryan: But it's wonderful 'cause it lures you into this Yes.
This world. It really does. It lures you into this story and it's
Damien: fast. And it's an easy read and it's not a complex arc and it doesn't have a ton of characters. It's a simple story. It's, we go from told, well,
Jess: why is the door open? Huh? Those statues are gone. Why is the door open? Oh, my wife is dead.
Whatcha talking about? The statues
Damien: are still there. What? Oh, okay. [00:56:00] Alarm
Ryan: canceled. Wait, what? So I've got a, I've got a quote to read. This is on page 1 75. It's a little bit long, but it's a famous quote. 'cause it is about the picture of the vision of the church and the knights. And I thought that since it's our first episode of this season, we'll allow, it's a long quote.
We might hear a little bit from Nesbitt tonight. A large low porch, let one into the building by a Norman doorway and a heavy oak door studded with iron. Inside the arches rose into darkness. And between them, the reticulated windows which stood out white in the moonlight and the chancel, the windows were of rich glass, which showed in faint light their noble coloring and made the black oak of the choir pews hardly more solid than the shadows.
But on each side of the altar, lay a gray marble figure of a knight in full plate armor, lying upon a low slab with hands held [00:57:00] up in everlasting prayer. And these figures, oddly enough, were always to be seen. If there was any glimmer of light in the church, their names were lost. But the peasants told of them that they had been fierce and wicked men, marauders by land and sea, who had been the scourge of their time.
And had been guilty of deeds so foul that the house they had lived in, the big house, by the way, that had stood on the side of our cottage, had been stricken by lightning and the vengeance of heaven. But for all that, the gold of their heirs had bought them a place in the church looking at the bad, hard faces reproduced in the marble.
This story was easily believed. So I love that quote. I love I love the depiction of the church and it's in, I particularly love it for the [00:58:00] extraordinarily realistic detail that the money of rich heirs could buy them a place. For
Damien: sure. Yeah. Seriously. Folks, this happens all the time. And that, not just a place, but a place where if there is a glimmer of light at any time, they could be seen like it, they're front and center like it is.
Ryan: This is a place in the church where you might find statuary of the saints, right? Yeah. Not of the, or the big dog himself or the big dog himself. Yeah. It just it just was, it was, it's a, it's beautifully that section particularly is beautifully written.
I agree that the rest of the time the writing doesn't get in the way. It's proficient in that way. I've mentioned a couple times that I've read this story half dozen times or so recently, and that was because every year at Halloween, I perform two ghost stories for the church.
And this year I performed the signalman and man size and marble, Hey, the Signalman. Yeah. And it's a lot of fun, particularly this year because we have a new organist and he's [00:59:00] really really interested in jumping in on these sorts of things as well. So he played music underneath my reading of the story.
And this was our second story for the evening. So people have had a couple of glasses of wine, a few pieces of cheese, and they are settled in for man size and marble and there's lovely organ music all the way through. And we get to the very end, we get to that shocker line, right? And I pronounce the shocker line.
And then he immediately fired up the organ at top volume perfect. And people jumped out of their skins. Really. It was fantastic. And so I have to think if I'm a reader of Home Chimes magazine in December, 1887, i'm not expecting this story. Sure. I'm not expecting this violence. I'm not expecting this horror.
We are because we're reading it. We're reading it in this volume. Or we're reading it in another anthology of ghost stories. Fantastic Stories. Or ghost stories. Exactly. If you're reading this in home chimes and you get to the end of this, your [01:00:00] jaw is on the floor, I imagine. And you might be questioning your subscription.
This was not the typical of that magazine. And so I think that the shocker line is lost on us in some ways, unless we can Well, we're a bit, we're a bit calloused against this sort of you've gotta put yourself back in that spot. What did he performing it out loud
Damien: Was great.
What did he strike up with? Was it like a de
Ryan: de charge? What did he do? The exact piece was the gothic sweet fan. Fantastic. And I can't remember who the composer is, but it's a very loud like, at the beginning uh, it was, it was phenomenal. I wish we had it on film. That's pretty good. I was a little worried about the health of some of our visitors,
Damien: but they're all like, we're coming back next year.
So, so, so you passed the plate before you read the story, right? Yeah. I just wanna make sure.
Jess: Make sure everyone updated their wills.
Ryan: Yeah, we did that over dinner beforehand. Sign up for our newsletter. Apropos of nothing, we have a lawyer with us tonight, [01:01:00] so this volume is obviously, it's all about churches.
And here's the the question Damien was earlier anticipating, how did the church setting add to the story, if you think that it did did the story church?
Jess: A two-parter. I don't think that it would have been the same story if it had just been an old castle with Knight that came out.
I think that the fact that it is. Not just a church kind of creepily in the woods, but it's a church in use, like they say every Sunday people go to church. Yeah. It's not an old church, it's just a church. And everyone knows that once a year you might get murdered. I guess
Damien: only if you live in that dumb house.
Well, if you run a foul of the marauders. Yeah.
Jess: That's fun. So I don't, I think it would be a different story if it wasn't statues from a church, but I don't necessarily think it would be a worse story if they were [01:02:00] statues from a castle or something like that.
Damien: So the, to me, the church served as a purpose.
One, churches are supposed to be sanctums. They're sanctuaries. Yep. They're supposed to be safe. So that your sense of safety is overturned here. That is. But second, it was a little bit on the, criticism of class and station to have a church that exonerated due to coin. And exalted these two marauders, these two violators of everything that, that otherwise that church stands for.
So they, and we don't
Jess: know their names, it's been so long ago, don't know their names,
Damien: but we know their actions, we know their legacy, we know
Jess: their dirt bags,
Damien: right? We know that they're dirt bags, but still they bought their way in a prominent place in this, in this whole, on these hallowed grounds.
So that was the two parts that it lended to the story. The rest, I agree with Jess. It just, it, this story could have happened anywhere. The story could have been two statues came to life violated this young woman [01:03:00] could have happened anywhere. So I think that, I think it does something, I think the weight that it brought was in those two functions.
Ryan: Yeah. I'm agreeing with Damien. I think that it does lose something if it just happens anywhere, because you won't get that sense of safety being, being dis. Discharged Sure. Being overturned. I think that's really the key part. Critics and commentators have talked about how, for a church that, as Jess pointed out, is in use, is in regular Sunday use.
There are no parishioners and there are no clergy people to be found in this story. Yeah. Nope. True. And that their absence is a clue to the sinister nature of what's about to happen. And I thought that was an interesting note that I wanted to bring up.
Jess: But then I also wanna know more about the doctor.
Does he, is he from there? Is he another, does he go new neighbor? Does he, to this church? Why isn't he worked up about the Halloween nights, Halloween night nights? How's a
Damien: closed night for, or it's a it's a slow night for him,
Jess: well, I guess he would make more money on a [01:04:00] slow
Ryan: night for him.
Oh,
Damien: Ryan, you're fired.
Jess: No. Then we have to do the intro
Damien: move quickly. I don't wanna do that intro. That's Ryan's bail wick.
Ryan: Alright. How about the scare? Did the scare hold up?
Damien: Even though we all knew it, we know the story. I still think, I think it established a very common trope in contemporary horror that I can appreciate.
I don't know if this has ever been pre prefaced by, oh God, why did she die? Did she see something? Whatever. No, she's actually holding the finger. Oh, what a twist. A little bit of a that element to me says that's a persevering scare.
Jess: Yeah, I think hooking the door is always effective.
Damien: The calls coming from inside your house.
Ryan: Yeah it does for me too. And I have to say I think the story really gains something by being heard out loud. Whether it's performed like it was on the BBC or whether it was you heard story, you read it, your parishioners,
Jess: whether you're doing an incredible job reading it like an boss, oh God, [01:05:00] that I
Ryan: don't know how great of a job I did, but I think
Damien: that with an organist background, I believe you said everyone jumped out of their seat on the last line.
That's what you, that was because of the organation. It was that combination of your touching words and the drama. But
Ryan: I think this one really gained something from being heard. Okay. There's comments from the parishioners were they really enjoyed the dialogue, the back and forth.
Between Mrs. Doorman and the narrator and the narrator and the doctor. That really added something to it for. So you read straight from,
Damien: you read straight from the story. Did you read all
Ryan: parts? I do, I did. I did read all parts. You didn't get a cast? I did the world's worst Irish accent for the doctor.
Perfect. Get a sample.
Damien: Can we get a little kiss?
Ryan: I doubt it. I'd have to. I have
Jess: boy, maybe three more whiskey. Alright, well I'll
Ryan: have to read a line is what I'd have to do. We'll ask you next week then ask about his the line about his
Jess: broken brain.
Ryan: Lemme get a page number here. I, there it is.
I am awfully indebted to you. I said it must have been some trick of the light, or [01:06:00] I've been working rather hard. Perhaps that's it. Do you know? I was quite convinced they were gone. I'm aware of that. He answered. You'll have to be careful of that brain of yours, my friend.
Damien: It's
Jess: terrible.
Ryan: No, you promised and delivered.
Damien: Thank
Jess: you. That was great. Yeah, I had a great time.
Ryan: Oh dear. That's terrible. I'm not coming back. Let's get to our whiskey ratings before I'm fired. Alright. Whiskey ratings, how we rate our stories here on whiskey and the weird from zero Fingers of Whiskey all the way to the coveted full fist or five fingers of whiskey.
Jessica, what are you giving man size in Marble
Jess: four? Boom. I think on one hand it's one of those stories where it's just like I, there, there are other stories that you could include in books. It doesn't always have to be this one. But at the same time, if we're going back to the campfire thing, like there are just certain stories that are a hit for a reason [01:07:00] and the reason.
For this one, it's fine and entertaining and I appreciate the stupid, like she
Ryan: reluctantly gives it a four.
Jess: Yeah. And in her hand was a marble finger. Okay, great. Fine. Here's my money. I love it. So, yeah.
Damien: It's like I'll it's like final destination six, you know what you're getting. Yes. You know what it's not good necessarily, but it's great.
Ryan: So, I'll one up you, Jessica. I'm giving it a four and a half.
Jess: Ooh. Okay.
Ryan: Coming in strong. This is a favorite story of mine in part for its subversiveness and how it lures you in and carries you along on this slow moving tide until the end. When you get to that shocking ending and the ending truly becomes more shocking, the more time you spend thinking about it.
I love the pacing of the story. And as I've mentioned before, if you didn't know this was going to be a horror story, this would truly be horrific. So four and a half Fingers from me, Damien, deacon Damien,
Damien: the deacon comes in at four. There it [01:08:00] is. Yeah. I, and it's basically for all the reasons that Jess said, but I do agree, Ryan, that I think that if I were reading this out of context and out of an anthology where I'm we, where the theme or where the surprise is otherwise nullified.
I think that it may rate higher. But even given that the payoff still kicks the rating is still exquisite. There's a lot of just strong elements of good authorship that are present and are pervasive. And even though some of the rating is a little bit floral, and even though some of the it's like laughably ridiculous how these two people exist, they're still, they still garnered empathy for me as a reader.
And I still felt sad reading the end, but not too sad. So a bit on the short side to really flesh out those feelings for the main characters. But again, simple story told, well, so four for me,
Ryan: four fingers. I think we got two fours and four and a half. So that averages to four and a half.
Damien: You got that Florida math, don't you got that? Florida math.
Ryan: We've got our if this, then that. If you enjoyed this story, then Damien's here to say what you might also like to watch.
Damien: Contemporary film came out in [01:09:00] 2024, written and directed by Damien McCarthy. You may have seen it, I believe it was on Hulu, shutter, a MC, something to that effect.
It's called Oddity coming out of Ireland. So if you want to hear more of that genius Irish accent and that brogue that Ryan just demonstrated, thank God. Go ahead and check out Oddity again. 2024, written and directed by Damie McCarthy. It's basically one of a pair of twin sisters is brutally murdered.
Her blind twin sister who owns a security, a curio shop full of mystical items, tries to investigate the death of her twin sister under precarious circumstances. Attributed to the town weirdo, but something isn't checking out. The story is a very fast, I think 90 minutes of discovery. But also, not only does it take place in a small villas like town manner, so a little bit of the same where a couple lived in this peaceful estate where you didn't think these sort of things happened.
But also there is a Gollum like statue [01:10:00] structure that may or may not be capable of exacting revenge. So a little bit of a different twist. Again, this is Oddity by Damien McCarthy. Check it out. Streaming near you.
Ryan: Well, that's gonna do it for us tonight on whiskey And the weird, thank you so much for joining us and especially thank you for joining us for this first season.
This first episode of Season eight eight. We're really excited to be back in your ears if you. Like us being in your ears too. Please rate and review us wherever you catch your podcasts. As always, we wanna thank Dr. Blake Brandis for providing the music for whiskey and the Weird. And Damien, if they'd like to talk to us about what we can do with their gray marble fingers, where can they do that?
New season,
Damien: new socials, y'all?
Ryan: Yes.
Damien: Let's stop the finger. Talk immediately. Okay. New season, new socials folks. We have moved from the X so we are X Xers and you can find us predominantly on Facebook, Instagram, and blue sky at whiskey, and the [01:11:00] weird at whiskey and the weird on those properties. So look us up at us, friend us comment.
We always like to hear from you and we do write back. You can't guarantee that I'll write back on my own behalf. I may say something totally snarky and pretend to be Jess, but she'll. She'll sign off on it. Who cares? Who cares? So again, find us at whiskey in the weird on those properties. We hope to hear from you soon.
We spell our whiskeys with an E and we hope you do too. If not, well, Ryan's already taken all the finger jokes, so I'm just gonna leave it at, go ahead and spell your whiskeys with an e.
Ryan: Jess, what are we read next?
Jess: Up next, the Parsons oath. By, I
Ryan: swear,
Jess: by Mrs. Henry Wood.
Ryan: Oh, there you have at the Parsons Oath by Mrs.
Henry Wood coming to you live next week. I'm Ryan Whitley.
Jess: I'm Jessica Berg.
Ryan: And I am Damien Smith. And together we're whiskey in the Weird, somebody send us home.
Jess: Keep your friends. Through [01:12:00] the ages and the creeps and the pages, that's as close as we're gonna get. Close
Damien: enough. Good night, everyone.
Jess: Good night. Good night.
I haven't had any major like pregnancy brain things yet, but the other day I did lose a jar of pickles because I put it in my purse.
Damien: We found our cookie,