In Laymon's Terms

Bryan Smith

HERE AREN’T MANY writers I can point to whose influence on me in my formative years shaped me and made me the writer I am today. Stephen King is obviously one of them. And Hunter S. Thompson warped my fragile little mind at an impressionable age, too. There are a few others whose influence I regard as seminal, but Richard Laymon holds a special place on that short list.

A quote from an ad in an early issue of Fangoria resonates in my memory to this day: “Laymon is like Stephen King without a conscience.” While I think the truth is more complex than that, the quote hints at what makes Laymon’s books so compelling: that anything can, and probably will, happen to just about anybody.

Nobody is safe in Laymon’s world.

The boogeymen and monsters are always out to get you.

And anybody, even the good guys, can die.

Laymon taught me to be merciless in my fiction.

He also showed me the value of stripped down, minimalist prose. A lot of my early efforts at constructing horror tales were crippled by efforts at emulating the sweeping, lyrically poetic styles of the old masters. Laymon’s prose showed me another way, a way that felt like liberation. I learned to make my sentences lean, mean, and efficient. It’s a style favored by some of our best writers, from the booze-soaked ruminations of Ernest Hemingway to the hard-hitting crime fiction of people like Jim Thompson and Elmore Leonard.

Like them, Laymon was a true master.