Twenty-six. Count 'em. Angst to zombies. In all its many shapes and shades, this is state-of-the-art horror as we closed out the 1980s.
Stay tuned to this channel, and I'll be back to take you on a tour through the 1990s.
— Karl Edward Wagner Chapel Hill, North Carolina
Kaddish
by JACK DANN
Born in Johnson City, New York on February 15, 1945, Jack Dann and his wife, Jeanne Van Buren Dann, now live in Binghamton, New York in a large old house with plenty of room for books. Good job that, as Dann has written or edited well over twenty books. Recent books include his mainstream novel, Counting Coup, and an anthology of stories concerned with the Vietnam War, In the Fields of Fire, edited in collaboration with his wife. Dann's latest major project is a novel about Leonardo da Vinci, which, at the start of this decade, was at 400 pages and going strong. Dann's short fiction approaches horror in a quiet, moving style that creates powerful and disturbingly reflective moods. Very often he makes use of Jewish themes and history, as is the case with "Kaddish." Regarding this story, Dann argues: "It's got to be the only story written this year about Jewish horror! (We should all live and be well!)" Don't know about that, Jack, but it's clear that horror isn't bound by religion or creed — this story will give everyone a chill.
What ails you, O sea, that you flee?
Nathan sat with the other men in the small prayer-room of the synagogue. It was 6:40 in the morning. "One of the three professors who taught Hebrew Studies at the university was at the bema, the altar, leading the prayers. His voice intoned the Hebrew and Aramaic words; it was like a cold stream running and splashing over ice. Nathan didn't understand Hebrew, although he could read a little, enough to say the Kaddish, the prayer for the dead, in a halting fashion.