The Clingerman Files

by Mildred Clingerman

“Widely acclaimed as one of the first successful female science fiction authors, Mildred Clingerman returns with the exciting follow up to her 1961 science fiction collection, A Cupful of Space.
Her stories tend to wed a literate tone to subject matters whose ominousness is perhaps more submerged than the horrors under the skin made explicit in the work of Shirley Jackson, but equally as deadly.
Clingerman’s new anthology, The Clingerman Files, includes all of her originally published stories; The Day of the Green Velvet Cloak, Mr. Sakrison’s Halt, Wild Wood, The Little Witch of Elm Street and many other favorites. Also included are previously unpublished works; Top Hand, Tribal Customs, The Birthday Party, Fathers of Daughters and many more soon to be favorites.
The key to her stories is that they appear simple and straightforward, but each takes a twist or turn that, even when you’re tempted to guess where they’re heading, they take you there in a way you would never have bargained on.
Other writers of the period tried to make big splashes. Clingerman, it seems, prided herself in concealing her effects within her masterfully constructed sentences. They barely make a ripple on the surface; all their power and drive lurk deep down below.
So many of her stories are alive with the underpinning notion that the cosmological vistas we spy at the end ends of telescopes and various other means of measurement belong to the very same universe under our feet. We’re not apart from the universe, we’re a part of it.
Nearly every story here is alive with that sensibility, in the truest sense of that word. In every sentence there is a note (a gentle one, but insistent) of silent rebellion, a surreptitious snarl, entreating you to see that not the everyday, but an undiscovered marvel.
May these eloquent rebellions be undiscovered no longer.
Welcome to the world of Mildred Clingerman!”

Genres: Science Fiction, Short Stories, Horror, Fantasy, Fiction, Classics

306 pages, Paperback

Published November 3, 2017

About the author

Mildred McElroy Clingerman was an American science fiction author.

Clingerman was born Mildred McElroy in Allen, Oklahoma and her family moved to Tucson, Arizona in 1929. She graduated from Tucson High School and attended the University of Arizona. She married Stuart Clingerman in 1937.

Most of her short stories were published in the 1950s in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, edited by Anthony Boucher. Boucher included her story "The Wild Wood" in the seventh volume (1958) of The Best from Fantasy and Science Fiction and dedicated the book to her, calling her the "most serendipitous of discoveries." Her science fiction was collected as A Cupful of Space in 1961. She also published in mainstream magazines like Good Housekeeping and Collier's. Her story "The Little Witch of Elm Street" appeared in Woman's Home Companion in 1956.

Clingerman was a founder of the Tucson Writer's Club, served on the board of the Tucson Press Club, and taught at the University of Arizona.

-- Wikipedia

Reviews

[Jess]

This is a lovely collection of short stories by a new-to-me author. Many of the stories themselves belong to the clever uncanny variety of short stories by Matheson and others that got turned into Twilight Zone episodes. The collection could have benefitted from a casual going-over for edits--extra commas, apostrophes, and swapped letters or doubled words are common enough to affect the flow of reading--but it's absolutely a worthwhile collection, especially for readers interested in early women writers of sf/weird fiction.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

CONTENTS


◾"Memories of Mildred" - Kendall Clingerman Burling

◾"Foreword" - Richard J. Chwedyk

▪️“First Lesson” (Collier’s, June, 1955)
▪️“Stickney and the Critic” (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, February, 1953)
▪️“Stair Trick” (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, August, 1952)
▪️“Minister Without Portfolio (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, February, 1952)
▪️“Birds Can’t Count” (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, February, 1955)
▪️“The Word” (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, November, 1953)
▪️“The Day of the Green Velvet Cloak” (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, July, 1958)
▪️“Winning Recipe” (Collier's, June, 1952)
▪️“Letters From Laura” (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, October, 1954)
▪️“The Last Prophet” (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, August, 1955)
▪️“Mr. Sakrison’s Halt” (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, January 1956)
▪️“The Wild Wood” (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, January, 1957)
▪️“The Little Witch of Elm Street” (Woman's Home Companion, October, 1956)
▪️“A Day for Waving” (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, August, 1957)
▪️“The Gay Deceiver” (A Cupful of Space, 1961)
▪️“A Red Heart and Blue Roses” (A Cupful of Space, 1961)
▪️“Little Girl” (The Clingerman Files, 2017)
▪️“Tutti Frutti Delight” (The Clingerman Files, 2017)
▪️“The Stray” (The Clingerman Files, 2017)
▪️“The Man Who Stole Tomorrow” (The Clingerman Files, 2017)
▪️“Grandma’s Refuge” (The Clingerman Files, 2017)
▪️“Sorrow for the Need” (The Clingerman Files, 2017)
▪️“You Remember Charles?” (The Clingerman Files, 2017)
▪️“Size 5 1/2B” (The Clingerman Files, 2017)
▪️“Apologia” (The Clingerman Files, 2017)
▪️“The Tea Party” (The Clingerman Files, 2017)
▪️“The Vine” (The Clingerman Files, 2017)
▪️“Tribal Customs” (The Clingerman Files, 2017)
▪️“A Widow For Mr. Stevens” (The Clingerman Files, 2017)
▪️“The Man Eater” (The Clingerman Files, 2017)
▪️“The List” (The Clingerman Files, 2017)
▪️“The Telling Day” (The Clingerman Files, 2017)
▪️“Threading a Closed Loop” (The Clingerman Files, 2017)
▪️“Top Hand” (The Clingerman Files, 2017)
▪️“A Time to be Bold” (The Clingerman Files, 2017)
▪️“The Birthday Party” (The Clingerman Files, 2017)
▪️“A Stranger and a Pilgrim” (The Clingerman Files, 2017)
▪️“On the Nicer Side” (The Clingerman Files, 2017)
▪️“The Fathers of Daughters” (The Clingerman Files, 2017)
▪️“Watermelon Weather” (The Clingerman Files, 2017)
▪️“A Note from Eleanor” (The Clingerman Files, 2017)



There are forty-one stories here, sixteen previously published (and reprinted in Clingerman's earlier collection A Cupful of Space, 1961) and twenty-five new to this collection. Not actually new - only previously unpublished; Ms. Clingerman died in 1997.

Almost all the stories are quite short. The forty-one stories only total 287 pages.

The science fiction and fantasy website ISFDb also lists three other stories by Clingerman, all published after A Cupful of Space was printed. These are not included (or even mentioned - despite this book's subtitle, "Collected Works") in The Clingerman Files. They are:

"Measure My Love" (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, October, 1962)
"The Time Before" (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, March, 1975)
"Annabelle, I Love You" (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, June, 1975)

I realized that of the sixteen stories here that I had read before, all were still bright in my memory. Five of those were science fiction, or at least leaning in that direction. The others were different varieties of fantasy. The stories that first gained the public's attention are gently benevolent: Clingerman's first published story, the not particularly good "Minister Without Portfolio," the touching "Stair Trick," "First Lesson," "Mr. Sakrison's Halt," and "The Last Prophet," the charming "Birds Can't Count," "The Word," "A Day for Waving," "The Day of the Green Velvet Cloak," and "The Little Witch of Elm Street," the totally comic "Winning Recipe" and "Letters from Laura" (although most of the other stories are comic as well).

One of the fantasy stories, "Stickney and the Critic," is a quite funny horror story. I found that I could recite some of the poetry there from memory. Three of the other stories are true horror, although one begins as a comic story. I find "The Gay Deceiver" (with the chilling line "he never forgot a debt or forgave a debtor") and "Red Heart and Blue Roses" genuinely horrifying. "The Wild Wood" goes well beyond that.

These are fine stories for the most part. So why were they almost the only ones published during Ms. Clingerman's lifetime? Why were these other twenty-five stories not printed sooner?*

One factor is that Ms. Clingerman was known entirely for her work in the field of speculative fiction. Most of these twenty-five stories are not in that category.

"Top Hand" is fantasy, set in a strange milieu for Clingerman; it's about cowboys and a figure from classical mythology. It is not very good. It feels like something that Lester del Rey might have written when he was around fourteen.

"A Note from Eleanor" is very much better. The story gives a possible non-fantasy explanation for events, but that explanation is not likely; of course, one might reject the simpler explanation just because it is fantasy. A woman renews a friendship with someone she has not been in touch with for some time. This is perhaps the best of the previously unpublished tales.

"Apologia" is a very brief story about a feral child in a world which, it seems, differs somewhat from our own.

"Size 5 1/2 B" is another very short story, which evidently was the source of the name of the company that published The Clingerman Files. It is a tale that appears to combine madness and women's shoes.

"A Stranger and a Pilgrim" tells of an elderly woman expecting a visitor but receiving a different one.

The rest of the stories are not in the speculative fiction genre. I believe that many of them could have had prior publication in magazines. Am I wrong, I wonder? Would no one buy any of them, or did Ms. Clingerman not try to sell these during her lifetime?

Beside "A Note from Eleanor," my favorites of the previously unpublished stories (in no particular order) are "The Stray," "You Remember Charles?," "Size 5 1/2 B," "Tribal Customs," "Threading a Closed Loop," "The Birthday Party," and "Watermelon Weather." Some readers would, I know, find much of this material cloying; I rather enjoy the sweetness.

Of the earlier stories reprinted here, I would especially recommend...well, practically everything. "Stickney and the Critic," "Stair Trick," "Birds Can't Count," "Letters from Laura," "The Wild Wood," and "A Red Heart and Blue Roses" stand out even among the generally outstanding tales.

There is an introduction by Ms. Clingerman's daughter, Kendall Clingerman Burling. And I note, sadly, that the dedication of the book states:

In Loving Memory:

Kendall Burling Clingerman
1940-2018

The foreward is by Richard J. Chwedyk, another author of great gentleness and talent.

The book ends with what is called a bibliography. It is inaccurate and incomplete, listing Woman's Home Companion as Ladies Home Companion, giving the wrong source for the original publication of "A Red Heart and Blue Roses" (really A Cupful of Space, not F&SF), missing the majority of the reprints of the stories, getting the dates out of order, and omitting entirely the stories "The Word" and "The Gay Deceiver."

The occasional use of underlining rather than using italics for emphasis is odd, since italics are used here in most such cases. Proof-reading is extremely poor throughout the book, which was edited by Mark Bradley.

Despite the many flaws, this is a lovely-looking book. The fine cover is by Karen Jacobs.


*Isaac Asimov and Martin H. Greenberg included Ms. Clingerman's story "Letters from Laura" in their anthology Isaac Asimov Presents the Great SF Stories 16 (1954), published in 1987. Asimov's introduction to that story includes a conjecture as to why Clingerman stopped publishing SF stories:

I have referred in earlier volumes of this series of [sic] authors who seemed to get along with one editor only and who tended to fade out with that editor. Mildred Clingerman is one of them, I think.

She was a favorite of the late, great Anthony Boucher in the days when he edited THE MAGAZINE OF FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION. When he retired as editor, she retired as writer. In fact, I don't recall that she ever wrote a story that appeared anywhere but F & SF during the Boucher regime. (Did she, Marty?) (Yes, but only a few.)

There's absolutely no reason why this should be so. Mildred could clearly write well enough for any editor, and we've been without her for a quarter of a century. It's a shame.

Greenberg's "only a few" reply is accurate, I guess, but eight of the nineteen stories that Clingerman published in her lifetime were published originally by editors other than Anthony Boucher, so she certainly did not restrict herself to that one editor.

[Russell Forden · Rating 5 out of 5]

As suggested by the title, this collection of Clingerman's short stories has a certain 'X-Files' vibe about it - or maybe it's the Twilight Zone. Many of her stories seem to inhabit that liminal threshold world between the real and the unreal. Yet her characters are almost always seemingly ordinary people - most often middle aged women. A theme that often springs up with these women is that of self realisation. They are often trying to overcome some perceived short coming, whether it's the 'chicken-hearted' Mavis of the Day of the Green Cloak, or the fearful narrator of First Lesson. One of the stories, Gay Deceiver (a sort of update on the old Pied Piper story), had me wondering if Robert Heinlein was once a fan. In one of his later stories he called a time and space travelling craft Gay Deceiver. They're not all strictly science fiction (or fantasy); a number of them, like On the Nicer Side, and The Birthday Party, could only be called mainstream fiction. Yet even there the stories often hinge on the sudden revelation or transitional thought. In Clingerman's world there is magic even in the mundane. Her prose is playful and precise and quite exquisite. It's time for Mildred Clingerman to be rediscovered - if she were ever discovered in the first place!

[Michael Samerdyke · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting book.

I think of Mildred Clingerman as one of the female authors championed by the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction in the Fifties. I tend to confuse her with Margaret St. Clair and maybe also Miriam Allen De Ford.

"The Clingerman Files" is actually two books. The first part of the book are the fantasy/SF stories Clingerman wrote mostly in the Fifties. They are enjoyable. Given the bitterness about "representation" and "being seen" in science fiction today, it is interesting that Clingerman's stories touch on such issues. (In one, a grandmother is the protagonist who saves the earth.) So there are proto-feminist themes as well as stories that touch on the Civil Rights era.

The second part of the book consists of mainstream stories that Clingerman wrote. My problem is that the book offered no "hand-holding." There was no "you are leaving the fantasy section," there were no introductions or, in the case of the non-fantasy stories, a hint of when they were written. And I found this frustrating.

In her writing, Mildred Clingerman reminded me of a less bitter, more resilient Shirley Jackson. "The Clingerman Files" was interesting, especially for someone interested in the science fiction of the Fifties.

[Dave Hook · Rating 4 out of 5]

I finally read Mildred Clingerman’s posthumous collection The Clingerman Files, Mark Bradley editor, 2017 Size 5 1/2 B Publishing. This reprints the contents of her collection A Cupful of Space, 1961 Ballantine Books, and includes her other previously unpublished short fiction. It omit fours of her stories. My favorite included might be the first story of hers I encountered, the superlative “Stair Trick“, a short story, F&SF August 1952. Also included are a lovely essay by her daughter Kendall Clingerman Burling, “Memories of Mildred” and an insightful introduction “Mildred Clingerman: The Science of Magic and the Magic of the Commonplace” by author Richard Chwedyk. My overall rating for The Clingerman Files was 3.72, or “Very good”, and the contents of the reprint of A Cupful of Space included was rated 3.83/5, or “Great”. Strongly recommended for a unique voice in speculative fiction who deserved to be known and remembered.

[Connor · Rating 2 out of 5]

There’s a few standouts in here: The Wild Wood, Stair Trick, Birds Can’t Count, The Gay Deceiver