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The Call and Other Stories
Six spine-tingling stories of the supernatural include the experiences of a dead woman who calls an emergency hotline on every Christmas eve and a boy who discovers that he is involved in an alien experiment. Reprint.
- GenresShort Stories
128 pages, Paperback
First published December 3, 1991
About the author
Robert Westall
122 books112 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.
Robert Westall was born in North Shields, Northumberland, England in 1929.
His first published book The Machine Gunners (1975) which won him the Carnegie Medal is set in World War Two when a group of children living on Tyneside retrieve a machine-gun from a crashed German aircraft. He won the Carnegie Medal again in 1981 for The Scarecrows, the first writer to win it twice. He won the Smarties Prize in 1989 for Blitzcat and the Guardian Award in 1990 for The Kingdom by the Sea. Robert Westall's books have been published in 21 different countries and in 18 different languages, including Braille.
From: http://www.robertwestall.com/
Robert Westall was born in North Shields, Northumberland, England in 1929.
His first published book The Machine Gunners (1975) which won him the Carnegie Medal is set in World War Two when a group of children living on Tyneside retrieve a machine-gun from a crashed German aircraft. He won the Carnegie Medal again in 1981 for The Scarecrows, the first writer to win it twice. He won the Smarties Prize in 1989 for Blitzcat and the Guardian Award in 1990 for The Kingdom by the Sea. Robert Westall's books have been published in 21 different countries and in 18 different languages, including Braille.
From: http://www.robertwestall.com/
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
March 25, 2016
Another fine collection of weird tales from Westall, who remains sadly neglected by pundits, a victim of publishers' marketing tactics (he is apparently doomed forever by his "YA" categorization) and the unfashionableness of the "traditional" ghost story. Had he lived sixty years earlier, he would today be respected as an excellent second-tier writer of supernatural fiction, not in the Blackwood class but surely ranked above, say, E.H. Benson.
These stories are a pleasingly varied lot. ""Woman and Home" is eerie and enigmatic, with some devices reminiscent of M.R. James. "Uncle Otto at Denswick Park" is the only story here which smacks of juvenile fiction, but is redeemed by an unsettling glimpse of the real , unromanticized eighteenth century. "Warren, Sharron and Darren" is very odd, perhaps best described as Machen subject matter handled in an unexpectedly gentle and light manner. "The Call" and "The Red House Clock" are outstanding, impeccably crafted weird tales: strong both in terms of mood and characterization, and yet it's all done with such subtlety, such economy of means, such directness, clarity and precision. Writing of this quality makes many modern weird fiction celebrities look ponderous and self-indulgent.
These stories are a pleasingly varied lot. ""Woman and Home" is eerie and enigmatic, with some devices reminiscent of M.R. James. "Uncle Otto at Denswick Park" is the only story here which smacks of juvenile fiction, but is redeemed by an unsettling glimpse of the real , unromanticized eighteenth century. "Warren, Sharron and Darren" is very odd, perhaps best described as Machen subject matter handled in an unexpectedly gentle and light manner. "The Call" and "The Red House Clock" are outstanding, impeccably crafted weird tales: strong both in terms of mood and characterization, and yet it's all done with such subtlety, such economy of means, such directness, clarity and precision. Writing of this quality makes many modern weird fiction celebrities look ponderous and self-indulgent.
July 4, 2022
Discovering Robert Westall's weird tales has been a joy, so many thanks to Valancourt for bringing them back into print. I was delighted to discover though that there were more stories out there, and finding a second-hand hardback of this collection made my weekend.
This slim volume (118 pages) contains six tales, all of which are good and a couple of which are vintage RW. 'Woman and Home' is a haunted house tale with a difference in which Westall offers some nicely observed detail and creates a memorably creepy atmosphere. 'Uncle Otto' is a bit Roald Dahl in many ways, and the weakest story here (though still entertaining). The slightly too long 'Warren, Sharon and Darren' is a kind of faery tale with Westall's typical sociological detail overlaying the strangeness. The story overdoes action somewhat, with a demonstration of the child's powers that goes further than it needed to in order to make its point, but the finale makes up for this by being quite touching. 'The Badger' is another haunting tale with a Dahl-ish edge, in which a badger-digger gets his cumuppance for crimes against nature. Narrated by a bewildered police officer, it makes good use of its setting and subject matter, not to mention the narrator's determination to rationalise what has happened.
In many ways though, the two final stories are the best. 'The Call' is a great addition to the canon of ghostly tales involving telephones, one helped by effective characterisation (RW is much better at this than many writers in this field), while 'The Red House Clock' might be the backstory to one of the tales in RW's 'Antique Dust'. Again, the use of small, realistic details combines with well judged characterisation and psychological insight - this one has to be the last story in the collection because it's hard to know how Westall could have followed it.
'The Call' is well worth hunting out if you like classic ghostly tales rather than full-on horror. The northern English, often working-class settings are a welcome change too...you don't have to be a toff with an ancestral pile to encounter the supernatural.
This slim volume (118 pages) contains six tales, all of which are good and a couple of which are vintage RW. 'Woman and Home' is a haunted house tale with a difference in which Westall offers some nicely observed detail and creates a memorably creepy atmosphere. 'Uncle Otto' is a bit Roald Dahl in many ways, and the weakest story here (though still entertaining). The slightly too long 'Warren, Sharon and Darren' is a kind of faery tale with Westall's typical sociological detail overlaying the strangeness. The story overdoes action somewhat, with a demonstration of the child's powers that goes further than it needed to in order to make its point, but the finale makes up for this by being quite touching. 'The Badger' is another haunting tale with a Dahl-ish edge, in which a badger-digger gets his cumuppance for crimes against nature. Narrated by a bewildered police officer, it makes good use of its setting and subject matter, not to mention the narrator's determination to rationalise what has happened.
In many ways though, the two final stories are the best. 'The Call' is a great addition to the canon of ghostly tales involving telephones, one helped by effective characterisation (RW is much better at this than many writers in this field), while 'The Red House Clock' might be the backstory to one of the tales in RW's 'Antique Dust'. Again, the use of small, realistic details combines with well judged characterisation and psychological insight - this one has to be the last story in the collection because it's hard to know how Westall could have followed it.
'The Call' is well worth hunting out if you like classic ghostly tales rather than full-on horror. The northern English, often working-class settings are a welcome change too...you don't have to be a toff with an ancestral pile to encounter the supernatural.
April 27, 2010
A brief collection of six longish supernatural stories by Robert Westall. The stories in The Call vary pretty heavily in tone (from the very light "Uncle Otto at Denswick Park" to the very heavy title story), subject matter, and degree of supernatural involvement. All of them are solid, though, and the first story, "Woman and Home" is a great example of Westall's keen eye for the supernatural. I also quite enjoyed "The Badger," in which a man is haunted by a giant undead badger. (Or is he?)
June 24, 2022
Being a fan of the supernatural genre, I may have come across a Robert Westall short story among the anthologies I've read. Among the six stories here, all are new to me, all are well-written, well-paced, and all except one (Uncle Otto at Denswick Park read like it was hatched by Roald Dahl*) deliver just the right dose of slightly disturbing.
I'll probably remember the first (Woman and Home) and last (The Red House Clock) stories more keenly than the others. That last one packs a wallop.
* Roadl Dahl writing for children, that is, and of which I am not really a fan. But the same Roald Dahl I discovered in 2021 is an absolute delight when writing for other genres.
I'll probably remember the first (Woman and Home) and last (The Red House Clock) stories more keenly than the others. That last one packs a wallop.
* Roadl Dahl writing for children, that is, and of which I am not really a fan. But the same Roald Dahl I discovered in 2021 is an absolute delight when writing for other genres.
August 23, 2023
Bought it for the opener, 'Woman and Home': a fun haunted-house story I read somewhere in my teens about a truant schoolboy who wanders into a derelict property out of the rain and finds that its absolutely full of the corpses of all the previous wanderers-in, taken out by its mad old owner's lethal booby traps. But the rest are pretty solid, too.
My favourite ended up being 'The Red House Clock', an ambiguously supernatural coming-of-age story with quirky, convincing characters and a well-drawn sense of place (and melancholy).
My favourite ended up being 'The Red House Clock', an ambiguously supernatural coming-of-age story with quirky, convincing characters and a well-drawn sense of place (and melancholy).
March 13, 2023
Not sure if I've got this. Will get it asap and read again.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews