7/17/26
The smoke from Canada’s wildfires reached us yesterday afternoon, and it’s hanging over the river like fog. At one point, it was so hazy that the road in front of the house was barely visible. You can taste it when you go outside. This week, my days exercising with weights* were supposed to be Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. Just walking from the house over to the gym (which is an old converted boathouse) left me smelling like smoke.
*As someone in his fifties, I’m lifting to keep and maintain strength rather than for bulk.
~
A brand-new species of monkey has been discovered in the Congo rainforest. So don’t tell me that if Bigfoot exists, we’d have discovered a body by now.
~
Astronomers Find an Atmosphere on a Nearby Earthlike Planet. It’s the first potentially habitable world known to host an atmosphere, making it a lead contender in the search for life beyond our solar system.
~
~
Women In Horror Year: Day 85
The Lake by Ruby Jean Jensen
First, the classic marketing copy:
A beautiful lake nestled in the gently rolling hills of Arkansas. So inviting for a midnight swim.
The young couple, first Ilene and then Jerry, dived into the moonlit lake and began to swim.
Then Jerry, the strongest of swimmers, suddenly vanished below the surface of the lake. Ilene noticed that he was no longer beside her, and began to wonder what had happened. Was he just playing, diving deep and swimming away from her?
If so, why didn’t he say something?
Finally, Ilene began to feel real fear, and headed for the shore.
She was not destined to make it.
First Jerry, then Ilene. How long would it take for the new owner to suspect that something ancient, mysterious, and ravenous occupied the lake? How many more must perish?
And now, the marketing copy for the new edition:
Dirk was feeling lost and lonely. His wife Patricia had announced that she was struggling to feel any purpose in her life and had decided to move into an apartment for a time period to sort things out. Dirk is strongly motivated to change something to put his family back together, and decides to sell his share of the business and invest in a summer resort based around a beautiful, remote, spring-fed lake in Arkansas. Unfortunately, he didn’t ask enough questions about the history of the lake … It wasn’t until after he brings his three children to stay for the summer that he becomes fully aware of a history of missing persons. Patricia decides to stay at her apartment and continue sorting out her feelings. Within a few days, Dirk’s fourteen-year-old daughter is attacked by something that came from the lake. She narrowly escapes with her life, due to the quick action of old Bill Ocherman, who fears that his son has already disappeared in the lake and had begun a nightly vigil. As Dirk struggled to make sense of what has happened, he decides to hire Rodney, a biology student that is also a highly experienced diver. Over time, Rodney learns more and more about the monster that is large enough to block the flow of the underground spring as it passes back and forth between the lake and some underground chamber. But Rodney, friend and expert diver Eddie, and Dirk’s son Brad are unable to imagine the size, speed, and mind-boggling power of the strange, underwater behemoth.
First published on 1983, The Lake is not, in fact, Ruby Jean Jensen’s best book. Don’t get me wrong. It’s a perfectly fine horror novel, capably written — but also written before she’d hit upon and mastered the tropes she would later become renowned for defining (evil children and demonically-possessed toys). The Lake is her addition to the creature feature (a subgenre also called “munch-out” horror by some) which was having a heyday at that time, beginning around 1974 with James Herbert’s The Rats and running rampant by 1983 with Guy N. Smith’s Crabs series. The popularity of the subgenre began to wane by the 1990s, as things like Splatterpunk and Dell’s Abyss line pushed Horror in new directions. (The last great creature features of the era are, in my opinion, William Schoell’s Saurian and Dragon, both published by Leisure at the end of the 1980s. Then it went dormant for almost a decade, until two young authors named J. F. Gonzalez and Mark Williams gave the world a little novel called Clickers, which was published in paperback but also as legitimately one of the world’s first eBooks).
The Lake was one of two novels she wrote for Tor, and she penned it under the pseudonym of R. J. Jensen. Despite that pseudonym, some horror fans at the time figured out it was her, because many of the things she became known and celebrated for are present in this novel, such as family dynamics informing and propelling the characterization and plot. And while the kids in this book may not be possessed or evil, they still sound like Ruby Jean Jensen kids, meaning their motivations are realistic. (I don’t think she’s ever gotten the credit she deserves for how well she wrote children).
What makes The Lake curious to me and worthy oif its inclusion on this list of 365 horror books written by women, is the historical aspects of the novel. I dearly wish Ms. Jensen was still around to interview, because I’d love to know the creative process behind this one. Did she branch out to write it on her own, or was it something her editor at Tor suggested? Did she decide to use the vaguely male-sounding pseudonym or did the publisher make her do that? (I strongly suspect it was the latter). What was it like stepping outside of her comfort zone? And we’d also need to talk about the ending — an ending which has divided and enraged fans since 1983. It sneaks up abruptly and resolves everything within the space of one page. Was that her doing, or again, did the publisher have a hand in that? (Word counts back then could be longer than the standard is now, and the book, in published form, wasn’t anywhere near doorstop territory). I suspect maybe she had a different ending in mind, and editorial tinkering winnowed it down to the published version?
There’s an entire history here that has never been discussed, and as somebody who is fascinated by the history of this genre, I’d love to know more.
Like the rest of her sizeable backlist, Ruby Jean Jensen’s The Lake is back in print, courtesy of her estate, with a brand new cover, and available in hardcover, paperback, and eBook. Here is the new cover.
