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  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/6737",
    "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it.  Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.",
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  "archive": "urth",
  "thread": {
    "id": 6737,
    "subject": "Short Story 119: In the House of Gingerbread",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "2015-04-24T23:14:02+00:00",
    "last": "2015-04-24T23:14:02+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<CAF1072z6WGzE4n-skRZQRUcF+0=vCsM5ua3S3zTdDHBPaL6RZQ@mail.gmail.com>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Marc Aramini",
        "address": "marcaramini at gmail.com"
      },
      "date": "2015-04-24T23:14:02+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth)  Short Story 119: In the House of Gingerbread",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "#IN THE HOUSE OF GINGERBREAD\n\n“In the House of Gingerbread” first appeared in *The Architecture of Fear*\nin 1987 and is collected in *Endangered Species*.\n\n##Summary:\n\nThe third person narrative begins from the point of view of a house:"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "The woodcutter came up the walk, and the ornate old house watched him\nthrough venetian-blinded eyes. — The house felt his feet on its porch, his\nquick knock at its door.  It wondered how he had driven along the path\nthrough the trees.  The witch would split his bones to get the marrow; it\nwould tell the witch.  It rang its bell."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Tina Heim opens the door to “the woodcutter”, Lieutenant Richard Price,\nexpecting some chicken soup as consolation for the recent death of her two\nyear old son, Alan.  Instead, Lieutenant Price presents his badge and\ninterrupts her question, “Have the children ?” by stating that he would\nlike to talk to her, preferably sitting inside. Smelling something from the\nkitchen, he comments on the cooking she enjoys doing for the children every\nday (in the microwave) and she asks if he can simply enter her house.  He\nclaims that once he is inside, he is authorized by the state to search\nwherever he wants, but simply in the kitchen next to a plate with a\ngingerbread man on it.\n\nShe decides to be pleasant and pours him some coffee as they sit down,\nwhere she thinks, “This is my house — If this is an interview, then I’m\ninterviewing him.  She knew it was not true.”\n\nPrice asks about her husband Jerry’s death last November at the age of 41\nfrom lung cancer, indicating that for a non-smoker who didn’t work as a\nchemist certainly he was very young to die from such a malady. The\npoliceman asks if he might smoke, and she retrieves an ashtray for him.\nShe stalls for time by sweetening her coffee, trying to suppress and hide\nher tears.\n\nPrice says, “People must have wondered.  My wife died about three years\nago, and I know I got a lot of questions.”  Tina notes that the gingerbread\nman she cooked earlier is gone from his plate.  The cop then asks about her\nson and his death last month, as well as details about her two remaining\nchildren, whom Tina reveals are step-children, in Jerry’s custody rather\nthan their mother Rona’s.\n\nFinally, Price brings up the reason for his visit: two large insurance\nclaims in close proximity being paid, both benefiting Tina. However, when\nhe mentions the insurance, he is distracted by the sound of what he\nbelieves to be a small child upstairs.  She asks if he wants to go upstairs\nand check, since he doesn’t really need an excuse.\n\nThe policeman instead keeps talking, asking if Alan was poisoned.  “She\nnodded slowly, pretending there was a lovely clay mask on her face, a mask\nthat would be dissolved by tears, broken by any expression. ?He ate paint\nchips, Lieutenant.  In his closet there was a place where the old paint was\nflaking off.” As she begins to cry, he tries to console her and she\nstands, facing a corner.  “She hoped that when she turned around, he would\nbe gone.”\n\nShe comments on the unfairness of life, that Lt. Price could be there\nsmoking while Jerry died of lung cancer but never smoked. Here he once\nagain brings up Jerry's Attica Life insurance policy with a double\nindemnity for death by cancer; Jerry only lasted three weeks after going to\nthe hospital. Each of the children still has a $25,000 insurance policy,\nonce again with a double provision for accidental death, as was the case\nfor her son Alan."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "?You think I killed him. If only my eyes could blast, she though, he’d be\nfrying like bacon.  He’d be burning in hell.  “You think I killed my\nhusband and my son to get that money, don’t you, Lieutenant?” She tried to\npicture it, his brown suit blazing, his face seared, his hair on fire."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "He responds that he really doesn’t think so and asks her to sign a paper\nthat will allow an exhumation of Jerry’s remains to test for cancer or\nother poisons. She wonders if they can actually tell, and thinks of the\nbiblical woman’s plea, ?*Lord, it has been four days now; surely there will\nbe a stench*?   (from John 11:39, in which Lazarus’s sister Martha cautions\nJesus against rolling a stone aside and opening his tomb ? [incidentally,\nJesus? resurrection of Lazarus in the gospel of John, as the culmination of\nhis healing miracles and signs, sets Jesus directly onto the path of\ncrucifixion]).\n\nWhile arsenic and lead can be detected a century after death, Price\nexplains that there are many other variables involved in whether the search\nwill provide any concrete details.  She signs the document.\n\nIn response to his question about the usage of lead paint, she reveals that\nthe repainting of the house hadn’t been completed, and that perhaps the\npaint Allan consumed was from the 1920?s. She asks if he wants to see the\ncloset, and takes him upstairs to the nursery.  Price reflects that he\nwasn’t even sure the house was that old — that perhaps it was “built new in\nthe old style, like they do at Disneyworld”, but Tina says it was built in\n1882.\n\nA paint can and stained newspapers are strewn messily about the room, and\nthey hear “a scraping and shuffling that might have been a small dog\nscrambling to its feet, or merely some small, hard object sliding from a\ncollection of similar objects, a baby’s rattle leaving the top of a\ncareless pile of toys.”\n\nTina proclaims, “There’s a child in there!” but Price finds the closet door\nlocked. Noticing how cold it is in the nursery, Tina denies locking the\nroom, and then realizes that he is only looking around “as a favor” to her.\nHe posits it is a possum or squirrel in the closet, and tries to unlock the\nroom. When asked about the presence of rats, Tina responds:"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "?We’ve tried to get rid of them. Jerry set traps in the basement-? There\nwas a faint scrabbling from the closet; she spoke more rapidly to cover the\nsound: “He even bought a ferret and put it down there, but it died.  He\nthought Henry?d killed it.”"
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Price has picked the lock and realizes that the entire frame has been\npainted over, making the door stick. During this process they proceed to a\nfirst name basis. When he finally pries the door open, “for an instant it\nseemed to her that there were eyes near the floor,” though Price sees\nnothing but scratch marks in the paint which he thinks could have been a\ncoon or a similar medium sized animal. He says he must be going, asking\nabout a book she retrieved from under the strewn newspapers. “Just an old\nchildren’s book.  Jerry found it when he was exploring the attic and\nbrought it down for Alan.  It was under the newspapers.”\n\nAs he is leaving, they discuss her plans to sell the house, and in response\nto his comments about it being a nice place, she mutters ??It is *not* a\nnice place? ? but her words were so soft only the house heard them. On the\nway out, they flirt and he promises to call her. She watches him walk away\nand pat the pocket of his jacket, were she is certain he stashed the\ngingerbread man cookie to be tested for poison. In her mind, she hears the\nverses from the children’s book she found under the newspapers upstairs:"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "?You may run, you may run, just as fast as you can, But you’ll never catch"
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "ME, said the gingerbread man.\n\nThe narrative jumps once again to the house’s perspective: “That evening\nthe house played Little Girl.  The essence, the ectoplasm, the soul of the\nchild seeped from the cracked old plaster that had absorbed it when new.”\nPlump Henry doesn’t notice, cursing everyone in his loneliness.  His sister\nGail studies upstairs, reading a summary of D?Annunzio’s *La Gioconda* and\nimagining herself as the titular model wreaking havoc upon her step-mother,\nburning her as Gail's fantasies intermingle with the plot of the tragedy.\n\nTina is in the bathroom and sees the spirit of the house, “the silhouette\nof a child with braids, a little girl whose head and shoulders were almost\nthe outline of a steeply pitched roof.” She imagines that Jerry is alive as\nshe tries to ignore the specter in the steam which has come to haunt the\nold house:"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "It was not so much that she had forgotten, as that she had forgotten she\nherself was still living and that the living cannot communicate with the\ndead, with the dead who neither return their calls nor answer their\nletters. — He had given her perfumed body powder and a huge puff with which\nto apply it.  She did so now because Jerry had liked it, thinking how long,\nhow very long, it had been since she had used it last."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Noticing that the bathroom is very cold, just as the nursery was before,\nTina contemplates that she might be too fat, “Yet Dick Price had smiled at\nher; she had seen the way he had looked at her — had felt the extra moment\nfor which he held her hand.”\n\nThe narrative skips to Lieutenant Price reassuring the children Henry and\nGail that it was indeed cancer all along. Gail continues to claim that Tina\nkilled her father: “I’m sure she did. You don’t know her — she’s a real\nwitch sometimes.” By this point Price has ascertained that Gail was the\nperson who wrote the letters tipping off the insurance company that foul\nplay had been committed. Henry admits he helped her with several of the\nletters, asking if Price will tell their step-mother.  Price leaves, saying\nthat Jerry’s lungs had been filled with asbestos fibers, something which\nusually only happens to insulators.\n\nTied up in the kitchen, Tina thinks of the grim wallpaper in the nursery\nthey had attempted to cover and that, “It’s the gingerbread house — It\ndoesn’t eat you, you eat it.  But it gets you just the same.”\n\nHarry and Gail enter and taunt her, planning to remove the adhesive tape so\nit will not be melted on her body and give them away after they use the\nmicrowave to execute her. Henry has tampered with the microwave in such a\nway that it will activate even with the door open. Tina refuses to plead\nfor her life. Henry explodes an egg in the microwave to create a mess Tina\nmight hypothetically be cleaning when she has her own accident, its burst\n“like an ax biting wood or the fall of a guillotine blade.”  Tina says the\nchildren can go back to their mother Rona if they so desire, but they\nreally want revenge and money in the form of the insurance money she has\ncollected.\n\nHenry cuts Tina loose so that there will not be rope burns on her body, and\nhe forces her head into the microwave and starts it. A screaming starts,\nbut it is not Tina’s. Henry releases her and flames and smoke escapes the\nmicrowave. “She wanted to laugh.  So Hansel, so little Gretel, cooking a\nwitch is not quite so easy as you thought, *nicht wahr*?”\n\nThe flames spread to the curtain of the kitchen, and the dry wood of the\nroom easily burns. Henry flees as the back door bursts inward, for\nLieutenant Price has returned to help rescue them and aid in escaping the\nhouse. “Sirens and wolves howled in the distance, while one by one the dark\nrooms lit with a cheerful glow.” Tina screams for her house, claiming she\nwill remember her, no matter what.\nDick points at a figure above: “for an instant (and only an instant) a\nwhite face like a child’s stared from a gable window; then it was gone, and\nthe flames peered out instead. An instant more and they broke through the\nroof; the house sighed, a phoenix embracing death and rebirth.”\n\nLater the fire captain asked how the fire started, but is met with silence\nand the terrified stare of Henry, while Gail edges toward the trees. Tina\nblames the disaster on a cooking fire started when Henry prepared eggs.\nHenry says, ?She’s the best mother in the whole world!?, and Gail readily\nagrees."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "?Henry, you’re a dear. Tina bent to kiss his forehead. “I hope those\nburns don’t hurt too much.” Gently, she pinched one of his plump cheeks."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "He’s getting fat, she reflected. But I’ll have to neuter him soon, or his\ntesticles will spoil the meat. He’ll be easier to manage then."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "(She smiled, recalling her big, black-handled dressmaker?s shears. That\nwould be amusing — but quite impossible, to be sure.  What was it that\nclever man in Texas had done, put some sort of radioactive capsule between\nhis sleeping son’s legs?)"
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "The story ends with Tina saying, “You know, Dick, you’ve never talked much\nabout your own children. How old are they?”\n\n##Commentary:\n\nEvery once in a while I take an existential look at this project and think,\nthis story says everything there is to say right there — let it speak for\nitself.  “In the House of Gingerbread” works on that level, with the\ndramatic tenseness, shifts in sympathetic points of view, and syncretism of\nimmediately recognizable source material everyone should be able to\nrecognize - all of these things contribute to a satisfying story that\nperhaps works best on a first read — but I keep writing anyway, with the\ninjunction to my readers, go read Wolfe’s stories again? they are far\nsuperior to the comments anyone can make on them, even in their mysteries.\n\nThis story and its tension works very well on the surface level.\n“In the House of Gingerbread” plays with the reader's perspective quite a\nbit, but comes to a fair and unambiguous ending. It has a narrative\nstrength which initially thrives on subverting expectations, even though\nthe first paragraph explicitly narrates that the house is sentient and that\na witch lives there, identifying Lieutenant Price as the “woodcutter” (of\n“Hansel and Gretel” fame).  As the story progresses, Tina’s sadness over\nher husband’s death and her young child’s demise is treated with sympathy\nand tends to erase the sinister effect of the house ringing its own\ndoorbell at the start — as the first paragraph’s implications are\nforgotten, eventually the domestic situation and Tina’s feelings dominate\nthe middle of the narrative, in a conflict that is immediately recognizable\nin its mimesis of a struggling, possibly dysfunctional step-family facing\nrecent tragedy and (possibly unjust suspicion.\n\nIt is easy to sympathize with Tina’s anger and sadness. The dramatic\ntension escalates between Tina and Lt. Price as the insurance exhumation\nseems to become the dominant narrative conflict, but towards the second\nhalf of the story, the children are revealed to be figures of tricky and\nduplicitous evil in their attempts to kill their “wicked” stepmother — with\nthe rather interesting but logically unsound scheme of triggering a\nmicrowave malfunction and burning her to death. It is only at the very end\nof the story that the accuracy of the first paragraph is revealed — Tina\ntruly was a witch, greatly interested in eating these children (thus her\npassion for preparing treats for their lunch every day). She is also\ninterested in the children of “the woodcutter”, all the while. Even with\nthe loss of her strange familiar, the house, Tina seems to have triumphed\nand avoided the fate of the earlier witch - and in Wolfe's modernization of\nHansel and Gretel, he even has Tina think of the step-children by the fairy\ntale names in the final scenes, blending together all of the similar\nelements: combining gingerbread house and gingerbread man, witch and\nstepmother, and transforming the oven into a modernized microwave\n(obviously less effective for cooking witches than was employed in the good\nold days).\n\nThe primary mystery of the story becomes the nature of the house and its\nrelationship to Tina Heim. The text strongly suggests the house is\n\"possessed\" - it has absorbed the spirit of a little girl when it was new,\npossibly as early as 1882 when it was built (though perhaps as late as the\n1920?s, when the paint in the closet was originally applied), and is\ncapable of “playing Little Girl” at times. It seems that the scratching\nwithin the sealed nursery room might be related to the manner in which the\noriginal little girl died, perhaps even locked inside the the room Tina and\nLieutenant Price attempt to force open. The paint which Alan consumed had\nalready been peeled away there, and the concomitant coldness is the same\nfeeling Tina gets when the spirit of the house plays Little Girl and\nwatches her shower. Tina also continually thinks of the grim walls of the\nnursery that she and Jerry had tried to cover up, but their image keeps\nreturning to her. Wolfe baldly states that even though “you” may eat the\ngingerbread house, it gets you just the same. The first paragraph makes it\nclear that Tina and the house are separate (i.e.- her witch persona is not\nanother artifact or example of possession when the soul of the child flees\nthe house - the house thinks of her as \"the witch\" from the very beginning.)\n\nIt is worth discussing that the original fairy story “Hansel and Gretel”,\nwhile largely unchanged, features the triumph of the children.  In this\ncase, the portly Henry and conniving Gail (as Hansel and Gretel [though\nGail consonantly imagines herself as Gioconda as well]) try to microwave\nthe witch but fail, and it seems the wood cutter (Richard Price) has two\nchildren of his own who are also on Tina’s menu.  Wolfe clearly\naccomplishes something beneath the trappings of fantasy, and this involves\ncreating a metaphor for the voracious need for sustainable resources? it\nseems that Henry and Gail are looking for the proverbial free lunch — the\nsame kind of murderous attitude for personal profit which the insurance\ncompanies suspect in the case of two suspicious deaths. [In the original\nstory, the mother and father of the children are both their biological\nparents, and share the responsibility for abandoning them, though this\nchanges in later versions, even going so far as to redeem the father].\n\nMuch of the discussion of early tales such as those of “Hansel and Gretel”\n(and even “The Gingerbread Man”) categorizes them as something like\nmetaphors for the most basic human need: hunger stories of avoiding\nstarvation and confronting suppressed horrors in harsh times, horrors which\nmight include cannibalism. Some resources speculate that the oral tale\nactually originated during the Great Famine of the 14th century, when weak\nfamily members were viewed as conceivably disposable, and some critics\nactually conceive of the step-mother and the witch as two sides of the same\ncoin, characters dealing with an almost identical starvation ideology: one\nthrowing out the children and abandoning them to death and starvation\nbecause of scant resources, the other actually eating the children to\nassuage the hunger inside her. (Though underneath it all is the implication\nthat in harsh times, a step-mother or even a desperate mother herself might\nvery well turn to eating easily killed children). In this way, the witch of\nthe fairy tale is actually the step-mother, with both abandonment and\ncannibalism motivated by hunger and want, a dark hunger which creates the\nsinister and supernatural veneer of the ogre or witch in fairy tales. In\nthe fairy tales, the death of one evil feminine figure is usually\nconcurrent with the death of the other, permitting a happy ending when the\nchildren return to their father.  Wolfe has recognized this symbolic\nassociation between the witch and step-mother characters and crafted a\nstory where they are reunited in Tina, who at times displays sympathetic\nand human emotions. Even though her house is destroyed, certainly she\ntriumphs, for the children’s fear of her also seems to extend to a basic\nfear that society itself will prove unable to temper her response if they\nbetray her openly (rather than covertly).\n\n##Names:\n\n-*Tina Heim*: Heim is the German word for “home”. Tina can either be short\nfor Christina (“follower of Christ”) or derived from some other name, which\ncan imply tiny.\n\n-*Richard Price*: identified by the third person narrative voice as “The\nwoodcutter”, he goes by the nickname “Dick”. Richard can mean “powerful\nleader”.  Price, besides its English meaning, can imply “enthusiasm”\nthrough its Welsh descent from the name Rhys.\n\n-*Jerry*: Jerry’s name implies “exalted of the Lord.”\n\n-*Henry*: The name Henry means “home ruler” — rather ironic here.\n\n-*Gail*: Gail’s name connotes “liveliness”.\n\n##Literary allusions:\n\nObviously there are two fairy tales directly referenced by the work — that\nof the German tale “Hansel and Gretel”, a brother and sister who are lured\ninto a gingerbread house by the promise of candy after their father leaves\nthem in the woods at the insistence of their stepmother, only to be\ncaptured and fattened by a witch for consumption.  Of course, in most\nversions of the fairy tale they triumph by casting the witch in her own\noven, first by feigning thinness with a stick, then ignorance of how an\noven works.  The Brothers Grimm published a version of the story in 1812.\n(Tina’s last name, Heim, is also of German origin). The symbol of the house\nas candy in times of starvation is quite interesting, and the temptation\nleads to very real dangers. In Wolfe's story, the house acts as a\nmalevolent agent outside simple temptation (though Tina certainly seems to\nact as a temptress to \"the woodcutter\") and behind the promise of a normal\nsuburban facade.\n\nThe other important source story, that of “The Gingerbread Man”, actually\nappears in the book the deceased Jerry found in the house.  It is quite\nclear that it is not from the text of the original 1975 *St. Nicholas\nMagazine* tale, “The Gingerbread Boy”, for while that story contains a\ngingerbread man fleeing from the couple who create it and eventually being\ndevoured by a fox, its taunt was not yet in the formula Wolfe employs.\nIndeed, it seems that Wolfe has probably paraphrased and restructured the\nmodern boast of the fairy tale, which usually has the text “Run, run, as\nfast as you can! You can’t catch me I’m the gingerbread man!” The idea of\nconsumption in fairy tales is here one of runaway food, though in some\nvariations the baked product or head cheese actually consumes others who\nget in its path.  The gingerbread house of “Hansel and Gretel” is of course\nthe lure that attracts them to the witch's grasp, but the interesting\nrelationship between cooking, eating, and being poisoned in Wolfe’s story\nstill seem born of that primal hunger of darker and more superstitious\ntimes - even if the oven is now a microwave.\n\nBesides these fairy tales, Gail is studying a summary of *La Giocanda*,\nGabriele D?Annunzio’s 1899 tragedy. While the summary she reads gives an\naccurate depiction of the play, Gail imagines herself as the model Giocanda\nand mentally substitutes the words witch, Tina, and burned for wife,\nSylvia, and maimed, also attaching her brother to the fiery fantasy:"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "*Gioconda is the model of the brilliant young sculptor, Lucio Settala."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Although he struggles to resist the fascination that she exercises over\nhim, out of loyalty to his witch, Sylvia, he feels Gioconda is the true\ninspiration of his art.  During Lucio’s illness, Tina arouses Gioconda’s\nfury and is horribly burned by the model and her brother.*\n\nIn the original, the wife Sylvia saves her husband Lucio from committing\nsuicide and even attempts to salvage the statue which is his masterpiece\nwhen Gioconda attempts to destroy it (after Sylvia jealously says that\nLucio is no longer interested in using Gioconda as a model). The wife\nSylvia is terribly maimed in the process. It is not clear that Lucio has a\ncognate in the Wolfe story, though perhaps Gail has sublimated some of her\nanger at the passing of her father into this daydream and gains\nsatisfaction in wresting an eidolon of her deceased father away from Tina,\n“his witch” (in addition, her fantasies reveal that her mother Rona was a\nmodel as well). D?Annunzio was an important figure in the decadent literary\nmovement, combining some of the mystical features of symbolists and\naesthetes in an artistic direction which influenced Italian fascism and\nbears some strains of resemblance to Nietzschean thought. In *La Gioconda*,\none of the themes is that a genius may sacrifice whatever is necessary,\neven “lesser” mortals, in seeking out a higher purpose or ideal. Gail’s\nenvisions herself as the sculptor?s ideal model.\n\n ##Cultural allusions:\n\nWhile at least one haunted house in the Chicago area was also built in 1882\n(the Scutt Mansion at 206 N Broadway in Joliet), it seems unlikely that\nWolfe based this house on that particular one, which had a public\nreputation for the ill fortune of its owners.  It also seems an empty\nsearch to look for the daughters of famous writers or historical figures\nwho might have died in the 1880s and “become” the spirit of the house.\n\nWhen thinking of American writers who might interest Wolfe and have\nundergone familial tragedies, the death of Longfellow’s wife when her dress\ncaught fire kept coming to mind, but Longfellow himself died in 1882, and\nhis friend Nathaniel Hawthorne, who also always springs to mind when\nstrange houses with gables are invoked, had already been dead for years. It\nis likely the spirit of the house, which might be that of a girl trapped in\nthe closet or even tortured in the nursery, maybe starving to death or\naccidentally poisoning herself by consuming inedible material from the\nhouse, is ultimately from an indeterminate source.\n\nThe case which the witch thinks of in which the man from Texas,\nHouston-based petroleum engineer Kerry Crocker, irradiates his son is\nsummarized below:"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "A man used radioactive sources to intentionally irradiate his 11-year-old\nson on multiple occasions. The man had limited visitation rights following\ndivorce from the child's mother in 1971. He obtained capsules from one or\ntwo cesium-137 oil and gas well logging sources, each 1-2 Curie, which he\nwas licensed to use with a company. From April to October 1972 he used the\ncapsules in 5 to 8 instances against his son. Around 8 April 1972 during a\nweekend visit the father instructed the boy to use headphones containing\ncapsules. On 18 April the boy was taken to a doctor for treatment of skin\nblisters. Twice in July the father drugged the boy and put him to sleep on\na cushion or pillow containing capsules; the boy awoke nauseous both times\nand began to develop a rash on his thighs. On an August visit he was\ninstructed to sleep on a couch containing two capsules; by this time he was\nunder care of a doctor for skin lesions. In September the boy saw a\nphysician for hair loss from one side of the head. On an October visit the\nfather placed two capsules on the boy's legs while he was sleeping. In\nFebruary 1973 a plastic surgeon diagnosed the boy's worsening skin lesions\nas radiation induced. The boy required 16 operations from January 1974 to\nNovember 1978 including numerous skin grafts; the irradiation also resulted\nin castration, with the resultant requirement for testosterone replacement."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "The case was reported to law enforcement authorities on 31 January 1974,\nwith charges brought against the father on 2 May and his conviction on 17\nApril 1975 on one charge. The father appealed but jumped bond when the\nappeal was denied, and was finally apprehended around 1981 following an FBI\ninvestigation. (Johnston)\n\nCertainly the calculating betrayal of a son by his father, probably for\nrevenge, fits with the story, but of special note to Wolfe fans is also the\nprofession of the perpetrator\n\n##Unanswered questions:"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "From the introductory segment, where the house contemplates that its witch\nwill split the woodcutter?s bones to get the marrow, are we to believe that\nTina’s relationship with Jerry and her feelings for Alan were genuine?  It\nseems Lieutenant Price and his children have been selected as her future\nvictims, regardless of whether her feelings for Jerry were sincere."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "What is Tina's original relationship with the spirit and the house? Did she\njust happen to come upon it or is the relationship deeper? In the fairy\ntale, the house is the lure of the witch, and Tina's last name is German\nfor home. (How long would a modernized witch live?)\n\n##Connection with other works:\n\nWolfe loves appropriating fairy stories to ambiguous and sophisticated\nnarrative ends, as we can see in *Peace*, “The Death of Koschei the\nDeathless”, and “The Little Stranger” (which also played with some “Hansel\nand Gretel” imagery concerning a witch). The sympathetic portrayal of a\nrather hideous character is something that Wolfe has probably done a time\nor two in his fiction. The blending of the disparate ideas behind these\nfairy tales, thrust into a modernized setting that somehow seems to reveal\nthe original source's motivation, is definitely one of Wolfe's most\npolished literary techniques, and, because of the easily recognizable\nmaterial Wolfe is using here, creates a rich texture for this particular\nstory - even if there are no enduring mysteries or truly complex enigmas\nlurking underneath the tale.\n\n##Resources\n\n-Johnston, Wm. Robert. “Texas Radiological Assault, 1972”. *Database of\nRadiological Incidents and Related Events--Johnston's Archive*. 18\nSeptember 2007. Web. 23 April 2015.\nhttp://www.johnstonsarchive.net/nuclear/radevents/1972USA1.html"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}