THE CENTURY'S BEST HORROR FICTION #79: A review of "Mackintosh Willy" by Ramsey Campbell

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Like Robert Bloch, Ramsey Campbell made a name for himself doing imitations of Lovecraft’s work. Unlike many other such writers, Campbell seemed to have a better understanding of HPL’s work, while at the same time having an appreciation of Derleth’s work. Also, like Bloch, Campbell evolved beyond that, and when he found his true style, horror was changed forever.



“Mackintosh Willy” seems to be the official turning point for him. It is the story that started the Campbell imitators. Does it live up to its reputation?


The unnamed narrator of this story is the son of a news agent in dark and dirty Liverpool. Around his neighborhood, he sees a bum that everyone calls Mackintosh Willy. No one seems to know why the sobriquet stuck, but it’s just one of those unconscious social agreements. The poor guy rants and raves all day, especially if you get too close to him.


One day, the narrator seeks shelter from a downpour. There is a shelter by the pond, but when he gets in there, he sees he’s not alone; Mackintosh Willy is in there with him, except there’s something wrong with him. As it turns out, he’s dead. Murdered, in fact. Though Campbell never comes out and says it, he alludes heavily to the idea that whoever did the deed put Coke bottle tops over the bum’s dead eyes.


Fast forward a bit. The narrator starts hanging out with Mark, who seems to be the idea man (though definitely not leader) of a gang of local hoodlums. The gang accepts the narrator into their fold, but after a while, the actual leader (Ben) challenges Mark’s manhood. Apparently, it’s known that Mark gets very uneasy when he’s around the shelter where the narrator found Mackintosh Willy. Ben dares Mark to go into the dark shelter, and while it’s obvious that Mark doesn’t want to go, he goes anyway. At the last second, the narrator saves him by suggesting they do something else.


Mark is perceptive enough to know what the narrator has done, so he avoids his savior for a while. In the meantime, the narrator starts going out with a neighborhood bird, and when they go for a midnight snog at the ol’ shelter, she senses the presence of another. The narrator even fancies that he hears someone from the shadowed end of the shelter mutter, “Popeye.” This freaks the girl out, and she flees. The narrator, just a kid himself, is pissed off that he no longer has a pair of breasts he can feel up.


Oddly enough, that seems to be one of the strengths of Campbell’s story. He remembers not what it was like to be a kid, but what it was like to be a teenager. The narrator isn’t scared by whatever might be in the shadows; he’s furious that he’s not going to make it to third base, much less home.


The narrator and Mark meet up for a double date, but when the girls don’t show up, they find a message asking the two boys to meet them at the shelter. SPOILER ALERT: Guess who didn’t write that message. That’s right. It turns out that Mark was responsible for Mackintosh Willy’s death, and the ghost has lured him back to the scene of the crime. While the narrator doesn’t see anything specific, he watches as Mark enters the shelter and then stumbles out, clutching at his eyes. Mark falls into the pond, where he drowns, and the narrator tries to rescue him. When he sees Mark’s face, though, there is nothing wrong with his eyes. END OF SPOILERS.


The answer to the aforementioned question? Yes. Campbell does more than an adequate job of earning his place here. He blazes the right trails, and he leaves just enough mystery for the readers to wonder, what really happened? The characters are perfect, the setting is wonderful, and the tone is spot on. Campbell imitators lined up after this one, and most of them did a pretty good job. But there’s only one Campbell. If you haven’t encountered him yet, now’s the time.


[This story first appeared in SHADOWS 2, and it cannot be read online at this time.  However, you can download an audio file of it here for 36-cents.]