“Hey, Look at Me!” (1962)

This ghost story by Jack Finney (author of the Invasion of the Body Snatchers novel) is another good one from the Playboy collection, which is worth chasing down. The story is set in the Bay Area, where rising costs, even in the early ‘60s, were driving people out of the cities and into cheaper exurban areas. Writers and other semi-supporting creatives could live well there with a working partner. Like most reasonable people, I’m leery of writers writing about writers and writing. The first-person narrator here, Peter, is one such, a book reviewer by trade. He befriends another writer, Max, a novelist, at their midafternoon breaks in the local coffeeshop, which is within walking distance. Sounds lovely! There’s some interesting tension between them as Max believes critics are not actually writers. He’s nice enough about it but it’s what he thinks. In some part this may be to compensate psychologically for his financial troubles. Peter gets by, not least because his wife works, whereas Max always seems to be struggling. Eventually, to help him, Max becomes a regular dinner guest. A year or two before they met, Peter reviewed Max’s first book and was lukewarm about it, though he did judge it “promising.” They never talk about that. Max is now hard at work on his second novel. But then he dies suddenly—an unexpected illness. Peter and his wife are on vacation at the time. Max is in the ground by the time they’re back and hear of it. Max was estranged from his family and left little behind. His grave is not even marked, as Peter discovers when he and his wife go to pay their respects. Then Peter starts seeing Max around, or a guy who looks like him. He wears uncharacteristically loud outfits, emblazoned with monograms in bright colors. His wife thinks Peter is nutty but then she sees him too. Max does little to acknowledge them when they see him, but Peter thinks he has an explanation. The short version is that manifesting this way uses up most of a ghost’s energy. There’s no time for distractions when there’s something to be done. And what is there to do? Well, that’s why we’re here. See title. It might sound a little silly in synopsis, but there’s a good insight at the center about writers and it’s all actually well done, never overdone, and the central themes hold together well. This is evidence there’s still a lot that could be done with a ghost story even in 1962.

The Playboy Book of Horror and the Supernatural, ed. Ray Russell
Story not available online.