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The Machine in Ward Eleven

charles willeford

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This reissue of Willeford's 1963 pulp classic is a timely reminder that madness is truly the dark heart of politics. Written at a time when people still had faith in their elected leaders, Willeford's book laid bare the American dream. There is an almost Chekhovian wistfulness in the treatment of his stories, which belies their considerable impact. "The most eloquently brainy and exacting pulp fiction ever fabricated!" -- Village Voice

Contains the stories:
1. The Machine in Ward Eleven
2. Selected Incidents
3. A Letter to A.A. (Almost Anybody)
4. Jake's Journal
5. "Just Like on Television--"
6. The Alectrymancer

160 pages, Paperback

First published January 1,1963

This edition

Format
160 pages, Paperback
Published
January 1, 2001 by Thunder's Mouth Pr
ISBN
9781568582108
ASIN
1568582102
Language
English

More editions

About the author

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charles willeford

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Charles Willeford was a remarkably fine, talented and prolific writer who wrote everything from poetry to crime fiction to literary criticism throughout the course of his impressively long and diverse career. His crime novels are distinguished by a mean'n'lean sense of narrative economy and an admirable dearth of sentimentality. He was born as Charles Ray Willeford III on January 2, 1919 in Little Rock, Arkansas. Willeford's parents both died of tuberculosis when he was a little boy and he subsequently lived either with his grandmother or at boarding schools. Charles became a hobo in his early teens. He enlisted in the Army Air Corps at age sixteen and was stationed in the Philippines. Willeford served as a tank commander with the 10th Armored Division in Europe during World War II. He won several medals for his military service: the Silver Star, the Bronze Star, two Purple Hearts, and the Luxembourg Croix de Guerre. Charles retired from the army as a Master Sergeant. Willeford's first novel "High Priest of California" was published in 1953. This solid debut was followed by such equally excellent novels as "Pick-Up" (this book won a Beacon Fiction Award), "Wild Wives," "The Woman Chaser," "Cockfighter" (this particular book won the Mark Twain Award), and "The Burnt Orange Heresy." Charles achieved his greatest commercial and critical success with four outstanding novels about hapless Florida homicide detective Hoke Moseley: "Miami Blues," "New Hope for the Dead," "Sideswipe," and "The Way We Die Now." Outside of his novels, he also wrote the short story anthology "The Machine in Ward Eleven," the poetry collections "The Outcast Poets" and "Proletarian Laughter," and the nonfiction book "Something About A Soldier." Willeford attended both Palm Beach Junior College and the University of Miami. He taught a course in humanities at the University of Miami and was an associate professor who taught classes in both philosophy and English at Miami Dade Junior College. Charles was married three times and was an associate editor for "Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine." Three of Willeford's novels have been adapted into movies: Monte Hellman delivered a bleakly fascinating character study with "Cockfighter" (Charles wrote the script and has a sizable supporting role as the referee of a cockfighting tournament which climaxes the picture), George Armitage hit one out of the ballpark with the wonderfully quirky "Miami Blues," and Robinson Devor scored a bull's eye with the offbeat "The Woman Chaser." Charles popped up in a small part as a bartender in the fun redneck car chase romp "Thunder and Lightning." Charles Willeford died of a heart attack at age 69 on March 27, 1988.

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Community Reviews

Rating(3.9 / 5.0, 26 votes)
5 stars
8(31%)
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7(27%)
3 stars
11(42%)
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26 reviews All reviews
Profile Image for Kimberly .
KGohan_Kame
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
March 26,2025
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I've been a Willeford fan for years.
I believe it was a review by Alberto (or perhaps Col) that brought this collection of short stories to my attention.

Three of the stories in this collection feature variations on the same character. The others are the kind of "twist ending" stories popularized by The Twilight Zone and Alfred Hitchcock Presents tv series and anthologies of the early 1960's.

The 1st story, "The Machine In Ward Eleven" originally appeared in Playboy Magazine in 1961.
"Selected Incidents" appeared in the 1960's in Gent Magazine. Gent -if memory serves- was a cheesecake magazine with a literary bent.

No sources are cited for any previous publication of my personal favorite story in this collection "Jake's Journal"; the same for "Just Like On Television--!".

The final story in this collection "The Alectryomancer" originally appeared in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine in 1959.

To my knowledge this collection (originally published in 1963 in paperback by Belmont Productions) is out of print but copies abound from Amazon to eBay to your local used paperback shack. Prices vary but you can score a copy for under $6 the last I checked.

If you're a Willeford completist, this is a must have.
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softoroki
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
March 26,2025
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That was a fun read. Willeford was a favorite and inspiration of my father's (Blaster Al Ackerman) and I can totally see the affinity after reading these. The uneasy sense that the stories all wound in on themselves and the dark humor throughout reminded me of Borges. The completely untrustworthy narrators and subtle brutality reminded me of Will Self.
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raffyreviews
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
March 26,2025
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Pulp madness

I hesitate to call this a "redux" of another Pulp category, but it does continue Willeford's excellent work in "Pick Up."

I say this in the sense that in that earlier novel, the hero is also (self)committed to a (nearly)psycho ward. The difference here is a stylistic (and internal logical) consistency where the patient isn't entirely aware of all the details. He says as much, and yet as the teller of the tale, where does that put us to judge the facts on the face of the telling?

Droll.
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pufgil
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
March 26,2025
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Five short stories, three of which were previously published. Three seem to revolve around the same person. Studies in madness. Two could be a Twilight Zone script, and in fact, the last one was published in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine.
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Bikou
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
March 26,2025
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J.C. Blake is an inmate in a mental hospital who relishes each occasional memory the way other people probe an infected tooth or scratch at a scab. Prior to being sanctioned Blake was a movie director who had higher ideals and expectations than any of his producers, and consequently his career plummeted. In despair he attempted suicide and was institutionalised.

He finds life much easier in the sanatorium, making comparisons to his mother’s womb and a monk’s cell, and finds solace smoking and drinking coffee with the night nurse. But he doesn’t cooperate with his treatment plan and is told he will receive electric shock therapy.
He will stop at nothing to evade the dreaded machine which is ironic, as the struggle changes him into someone willing to accept compromise, a docile mental patient willing to trade his freedom in order to keep his memories.

Though just a short story, it’s a great example of the scope of Willeford’s writing. It has touches of his bleak humour, and almost a noir, though not quite.

His memories, his ability to laugh at his follies and stupidities—when the chips were finally down, these were the only things a man had left to him. Otherwise, a man is a pine tree, a turnip, a daisy, a weed, existing through the grace of the sun and photosynthesis during the day, and ridding himself of excess carbon dioxide during the long night.
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genkigal
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
March 26,2025
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This 1963 book is the first of three published short story collections by Charles Willeford. These stories all deal with some aspect of isolation and madness in modern life. It showcases the author's quirky, penetrating humor and his general disaffection with authority. It is now available again for the first time in over twenty years as an audiobook.

Johnny Heller's superb narration adds unspoken layers of nuance to these tales. I give 4.5 stars for the stories themselves and 5 stars for his rendering of the work.

Here are my individual story reviews:

"The Machine in Ward Eleven" -- A suicidal film director faces the horrors of electroshock treatments administered by uncaring institutional doctors. This is pure pulp peppered with existential observations such as “A noncommittal response is the only kind a headshrinker understands” and "Hollywood films create falsely induced emotions”.

"Selected incidents" -- A television producer relates his experiences with the brilliant director who was the protagonist of the preceding story. There is not much going on in this story except for some light satire of Hollywood and bloviating on what makes a fictional character resonate. Still, I got caught up in the monologue due to its offbeat point of view. I wonder if Willeford was at one point expressing his own personal desire to write a comedy "so finely wrought the audience would not know whether to laugh or cry." This statement pretty much sums up The Burnt Orange Heresy for me.

"A Letter to A. A. (Almost Anybody)" -- George's life has been on a downward spiral ever since he wrecked his car while driving drunk, causing his wife's arm to be sheared off at the shoulder. He lost his job, his money, and is now on county relief. His attempts to go straight are thwarted by a social worker who needs the job delivering weekly checks to his house. "Martyrdom is the way to recognition for people who have no talent or ability." A dark comedy.

"Jake's Journal" -- An Air Force grunt stationed on an abandoned emergency airfield in the mountains of Tibet ruminates on his past. This story is told through his journal entries. His memories become increasingly bizarre and violent as his isolation progresses. The last diary entry is open for interpretation, but there are several clues that point to why he may have been abandoned by his superiors in the first place and to what destination the rescue plane is headed. An excellent tale with numerous surprises.

"Just Like on Television--" -- A man who seems to get most of his ideas from television goes to desperate lengths to be involved in the private eye business. This is the only story in this collection I did not like; it lacks any sort of ending.

"The Alectryomancer" -- A writer on sabbatical in the West Indies has his fortune told by an island mystic. When the voodoo man's rooster spells out the French word for death, the writer becomes paranoid and desperate. No man should know the time of his own demise. But is the danger real--or just part of an elaborate sham?
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Bleodsian
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
March 26,2025
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La macchina in Corsia Undici di Charles Willeford (Adelphi) è un breve racconto che lascia addosso una sensazione di inquietudine difficile da scacciare. Comprato alla Fiera del libro di Genova, mi ha convito la quarta di copertina: “Il terrore attraverso l’elettroshock, come nessuno ha mai osato raccontarlo.

Un classico dimenticato della narrativa nera. Anche questa volta non mi sono trovata davanti quello che mi aspettavo. Blake è ricoverato in quello che sembra un manicomio, le sue conversazioni con l’infermiere Ruben sembrano surreali e subito ho provato uno slancio di affetto per quest’uomo che vive come un prigioniero.

Ruben mi piace. È un bravo Cristo. Di notte lascia la porta aperta. Insomma, diciamo che non la chiudo a chiave, la costa (è una porta accostata mi dà sempre un lieve, e inebriante senso di precarietà), così durante il giro d’ispezione medici e infermieri non si accorgono di nulla. Sono gesti che impari ad apprezzare, in un posto come questo.

L’indomani arriverà la moglie, peccato che lui non si ricordi nemmeno il nome di quella bella donna che per vivere fa l’attrice. Chissà se sta gli raccontando verità o bugie, chissà… chissà se in questo lungo monologo con se stesso Blake troverà una delle risposte alle decine di domande che si pone.
RECENSIONE COMPLETA SU: www.lalettricecontrocorrente.it
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