Moira and Others Four Novellas

Some of the most powerful works in August Derleth's Sac Prairie saga are those that deal with young love. This is the focus of his pioneering novel Evening in Spring (1941). But in other works, Derleth broaches a subject that is still regarded with trepidation: the love of an older man with a younger woman, in some cases a woman in her teenage years. This theme recurs again and again in several lengthy novellas. "Any Day Now" (1938) is the poignant story of how the young Renna Gluyk declines the marriage proposal of a young doctor, Joseph Macklin, and comes to regret her decision in the long decades of loneliness that follow. Two previously unpublished tales, "Moira" and "Dacey Stevens," similarly exhibit the tribulations of lovers widely separated in age; the latter is a surprisingly explicit work relating the sexual and romantic relationship of Dacey Stevens and an artist, Basil Sarpedon. A late novella, "A House Above Cuzco" (1969), tells of the author Avrel Millerand's decades-old relationship with a fourteen-year-old girl named Caitlin-and its surprising aftermath. Derleth's delicacy and sensitivity in dealing with these fraught issues is on display throughout these tales.