The Heirs of Anthony Boucher Marvin Lachman

Early Mystery Fandom
4 Mystery Readers’ Parties (1969–1976)
Mystery fans began to communicate, but in those days before e-mail it was via letters
and the occasional phone call, though after many phone conversations, I met my fellow
Bronxite, Charlie Shibuk.
I learned in April 1969 that Al Hubin, Lianne Carlin, and Bob Washer were attending
the MWA Edgar Awards banquet in New York City, along with their spouses.
Also present would be out-of-town fans Bob Briney, Mike Nevins, Patricia Erhardt,
and Hal Knott. I lived in New York then, and looked forward to meeting people I
knew only through the written word. With the enthusiastic agreement of Carol, my
wife, I sent invitations for Saturday night to what I called “The First Mystery Readers’
Party.” Because most of the people were staying in Manhattan, I included subway
directions to the northern reaches of the Bronx where we resided. Also invited was
Shibuk, practically a neighbor.
We lived on the 19th floor of a large apartment building, and, for the first time
since we moved there, the elevators went out of commission on the evening of the
party. Early arrivals Erhardt and Knott decided to walk up the stairs, an easy job for
Hal, a mountain climber. Pat, on the other hand, was a sedentary person and a heavy
smoker. She arrived out of breath.
Fortunately, the elevators were quickly repaired because Al and Marilyn Hubin
came with a frail, seventyish mystery fan, Estelle Fox of Canada, in tow. She was one
of many uninvited people who came as word spread that mystery fans and writers
were welcome at the Lachmans. Estelle was proud of her collection of twenty-four
scrapbooks containing reviews, articles, correspondence, and autographs of mystery
writers. She left those to the Toronto Reference Library in her will. She also had a
collection of the first mysteries of over a thousand authors.
The conversations, unfortunately never recorded, were memorable. Hubin quietly
became the center. He was knowledgeable and articulate, and it was his founding of
The Armchair Detective that brought us together. Another highlight of the evening
was Nevins describing the wacky plots of Harry Stephen Keeler. Tales of what Nevins
called Keeler’s “Screwball Circus” had everyone laughing. Carlin called the party
“the mystery buff ’s answer to LSD: habit-forming, heady, but harmless.” In a TAD
editorial, Hubin commented, “What a pleasure to sit among knowledgeable people
and talk of things mysterious on into the night!” However, the conversation wasn’t
only about mystery; some spouses weren’t even mystery fans. We learned a great deal
about each other’s personal lives.
No history of mystery fandom would be complete without some mention of the
food Carol prepared. Among her dishes were shrimp in an appetizing cocktail sauce,
chicken livers wrapped in bacon, chopped liver, a salami and sweet pickle mixture,
and much more. Desserts included a chocolate whipped cream pie.
Two regulars at our parties, beginning in 1971, were Otto Penzler and Chris Stein-
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