Spiders in the Hairdo: Modern Urban Legends (review)

While reading yet another book about urban legends, and rereading similar collections (Brunvand's, Cohen's, Paul Smith's, all incidentally cited in this book's brief bibliography, and Francis Greig's Heads You Lose, which should have been), I also thought about my own repertoire, and it is clear that with few exceptions, the stories given in this book have been heard and told, in one form or another, for as long as I can remember.

But it is especially interesting to see how these collected versions have changed over time-both subtly and significantly-both because of the processes of folklore itself, and apparently because of the choices the authors made in presenting this material. In this book, compilers David Holt and Bill Mooney seem to have allowed some personal scruples or fear of offending to sugarcoat or soften some legend endings.

But what I liked best about this little book (aside from it being in paperback form that can fit in an overcoat pocket) is its introduction that, in my perusal, I saved for last. While it is sufficiently brief so it does not detract from its main purpose, which is recounting some good stories, Holt and Mooney still provide all the background we want. It even implies why these materials are called "urban legends," even though many of them are not limited to modern cities. (For instance, I collected some versions of legends that are included here more than 40 years ago in southern and midwestern farming communities.) That is, Holt and Mooney explain the term is used because many folklore collectors have long referred to them as "urban legends." But mostly the term is applied because such legends are not traditional tales with old world or rustic backgrounds. Even more to the point, they're "living legends," telling of things that could be happening now to people we know (and that is how they are usually introduced: "I heard that from my father-in-law" or "this actually happened to my next-door neighbors's brother's tax accountant's girlfriend") and in our own communities, and not something that obviously happened in past times and other places. References to real persons and real places give the air of verisimilitude.

Overall, these stories are a mixed bag by length and format. Some are clearly anecdotal; others have been "fleshed out" from their original likely anecdotal forms. Only a few are "complete tales" in the conventional sense. In other words, they are as short as the compilers feel they need to be, with no apologies for the ways they are presented. The tales are classified by topics though they need not have been.

This is the second book of tales by Holt and Mooney, which, in an audio version, incidentally, received a Grammy nomination in the "Best Spoken Word" category. In terms of the range of the legends included in this book, it recounts, for instance, an eastern Kentucky version of "a Special Halloween" in which the sexes are reversed (p. 31). "The Everlasting Light Bulb," "The Note on the Windshield," "The Stolen Wallet," "The Concrete Cadillac," "The Hook"-they are all there, as I remember them myself, as well as one about a car being paced by another whose driver wants to warn the first driver of an unwelcome passenger in the back seat (Oh, no, I gave away the ending!) And there is "The Vanishing Hitchhiker" that has been a staple of every published legend collection and every storytellers' convention since year one.

Finally, I reserve the reviewer's right not to compare this book with others like it. They have all been fun to read, whether the compilers are, like Jan Brunvand, trained folklorists, or, as in the case of Holt and Mooney, just two professional entertainers who like to tell stories. Remember, these are retellings and not verbatim accounts, and thus it is not really necessary to cite and describe informant sources. In...