Harrington, Joyce 1931–

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Harrington, Joyce 1931–

PERSONAL: Born 1931, in Jersey City, NY; children: two sons. Education: Studied at Pasadena Playhouse.

ADDRESSES: Agent—Scott Meredith Literary Agency, Inc., 845 3rd Ave., New York, NY 10022.

CAREER: Foote, Cone & Belding (advertising agency), New York, NY, director of public relations; publicity writer for American Association of Advertising Agencies.

AWARDS, HONORS: Edgar Allan Poe award, Mystery Writers of America, 1973, for "The Purple Shroud."

WRITINGS:

No One Knows My Name (novel), St. Martin's (New York, NY), 1980.

Family Reunion (novel), St. Martin's (New York, NY), 1982.

Dreemz of the Night (novel), St. Martin's (New York, NY), 1987.

Contributor to anthologies, including Ellery Queen's Crookbook, Random House (New York, NY), 1974; Ellery Queen's Crime Wave, Putnam (New York, NY), 1976; Ellery Queen's Searches and Seizures, Davis (New York, NY), 1977; Ellery Queen's A Multitude of Sins, Davis, 1978; Best Detective Stories of the Year 1978, edited by Edward D. Hoch, Dutton (New York, NY), 1978; Ellery Queen's Scenes of the Crimes, Davis, 1979; Ellery Queen's Crime Cruise Round the World, Davis, 1981; The Year 's Best Mystery and Suspense Stories 1982, edited by Hoch, Walker (New York, NY), 1982; The Year 's Best Mystery and Suspense Stories 1983, edited by Hoch, Walker, 1983; The Year's Best Mystery and Suspense Stories 1986, edited by Hoch, Walker, 1986; The Year's Best Mystery and Suspense Stories 1988, edited by Hoch, Walker, 1988; The Year's Best Mystery and Suspense Stories 1991, edited by Hoch, Walker, 1991; and Murder in the Family, Berkley Publishing Group (New York, NY), 2002. Contributor of stories to magazines, including Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine and Antaeus.

SIDELIGHTS: Even before publication of her first novel in 1980, Joyce Harrington had already established herself as a crime and suspense writer of short stories. Her first story, the Edgar-winning "The Purple Shroud," is a quiet tale of a summer art instructor and the wife he has betrayed, building into a murder story of understated terror. Harrington followed this with "The Plastic Jungle," a macabre tale of a girl and her mother living in today's plastic society.

Two of her 1974 stories, "My Neighbor, Ay" and "The Cabin in the Hollow," offer settings as different as Brooklyn and rural West Virginia. "Night Crawlers" presents a memorable portrait of a woman worm farmer and a hidden treasure. "Blue Monday" offers a study of a murderer and his victim. Three Harrington stories published during 1977 illustrate her many moods well. "Grass" is a domestic drama of conflict between a husband and wife; "The Old Gray Cat" is a mood piece full of surprises for the unwary reader; and "The Thirteenth Victim" is a horror story about a man who constructs art works around the bodies of the dead.

Harrington's short-story output diminished as she began to work on her novels, but she still continued to write a few stories in the 1980s. For example, "A Place of Her Own" is a penetrating study of a New York bag lady; other notable pieces that reflect her sometimes bizarre portrayals of the human condition include "Sweet Baby Jenny" and "Address Unknown."

Harrington's first novel, No One Knows My Name, is a more conventional murder mystery. The psychotic killer stalking cast members of a summer theater at the Duck Creek Playhouse makes for a suspenseful debut. Her second novel, Family Reunion, features Jenny Holland, who returns from New York City to the reunion at River House in what becomes a blend of gothic novel and psychological thriller. And while the question in No One Knows My Name is basically one of whodunit, Family Reunion goes deeper, asking the reader to discover what shocking deed the characters committed so long ago. After her third novel, 1987's Dreemz of the Night, Harrington's output diminished considerably, and since then she has only contributed a few short stories to anthologies.