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Study 138 - Who or What Was It? (Patreon)

Published:
2025-08-07 18:08:20
Imported:
2025-08
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Content

We're joined by special guest Jamie Brittain to discuss the uncanny tale Who or What Was It? by Kingsley Amis!

Special thanks to reader Marsh Davies! Check out his game Teeth and help fund its scary pirate uncle Gold Teeth.

Have a listen to the radio play version of Who or What Was It? as read by Kingsley Amis.

And here is a link to the first episode of the BBC's Green Man adaptation.

Check out Marvin Gaye's clueless ass.

And don't forget to listen to The Crate and Crowbar podcast for all the hot gaming gossip!

Comments

Bret Kramer

Fingers crossed “Marvin Gaye’s clueless ass” is a new character like Lying Vincent Price.

Alan Ricks

The first edition cover of Colonel Sun checks out lol.

Newk

This story has to be some kind of inspiration for Kurt Vonnegut's "Time Quake"

REO Jackwagon

Gosh. The appearance of the monster almost perfectly echoed something I did for the last session I ran that was inspired by Blackwood's Wendigo. It scared one person so badly that they quit. It seems interesting that the encounter with The Green Man would - One moment please, there's someone at the door...

a.t. johnston

thought that said scectral guest for a second there!

Ben A

Jamie’s recounting of how listeners to the radio drama thought the tale was real isn’t surprising. Audiences of the BBC have a history of being duped into believing the paranormal as real. Two examples immediately come to mind: Ghostwatch from the 1990s (I’ll admit some of the in camera effects are a little chilling, but the end is ridiculous) and the Stone Tapes from the 1970s. Also, it’s a shame when projects are commissioned and green lit, only to have the studio renege before production. I would have been keen to see that movie Jamie wrote about Amis. On an unrelated note, I’ve been thinking about categories of strange stories recently. (As if they can be grouped easily.) There are many that fit the weird story element in various forms, with enough detail left to the reader’s imagination to fill in all manner of horrors and mysteries. But then there are the works of Aickman or Amis, which are more like tone poems that reflect reality in a fun house mirror. The School Friend or this tale are good examples, where dissociative experiences of the authors become the raw materials of the tale. I agree that this tale is a retelling of the psychological break of being blackout drunk. It’s much like (in a more cartoonish way) mental breaks were shown in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas or even aspects of Lynch’s films (like Laura Palmer’s dissociative episodes due to abuse and drug use in Twin Peaks as portrayed through metaphor and the strange). Yes, these tales also fit into the weird fiction model I described above. But unlike, for example, the Night Wire or the Clock, the work of Aickman or Amis draw from horrors much closer to lived experiences. I’d also argue that this makes them compelling to an audience, as they don’t as easily allow the reader to escape with knowledge that it’s only fiction. This is a long way to write that I hope you guys do cover the Haunting of Hill House, as that epitomizes this hard-to-shake version of strange fiction, one that doesn’t estrange the reader as much because it hits just to the edge of reality. Great show!

Forrest Rush

I got obsessed with Kingsley Amis as a teen—pretty sure it started after reading one of his short stories in a high school English lit class. Half the references flew over my head, but the wit and snark lit a fire in me, even stuck in a trailer park in the deep south. Soon after, I found a beat-up hardback of Lucky Jim in the same box where I’d discovered The Outsider, which had already launched my Lovecraft obsession years earlier. But Amis hit something different—more like Dickens when he’s in teardown mode, or the early days of SNL. Even if I didn’t get the cultural cues, I felt the tone—and that was enough. After that, I devoured everything my small-town public library had. Amazing what you could check out as a teen, as long as it was “literature”—mostly alcoholism and straight sexual liberation, so all good. God, I thought it was hilarious. Sad to watch Kingsley turn into a reactionary, irascible bigot in the ’70s, though still sharp as hell. Truman Capote feels like the American equivalent, but maybe his queerness kept him from sliding all the way down that same hole. As for Martin Amis, I read everything in college, but only Time’s Arrow stuck with me. The same bite, just... tempered—or maybe I was just older. That story—“Who or What Was It?”—is a perfect example of what kept me coming back to Kingsley. He pulls off what so few writers can: writing in two genres at once, parody and horror, and nailing both. It’s not just a wink—it works as a legit creepy story while skewering the genre’s tropes. He did that sort of thing throughout his career. Basically The New Yorker—but raised to the power of infinite sarcasm. He was exactly the man Don Draper wanted to be if advertising hadn’t paid so well: cynical, cultured, blisteringly clever, and always a bit drunk at lunch.

Jamie Brittain

Wonderful, thanks so much for sharing.

KateSherrod

What an absolutely delightful episode. The chemistry between our Horror Daddies and... may we call him Weird Uncle Jamie?... is so much fun, and the atmosphere of hilarity was perfect for an Amis story. I second the appreciation of Marvin Gaye's Clueless Ass. He just always needs help finding the manger with his dinner, doesn't he (haw)?

It's a Ghost.

I wonder if there's some kind of supernatural rule at play here. Like everyone knows a vampire can't enter your home unless you invite it in. And similarly, maybe a green man can't transform into you and have sex with your wife unless you first throw your wife's jewelry at it.

Richard Upton Sinclair Lewis Pickman

I didn’t make the connection between Kingsley and Martin Amis until about five seconds before Chris says “his son, Martin Amis…” London Fields was a favorite when I was still in school, introduced to me by a friend at the time.

Jamie Brittain

I am Weird Uncle Jamie irl so please feel free

Jamie Brittain

I was very pleased to see Martin - who flirted with right wing rhetoric in his life - say something like "not being politically correct is just an excuse to behave like a pig" in one of the last interviews he gave.

Anne Ominous

+1 to all those words you shared there Please call the feedback episode 'a bit drunk at lunch'

Anne Ominous

Great to have JB back on your show. I really appreciated your thoughtful treatment about alcoholism and 'powering through the addiction'. I'm always nodding in agreement when you articulate ideas I've only half cooked. Is this the first story with spectral intercourse? Sign me up for that genre!

Jim Cannon

The incubus and the succubus go back a ways as concepts, I think

Jim Cannon

HUGE fan of JRR Tolkien that I am, I can't help but be immensely amused by the idea of Kingsley Amis sitting in Tolkien's class and totally slagging off on the old professor with his mates.

Wulf Mungus

Kinda feels like the protagonist is tryin to downplay this entities "prowess" by describing it's time with his wife as mere minutes

Andrew Neisess

It’s ironic that Bob Conquest was so passionate about his Stalin history after all the controversy when afterwards he would become a scholar for the heritage foundation, the architect of our current backslide into authoritarianism.

Mooncubus

I totally misinterpreted what they were saying in the ending. I thought she was saying the sex with the doppleganger was bad and he was like "damn... that's disappointing" 💀

Fredrik Bridell

”Hey, what's happening, brother? Doo dum di doo.”