"Cool Air" is a short story by the American
horror fiction
Horror is a genre of fiction which is intended to frighten, scare, or disgust. Horror is often divided into the sub-genres of psychological horror and supernatural horror, which is in the realm of speculative fiction. Literary historian J ...
writer
H. P. Lovecraft, written in March 1926 and published in the March 1928 issue of ''
Tales of Magic and Mystery
''Tales of Magic and Mystery'' is a 1985 anthology of 11 fairy tales from around the world that have been collected and retold by Ruth Manning-Sanders. It is one in a long series of such anthologies by Manning-Sanders.
Table of contents
*Fore ...
''.
Plot
The narrator offers a story to explain why a "draught of cool air" is the most detestable thing to him. His tale begins in the spring of 1923, when he was looking for housing in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
. He finally settles in a converted
brownstone
Brownstone is a brown Triassic–Jurassic sandstone that was historically a popular building material. The term is also used in the United States and Canada to refer to a townhouse clad in this or any other aesthetically similar material.
Type ...
on
West Fourteenth Street. Investigating a chemical leak from the floor above, he discovers that the inhabitant directly overhead is a strange, old, and reclusive
physician
A physician (American English), medical practitioner (Commonwealth English), medical doctor, or simply doctor, is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through th ...
. One day the narrator suffers a
heart attack
A myocardial infarction (MI), commonly known as a heart attack, occurs when blood flow decreases or stops to the coronary artery of the heart, causing damage to the heart muscle. The most common symptom is chest pain or discomfort which may tr ...
, and remembering that a doctor lives overhead, he climbs the stairs and meets Dr. Muñoz for the first time.
The doctor demonstrates supreme medical skill, and saves the narrator with a combination of medications. The fascinated narrator returns regularly to sit and learn from the doctor. As their talks continue, it becomes increasingly evident that the doctor has an obsession with defying death through all available means.
The doctor's room is kept at approximately 56 degrees Fahrenheit (13 degrees Celsius) using an
ammonia
Ammonia is an inorganic compound of nitrogen and hydrogen with the formula . A stable binary hydride, and the simplest pnictogen hydride, ammonia is a colourless gas with a distinct pungent smell. Biologically, it is a common nitrogenous was ...
-based
refrigeration system; the pumps are driven by a
gasoline
Gasoline (; ) or petrol (; ) (see ) is a transparent, petroleum-derived flammable liquid that is used primarily as a fuel in most spark-ignited internal combustion engines (also known as petrol engines). It consists mostly of organic co ...
engine
An engine or motor is a machine designed to convert one or more forms of energy into mechanical energy.
Available energy sources include potential energy (e.g. energy of the Earth's gravitational field as exploited in hydroelectric power gen ...
. As time goes on, the doctor's health declines and his behaviour becomes increasingly eccentric. The cooling system is continuously upgraded, to the point where some areas of his rooms are sub-freezing, until one night when the pump breaks down.
Without explanation, the panic-stricken doctor frantically implores his friend to help him keep his body cool. Unable to repair the machine until morning, they resort to having the doctor stay in a tub full of ice. The narrator spends his time replenishing the ice, but soon is forced to employ someone else to do it. When he finally locates competent mechanics to repair the pump, it is too late.
He arrives at the apartment in time to see the rapidly
decomposing remains of the doctor, and a rushed, "hideously smeared" letter. The narrator reads it; to his horror, he learns that Dr. Muñoz died 18 years previously. Refusing to surrender to death, he maintained the semblance of life past the point of death using various methods, depending upon refrigeration to retard decomposition.
Inspiration
![H](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d7/H._P._Lovecraft_in_Brooklyn%2C_11_July_1931.png)
Lovecraft wrote "Cool Air" during his unhappy stay in New York City, during which he wrote three horror stories with a New York setting. In "Lovecraft's New York Exile," David E. Schultz cites the contrast Lovecraft felt between his apartment, crammed with relics of his beloved
New England
New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York to the west and by the Canadian provinces ...
, and the immigrant neighborhood of
Red Hook near where he lived as an inspiration for the "unsettling juxtaposition of opposites" that characterizes the short story. Like the story's main character, Schultz suggests, Lovecraft, cut off from his native
Providence, Rhode Island
Providence is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Rhode Island. One of the oldest cities in New England, it was founded in 1636 by Roger Williams, a Reformed Baptist theologian and religious exile from the Massachusetts Bay ...
, felt himself to be just going through the motions of life.
The building that is the story's main setting is based on a
townhouse
A townhouse, townhome, town house, or town home, is a type of terraced housing. A modern townhouse is often one with a small footprint on multiple floors. In a different British usage, the term originally referred to any type of city residence ...
at 317 West 14th Street where George Kirk, one of Lovecraft's few New York friends, lived briefly in 1925. The narrator's
heart attack
A myocardial infarction (MI), commonly known as a heart attack, occurs when blood flow decreases or stops to the coronary artery of the heart, causing damage to the heart muscle. The most common symptom is chest pain or discomfort which may tr ...
recalls that of another New York Lovecraft friend,
Frank Belknap Long
Frank Belknap Long (April 27, 1901 – January 3, 1994) was an American writer of horror fiction, fantasy, science fiction, poetry, gothic romance, comic books, and non-fiction. Though his writing career spanned seven decades, he is best known ...
, who dropped out of
New York University
New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin.
In 1832, the ...
because of his heart condition. The narrator's
phobia
A phobia is an anxiety disorder defined by a persistent and excessive fear of an object or situation. Phobias typically result in a rapid onset of fear and are usually present for more than six months. Those affected go to great lengths to avo ...
about cool air is reminiscent of Lovecraft himself, who was abnormally sensitive to cold.
[Joshi and Cannon, p. 158.]
Schultz indicates that "Cool Air"'s main literary source is
Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe (; Edgar Poe; January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American writer, poet, editor, and literary critic. Poe is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and the macabre. He is wide ...
's "
The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar," described as Lovecraft's favourite Poe story after "
The Fall of the House of Usher." Lovecraft had just finished the Poe chapter of his survey "
Supernatural Horror in Literature" at the time that he wrote the short story. Lovecraft, however, stated years later that the story that inspired "Cool Air" was
Arthur Machen's "
The Novel of the White Powder
''The Three Impostors; or, The Transmutations'' is an episodic horror novel by British writer Arthur Machen, first published in 1895 in The Bodley Head's Keynotes Series. It was revived in paperback by Ballantine Books as the forty-eighth vo ...
," another tale of bodily disintegration.
Characters
*Doctor Muñoz: A Spanish physician of "striking intelligence and superior blood and breeding," he is described as "short but exquisitely proportioned," with a "high-bred face of masterful though not arrogant expression," "a short iron-grey full beard," "full, dark eyes" and "an aquiline nose." He calls himself "the bitterest of sworn enemies to
death
Death is the irreversible cessation of all biological functions that sustain an organism. For organisms with a brain, death can also be defined as the irreversible cessation of functioning of the whole brain, including brainstem, and brain ...
", and one who had "sunk his fortune and lost all his friends in a lifetime of bizarre experiment devoted to its bafflement and extirpation."
[Lovecraft, "Cool Air", p. 202.] Saying he feels a "repugnance" on first meeting Muñoz that "nothing in his aspect could justify," the narrator remarks on "the ice-coldness and shakiness of his bloodless looking hands" and that his breathing was imperceptible.
:''An H. P. Lovecraft Encyclopaedia'' suggests that Muñoz may have been modelled on Lovecraft's Brooklyn neighbour, described by Lovecraft as “the fairly celebrated Dr. Love, State Senator and sponsor of the famous 'Clean Books bill' at
Albany...evidently immune or unconscious of the decay." This is presumably
William L. Love, a Brooklyn physician and freemason who was a state senator from 1923 until 1932.
*The unnamed narrator who has come to New York to do "some dreary and unprofitable
magazine
A magazine is a periodical publication, generally published on a regular schedule (often weekly or monthly), containing a variety of content. They are generally financed by advertising, purchase price, prepaid subscriptions, or by a combinatio ...
work." He has drifted from one cheap boarding house to another before finding that the one on West Fourteenth Street "disgusted
immuch less than the others he had sampled." After being treated by Muñoz, his upstairs neighbor, he becomes "a disciple and devotee of the gifted recluse".
Reception
Submitted to Lovecraft's regular outlet, the pulp magazine ''
Weird Tales'', "Cool Air" was rejected by editor
Farnsworth Wright
Farnsworth Wright (July 29, 1888 – June 12, 1940) was the editor of the pulp magazine ''Weird Tales'' during the magazine's heyday, editing 179 issues from November 1924 to March 1940. Jack Williamson called Wright "the first great fantasy ...
, a decision that has been called "inexplicable...since it would appear to be just the sort of safe, macabre tale that he liked."
It's possible that Wright feared that "its gruesome conclusion would invite
censorship
Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information. This may be done on the basis that such material is considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or "inconvenient". Censorship can be conducted by governments ...
." Peter Cannon calls "Cool Air" Lovecraft's "best story with a New York setting", proving him "capable of using an understated,
naturalistic style to powerful effect."
Adaptations
*Issue #62 of
Warren Publishing's ''
Eerie'' features a comic adaptation of "Cool Air" by Berni Wrightson. It was later reprinted several times, first by Warren, then by
Pacific Comics.
*The story "Baby... It's Cold Inside!" in EC Comics' Vault of Horror #17 is a loose comic adaptation of "Cool Air."
*"Cool Air" has been adapted for film or television at least three times:
**a 1971 episode of ''
Night Gallery'' directed by
Jeannot Szwarc with a teleplay by
Rod Serling
Rodman Edward Serling (December 25, 1924 – June 28, 1975) was an American screenwriter, playwright, television producer, and narrator/on-screen host, best known for his live television dramas of the 1950s and his anthology television series ' ...
(where the narrator was changed to the daughter of a MIT colleague of Muñoz's, in order to accommodate a romantic plot for the story)
**"The Cold", directed by Shusuke Kaneko from a screenplay by Brent V. Friedman, a segment of the 1994 Lovecraftian omnibus film ''
Necronomicon: Book of the Dead''
**a
50-minute black-and-white version directed by Bryan Moore (where the nameless narrator of the story is replaced by
Randolph Carter
Randolph Carter is a recurring fictional character in H. P. Lovecraft's fiction and is, presumably, an alter ego of Lovecraft himself. The character first appears in "The Statement of Randolph Carter", a short story Lovecraft wrote in 1919 bas ...
), released in 1999 as part of the ''H.P. Lovecraft Collection''.
*The 2006 horror film ''
Cool Air
"Cool Air" is a short story by the American horror fiction writer H. P. Lovecraft, written in March 1926 and published in the March 1928 issue of ''Tales of Magic and Mystery (magazine), Tales of Magic and Mystery''.
Plot
The narrator offers a ...
'' (aka ''H.P. Lovecraft's Cool Air'') directed by Albert Pyun is based on "Cool Air."
*The 2007 horror/splatter film ''
Chill
In computing, CHILL (an acronym for CCITT High Level Language) is a procedural programming language designed for use in telecommunication switches (the hardware used inside telephone exchanges). The language is still used for legacy systems in ...
'' directed by Serdge Rodnunsky is loosely based on "Cool Air."
*
DC Comics
DC Comics, Inc. (doing business as DC) is an American comic book publisher and the flagship unit of DC Entertainment, a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Discovery.
DC Comics is one of the largest and oldest American comic book companies, with thei ...
'
Elseworlds
''Elseworlds'' was the publication imprint (trade name), imprint for American comic books produced by DC Comics for stories that took place outside the DC Universe Canon (fictional), canon. Elseworlds publications are set in alternate realitie ...
three-part story, ''Batman: The Doom That Came to Gotham'', adapted the character of
Mr. Freeze
Mr. Freeze is a supervillain appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics. The character was created by Dave Wood, Sheldon Moldoff and Bob Kane, and first appeared in '' Batman'' #121 in February 1959 as the ice-based criminal Mr. ...
into a role inspired by Dr. Muñoz of "Cool Air".
*Blue Hours Productions has done an adaptation of "Cool Air" for its revival of the classic radio series ''
Suspense
Suspense is a state of mental uncertainty, anxiety, being undecided, or being doubtful. In a dramatic work, suspense is the anticipation of the outcome of a plot or of the solution to an uncertainty, puzzle, or mystery, particularly as it aff ...
'', which began airing on
Sirius XM Radio in Fall 2012. It features
Adrienne Wilkinson
Adrienne Wilkinson is an American actress. She is known for playing Eve, the daughter of Xena in the TV series '' Xena: Warrior Princess'' in the fifth and sixth seasons. She has appeared in numerous television series such as ''Angel,'' '' Charm ...
and Daamen Krall, and was adapted by John C. Alsedek and Dana Perry-Hayes.
*
Lions Gate released (on May 21, 2013) an adaptation by
Albert Pyun
Albert Pyun (May 19, 1953 – November 26, 2022) was an American film director who made low-budget B-movies and direct-to-video action films.
The Independent Film Channel said that Pyun "has carved out a unique niche as a director of low-budge ...
from a script by Cynthia Curnan. The film was entitled ''H. P. Lovecraft's Cool Air''.
*The song "Cool Air" by American
progressive rock
Progressive rock (shortened as prog rock or simply prog; sometimes conflated with art rock) is a broad genre of rock music that developed in the United Kingdom and United States through the mid- to late 1960s, peaking in the early 1970s. Init ...
band
Glass Hammer
Glass Hammer is an American progressive rock band from Chattanooga, Tennessee, created and led by Steve Babb and Fred Schendel.
Babb and Schendel, who founded the band in 1992, are the only constant members in the lineup, having surrounded the ...
is based on the story. It was originally released as a part of a 2012 collaborative album dedicated to Lovecraft titled ''The Stories of H.P. Lovecraft'', and then as a part of their 2017 album ''
Untold Tales''.
*The first issue of
Alan Moore's comic ''
Providence
Providence often refers to:
* Providentia, the divine personification of foresight in ancient Roman religion
* Divine providence, divinely ordained events and outcomes in Christianity
* Providence, Rhode Island, the capital of Rhode Island in the ...
'' draws heavily from "Cool Air."
References
Sources
*H. P. Lovecraft, "Cool Air", ''The Dunwich Horror and Others'', Sauk City, WI: Arkham House, pp. 203–207.
*Lovecraft, "Cool Air", ''More Annotated Lovecraft'', S. T. Joshi and Peter Cannon, eds., New York: Dell, pp. 158–171.
*David E. Schultz, "Lovecraft's New York Exile", ''Black Forbidden Things'', Mercer Island, WA: Starmount House, p. 55.
External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Cool Air
1928 short stories
Cryonics in fiction
Fiction set in 1923
Horror short stories
Short stories adapted into films
Short stories by H. P. Lovecraft
Short stories set in New York City
Works originally published in American magazines
Works originally published in fantasy fiction magazines
Short stories about zombies and revenants