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Also found it in Tennessee Williams: Collected Stories.

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Damn, and I thought I had a chance to post it first. Well done, DeepArcher980!

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The Mysteries of the Joy Rio - Tennessee Williams

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Feb 10, 2023·edited Feb 10, 2023

The Mysteries of the Joy Rio was written in 1941. Another story, Hard Candy, was written in 1953. Same author, same theater, similar theme.

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Damnit! I got distracted by the Nick Cave video for "Do You Love Me?" embedded in the article about it before I could comment the name and DeepArcher980 beat me to it. But spending the rest of the night re-reading Hard Candy and listening to Let Love In in its entirety is a fucking win all by itself.

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https://www.betterworldbooks.com/product/detail/collected-stories-0345335872

20 usd here, for a used copy. Buy at your own risk though, I've had a bad experience with this site.

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I had one around here somewhere. There is another of the same copy on eBay. Wasn't sure if he wanted the name & info, a physical copy, or to just read it. Still looking online for that.

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Feb 10, 2023·edited Feb 10, 2023

It might be in the collection, “Tales of Desire” by Tennessee Williams. Pretty sure Deep Archer has the story right with RIO? Might be the story “Hard Candy?” (And 1959 on this) the books same title, a collection of short stories that was published January 17, 1967 (or 1954 by New Directions– hard to get the date right) as a book. I read the TW revised RIO— “Hard Candy” is the newer one with characters going back to the same theater. But, RIO is the last story in the book—In the same collection— pretty sure DeepArcher has it though. On the gloves off you just posted first.

Still searching

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Feb 10, 2023·edited Feb 10, 2023

http://www.tennesseewilliamsstudies.org/journal/works/0105devlin.pdf

Chuck— go to page 28. Read what TW says to his publisher about not putting the book out anywhere his mother might get her hands in it. !!!!

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‘Hard Candy: A Book of Stories’, Tennessee Williams, 1954. Short story is called “The Mysteries of the Joy Rio”.

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I was asleep when the post went live, so here’s my attempt at grovelling for a completely hypothetical second prize:

For another ghost story revolving around a cinema, I recommend checking out Clive Barker’s short story “Son of Celluloid” from his collection ‘The Books of Blood’.

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Mystery of the Joy Rio. Written in 1941, published in 1954. ''...in 1954, Williams published a collection of short stories, taking Hard Candy as the name for the volume as a whole, but placing the earlier

Mysteries of the Joy Rio as the final story in the collection.'' Taken from this pdf that Kerri also found: https://journals.lib.unb.ca/index.php/IFR/article/download/14288/15365/19024

Wait, is there a prize for second?

https://archive.org/details/collectedstories00willrich/page/114/mode/2up You can borrow it first, have a taste, then buy. ( Like how every deal should be, like when buying weed)

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Asking if there's a consolation win, cause some of us beyond the Atlantic ocean were dead asleep when you posted. Life's unfair 😀

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If you're just looking for Mysteries of the Joy Rio you can find it within these books as well.

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?1098104

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Do you want Mysteries of the Joy Rio or Hard Candy as a whole with both versions? Where do we send it?

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"The Mysteries of the Joy Rio" by Tennessee Williams was included in the collection "Hard Candy" and published by New Directions in 1954. The only specific publication date I was able to locate was an edition published on June 1st, 1967.

Apologies for repetition. I find digging this stuff up to be enjoyable.

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Looks like we have a winner: DeepArcher. Please send Dennis at The Cult your name and snail mail address, and I'll ship the sweet, sweet Valentine's goodies out tomorrow.

https://www.chuckpalahniuk.net/contact

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Congrats! 😄🎉

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