About the book: year / The story was first published in Weird Tales magazine, in January 1947. From the author: “I think that I passed by this cemetery all the time. My friend Eddie lived down the block. He was my closest friend, and all three years - from 1935 to 1937 - I spent more time at his house than at my own. That’s how they make friends, isn’t it? Four, or even five days a week, he and I were inseparable - and wandered all over Los Angeles. But in the evenings, after walking him home, I walked past the cemetery every time, and it’s quite understandable that different thoughts about graves were swarming in my head, well, yes. Something like paranoia developed, characteristic of a boy, and later of an adult: after all, in a certain sense, we are all paranoid. The thought of the dead being buried in rows was fascinating. I am sure that it was generated precisely by a flash of paranoia, when one evening I remembered this cemetery».