--- In
rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com, "Max Gilbert"
<jmaxgilbert@y...> wrote:
>
> --- In
rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com, Michael Robison
> <miker_zspider@y...> wrote:
> > ****************
> > I thought his PRELUDE TO A CERTAIN MIDNIGHT was
pretty
> > darned bleak, too. It's about the search for
the
> > murderer of a young girl. It wasn't bad except
for
> > the occasional divergences.
> >
> > miker
> >
> I read PRELUDE TO A CERTAIN MIDNIGHT a few years
back and it
> certainly qualified as bleak, but I remember at
least some of the
> cast of characters were likable, whereas with NIGHT
& THE CITY
> everyone you're introduced to (in the first half of
the book at
> least) is either reprehensible or pathetic and the
main character,
> Harry Fabian is a pimp and blackmailer who is
thoroughly dishonest
> with himself as well as everyone he meets--being
stuck in his head
> can be pretty disturbing. I definitely recommend the
book.
>
> Max
Ah, Gerald Kersh! Kersh was one of the writers a used book
store clerk (and later store owner) steered my teenage self
to more than forty years ago. I owe everything to that fellow
who helped me out of rural Georgia and a terrible school
system. Subdividing "everything" I would rank Kersh
reasonably up there on the individual author hit
parade.
I wish Paul Duncan was still on this list. Duncan, author of
NOIR FICTION, DARK HIGHWAYS (Pocket Essentials 2000) among
other works, is the premier Kersh expert and I can't wait to
read the biography upon which he has labored for some years.
As an aside, I emailed Duncan a few months ago about Kersh.
One of my passions is boxing and I had picked up an old
boxing magazine from the 1950s with an article about "the old
Mongoose" Archie Moore, who was light heavyweight champion
circa 1952-1962. The article had a picture that showed Archie
on the top of steps leading from his home in San Diego,
California to the beach. Each step was named and labeled for
sportswriters who had helped him along the way. One of the
steps was labeled "Gerald Kersh" and when I wrote Duncan he
was glad to explain that Kersh had written an Esquire article
about Moore.
NIGHT AND THE CITY is an excellent novel and I my
recommendation to that of Max. Let me quote from Paul Duncan
on the book: "NIGHT AND THE CITY (1938) is a novel of
disgust. Of all Kersh's novels, it is the one where you most
feel the fetid stink of the city, and the worthless lives of
the people in it. As one reviwer put it, 'this novel of the
London underworld has something of the realism of a Hogarth
picture and the satire of a Swift. Pimps, prostitutes,
panderers, petty crooks and odd characters move about in low
joints and night clubs, fleecing and being fleeced by each
other.'"
I agree and don't believe either of the film versions
(Richard Widmark or Robert Duvall) did it complete
justice.
PRELUDE TO A CERTAIN MIDNIGHT (1947) is a very fine novel but
provokes a strong reaction among those who expect good to
always triumph.
Back to NIGHT AND THE CITY for a moment: Kersh brought back
Harry Fabian in the novel THE SONG OF THE FLEA (Doubleday
1948). It has been too many decades for me to give a reasoned
review of this novel. I only remember that I did not care for
it and especially thought the use of Harry Fabian was
ill-advised.
Under the same caution of years-passed, I recall fondly the
long
(22,000 words) story by Kersh "Clock Without Hands" as one of
likely interest to Rara list members. You can find the story
in one of the most common Kersh U.S. collections MEN WITHOUT
BONES (Paperback Library 1962). I don't have a bibliography
handy but am not confident that this long story was in the
U.K. collection also called MEN WITHOUT BONES. The story is
also in the rather common British collection THE BEST OF
GERALD KERSH (Heinemann 1960). While I can't check this at
present, I believe that Kersh's use of the title "Clock
Without Hands" predates its use by my fellow Georgian Carson
McCullers.
Richard Moore
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 31 Jan 2005 EST