Briefly Noted
All books listed here were published in 1950.
1. Cornell Woolrich- “Fright”
A man is about marry, when a drunken fling comes back at him in the form of a blackmailing would-be femme fatale. Our protagonist, however, proves to be a bit more fatal than she is. He takes his new bride to a new city, hoping to outrun his crime, but his guilt and fear cause him to see detectives behind every smile. An outstanding psychological noir reprinted as part of the Hard Case crime series. (7.4/10)
2. William Demby- Beetlecreek
Beetlecreek is an excellent, heartbreaking, slightly Faulknerian novel about race and loneliness. A white recluse and former carnival worker, Bill Trapp, chases off a group of African-American boys stealing apples from his property. One of the boys, Johnny, remains behind, and Bill breaks a silence of many years. Bill begins slowly and naively to reach out to the his black neighbors who have long labeled him a weirdo, who have thrown rocks at him, becoming first the toast of the town for a donation of pumpkins to the black church and then reverting to an object of scorn after he hosts a tea party for a group of young girls, some white and some black. (8.3 of 10)
3. Edmond Hamilton- City at the World’s End
When a super-atom bomb sends a small town a million years into the future, to an abandoned and radioactive Earth, the interplanetary forces arrive to helpfully evacuate these new arrivals to a safe world, only to run into Tea Party-ish resistance from the yokels who refuse to leave their home planet and take up arms. It is up to the scientists to save the day and make Earth a livable environment once again. (5 of 10)
4. Edmund Crispin- Frequent Hearses (American title: Sudden Vengeance)
Crispin brings his non-sleuth Gervase Fen into the film world, as a consultant on a movie about Alexander Pope. Of course an actress ends up dead (by her own hand) but then others begin to drop dead quite unwillingly. There is a tense and well-played stalking scene through a maze garden. (6.7 of 10)
5. Henry Nash Smith- The Virgin Land
A pioneering work of what came to be known as American Studies. Smith takes on the myth of the American West, as it was built in the 19th century by Penny Dreadful novelists feeding the tastes of city dwelling Easterners for tales of Leatherstocking heroics and rugged individualism. (8.5 of 10)
6. Lionel Trilling- The Liberal Imagination
Essays on Literature and politics by one of greatest critics of the 20th century. Subjects include Henry James, Faulkner, the Kinsey Report, the Partisan Review, and many others. Trilling returns again and again to his point that good politics do not create good literature (and in fact they may harm a writer’s imagination, leading him from the savagery and selfishness that faciltates great writing.) (9.5 of 10)