Five Noir Novels of the 1940s & 50s, by David Goodis
New York:
Library of America, 2012
Goodis’s
novel The Burglar was originally
published in 1953.
List of
main characters:
Nat
Harbin
Joe
Baylock
Dohmer
Gladden
Della
Charles
Finley
The image of the
front cover is from the Library of America anthology. The page references in
this blog post refer to the Library of America publication listed above.
I read The Burglar before I read Nightfall, which was also written by
David Goodis and published six years earlier. Nightfall has a decidedly more optimistic ending, although it
undoubtedly qualifies as noir literature. It just makes me wonder more about Goodis
the person and how much his outlook changed over the years. The Burglar was made into a film by the same name; I saw it a
while ago, and it’s on my list to see again, of course.
The main character of
The Burglar, Nat Harbin, always tries
to do the right thing, according to his own code, and to do excellent work in
his profession, which happens to be burglary. This trait of living by his own
code of honor is what makes Nat Harbin a sympathetic character, at least for
me. It made me root for him and for Gladden.
(This blog post
about the novel The Burglar contains
spoilers.)
Harbin is the
informal leader of a group of four thieves who work heists together. One of
them, Gladden, is the daughter of the man who saved Harbin’s life during the
Great Depression. Readers find out more about Gladden and her father Gerald
later in the novel, but they learn right away that Harbin sticks to his code of
honor. In Chapter 2, one of the thieves, Joe Baylock, wants to let Gladden go because he thinks she’s
trouble. Harbin refuses: “We’re an organization. One thing I won’t allow is a
split in the organization” (page 355).
But
Harbin does suggest to Gladden that she take some time off and go to Atlantic
City. She wants him to go with her, and he refuses. Their separation sets off a
chain of events over which Harbin quickly loses control. On the phone while in
Atlantic City, Gladden tells Harbin that she will date other men if he
approves. He sees no reason why she shouldn’t. Later, in Chapter 11, Harbin
becomes aware that Gladden’s trip to Atlantic City represented a major turning
point in their lives. He uses the words the
pattern, but the word fate (a
common characteristic of noir) would work almost as well:
The pattern. And all these years, in modified ways,
his every move had followed within the pattern. It was always necessary to get
back to Gladden, to be with Gladden, to go with Gladden. It was more than habit
and it was deeper than inclination. It was something on the order of a
religion, or sublimating himself to a special drug. The root of everything was
this throbbing need to take care of Gladden.
A contradiction came into it. He
saw the contradiction coming in, beginning that night in the after-hour club
when he had suggested to Gladden that she go to Atlantic City and get herself a
bit of rest. The contradiction lengthened as he remembered Gladden’s asking him
to come with her and his saying no. It meant the pattern was beginning to fall
apart, making him susceptible to the formation of another pattern and another
drug and another religion or whatever in God’s name had happened to him as he
sat there in the restaurant and found himself being dragged across space by the
woman’s eyes. (pages 415–416)
While Gladden is in Atlantic City, Harbin meets Della,
and he cannot resist her seduction, which begins in the restaurant described at
the end of the quote above. After Della suggests that Harbin move into her
house in the Pennsylvania hills, Harbin tells Baylock and Dohmer that he is
leaving “the organization” for good. He is the one who set the events in motion
by insisting that Gladden go away to Atlantic City, but he blames Gladden for
the changes in their lives:
The liquid of her [Della’s] lips poured into his
veins. There was a bursting in his brain as everything went out of his brain
and Della came in, filling his brain so that his brain was crammed with Della.
For a single vicious moment he tried to break away from her and come back to
himself, and in that moment they were helping him, Dohmer and Baylock. They
were helping him as he tried to pull away. But Gladden wasn’t helping. Gladden
was nowhere around. Gladden ought to be here, helping. Gladden was letting him
down. If Gladden hadn’t gone away, this wouldn’t be happening. . . . (page 375)
Gladden’s
father Gerald taught Harbin a trade: burglary. He also taught Harbin why
burglary was as good a profession as any other:
. . .
According to Gerald, the basic and primary moves in life amounted to nothing
more than this business of taking, to take it and get away with it. A fish
stole the eggs of another fish. A bird robbed another bird’s nest. Among the
gorillas, the clever thief became the king of the tribe. Among men, Gerald
would say, the princes and kings and tycoons were the successful thieves,
either big strong thieves or suave soft-spoken thieves who moved in from the
rear. But thieves, Gerald would claim, all thieves, and more power to them if
they could get away with it. (page 416)
If “Wall
Street corporations and bankers” were substituted for “princes and kings and tycoons,”
Gerald’s description would apply today to some of the rhetoric during the 2016
presidential campaign. He also implies that taking (stealing, burgling) is part
of nature and is natural to humans, too, which is a cynical (and noir) take on
life.
Gerald
uses corruption as a way to justify his occupation of burglar. He talks about
infusing his work with honor, but it is still a cynical way to conduct his work
and his life (again perfect for noir):
Gerald would say that aside from all this, aside from
all the filthy dealing involved, the stink of deceit and lies and the lousy
taste of conniving and corruption, it was possible for a human being to live in
this world and be honorable within himself. To be honorable within oneself,
Gerald would say, was the only thing could give living a true importance, an
actual nobility. If a man decided to be a burglar and he became a burglar and
made his hauls with smoothness and finesse, with accuracy and artistic finish,
and got away with the haul, then he was, according to Gerald, an honorable man.
. . . (page 417)
Gladden
was a young girl when Gerald saved Harbin from starvation, and Harbin always
felt responsible for her welfare. His sense of responsibility grew stronger
after Gerald died and Gladden had only Harbin to count as family. This very
sense of honor, molded to defend a life of crime, is what brings Gladden and
Harbin down. The ending is bleak, but it fits the story and the way that the
characters, not just Harbin, justify what they do. And it fits because of the
way fate—what Harbin calls the pattern—changes in the story. Harbin makes a few
simple decisions and changes in his life, and he discovers that he can’t go
back to the past—and the pattern—he once knew.
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