In a Lonely Place (Book) (2017)

In a Lonely Place, by Dorothy B. Hughes

New York, NY: New York Review Books, 2017

Originally published in 1947

Afterword by Megan Abbott

List of main characters:

Dix Steele

Brub Nicolai

Sylvia Nicolai

Laurel Gray

This novel by Dorothy B. Hughes is a powerful story, one I plan to read again. The entire novel is told from the point of view of one character, Dix Steele, which helps explain why the list of main characters is so short. Almost everything that readers learn is told from Dix’s perspective. The point of view is thus rather claustrophobic, which is perfect for noir. It makes the story a bit uncomfortable for the reader because Dix Steele also happens to an unreliable narrator and a serial killer.

The opening paragraph places the novel firmly in the post–World War II era:

It was a good standing there on the promontory overlooking the evening sea, the fog lifting itself like gauzy veils to touch his face. There was something in it akin to flying; the sense of being lifted high above crawling earth, of being a part of the wildness of air. Something, too, of being closed within an unknown and strange world of mist and cloud and wind. He’d like flying at night; he’d missed it after the war had crashed to a finish and dribbled to an end. It wasn’t the same flying a little private crate. He’d tried it; it was like returning to the stone ax after precision tools. He had found nothing yet to take the place of flying wild. (page 5)

It also reveals Dix Steele’s love of risk taking, of flying at night specifically during the war.

On the next page, readers learn even more about Dix Steele and the dark nature of the story they are starting:

He didn’t follow her at once. Actually, he didn’t intend to follow her. It was entirely without volition that he found himself moving down the slant, winding walk. He didn’t walk hard, as she did, nor did he walk fast. Yet she heard him coming behind her. He knew she heard him for her heel struck an extra beat, as if she had half stumbled, and her steps went faster. He didn’t walk faster, he continued to saunter but he lengthened his stride, smiling slightly. She was afraid.

He could have caught up to her with ease but he didn’t It was too soon Better to hold back until he had passed the humped midsection of the walk, then to close in She’d give a little scream, perhaps only a gasp, when he came up beside her. And he would say softly, “Hello.” Only “Hello,” but she would be more afraid. (pages 6–7)

From the beginning, Dix Steele appears to be a man practiced in the art of stalking, and from the beginning, readers see the postwar world through his eyes. This perspective is uncomfortable for several reasons. Readers are never given a break from Dix’s thoughts and desires. He reveals a lot about himself and what he wants, but he doesn’t reveal a lot about any of his actions from the past. It is only when he interacts with others that readers get a sense of the novel’s world apart from Dix. In that space, readers are given hints about past events, but not all the facts.

(This blog post about the novel In a Lonely place contains spoilers.)

It also becomes clear that Dix Steele cannot be trusted. Even from the limited point of view of the narrative, readers know that Dix is not entirely forthcoming with people he professes to care about. He is hesitant about renewing his wartime friendship with Brub Nicolai. He would rather remain anonymous than allow Brub and his wife Sylvia to be able to keep tabs on him. He lies convincingly about his friend Mel Terriss, so convincingly that I was taken aback when I realized what had happened to Mel.

And then there is Laurel Gray, the woman Dix professes to love but whom he disparages anytime he thinks that she has left him for another man or for a better opportunity. Laurel disappears from the story about two-thirds of the way through. After my first reading of the novel, I assumed, from what Dix tells the reader, that she had moved. But one of the reasons that I want to read the novel again is because maybe Dix has killed her, too. Dix waits for her to return to her apartment in the complex where they both live, but instead he is confronted by Sylvia Nicolai:

“Where’s Laurel?” He demanded again, still softly but more sharply, “Where’s Laurel? What have you done with her?”

                Sylvia was caught there, backed against the step. She wanted to move away from him but she couldn’t; she was trapped. She found her voice. “Laurel’s all right,” she said gently.

                “Where is she?” He caught her shoulders. His hands tightened over them. He held her eyes. “Where is she?”

                “She—” Her voice failed. And then swiftly she moved. She twisted, catching him off guard, breaking through. Leaving the coat in his hands.

                He turned. She hadn’t run away. She hadn’t sense enough to run away. She was standing there, only a slight distance from him, there by the blue pool. Her breath was coming in little gusts. She spoke clearly, “She isn’t coming back, Dix. She’s safe. She’s going to stay safe.” (page 195)

What does Sylvia mean when she tells Dix that Laurel isn’t coming back, that she’s safe, that she is going to stay safe? Is she still alive? Has she been spirited away and given a police detail? Should readers interpret Sylvia’s words to mean that Laurel cannot be hurt anymore because she is already dead and therefore free of Dix forever? Has Dix killed Laurel? Is Dix such an unreliable narrator that he is the only one who believes Laurel could come back? Sylvia’s words can be interpreted either way, especially in a noir universe as noir as Dix’s universe, as noir as the story in In a Lonely Place.

Hughes tells a gripping story from a very narrow point of view. Because of that, readers believe that they know exactly what Dix is thinking, and for the most part they do. But Hughes still has some surprises in store. For example, I read the last line of the book before I reached the end of the story, and I really wish now that I hadn’t. I know: I’ve been told reading ahead is a bad habit, and most people are surprised when I tell them that I do it occasionally. It’s an exercise in story construction for me: I like to read the last line or paragraph of a novel and then see how the narrative leads readers to those final words. But in In a Lonely Place, the last sentence could be a huge surprise for some readers, so I’m suggesting that, if you read ahead like I do, this book by Hughes might be one to break the habit or to put it on hold. The story is absorbing either way, which is a testament to its fine construction and to Hughes’s literary talent.

The film version of In a Lonely Place stars Humphrey Bogart and Gloria Grahame. I have seen it a couple of times, and I recall that it is very different from the novel. Of course, I’ll have to see it again.

Crack-Up (1946)

September 6, 1946, release date

Directed by Irving Reis

Screenplay by John Paxton, Ben Bengal, Ray Spencer

Based on the short story “Madman’s Holiday” by Frederic Brown

Music by Leigh Harline

Edited by Frederic Knudtson

Cinematography by Robert De Grasse

Pat O’Brien as George Steele

Claire Trevor as Terry Cordell

Herbert Marshall as Traybin

Ray Collins as Dr. Lowell

Wallace Ford as Lieutenant Cochrane

Dean Harens as Reynolds

Damian O’Flynn as Stevenson

Erskine Sanford as Barton

Mary Ware as Mary

Distributed by RKO Radio Pictures, Inc.

Crack-Up is a film noir with almost every element of noir: flashbacks, amnesia, postwar intrigue, suspicious characters meeting under a streetlamp, characters who may or may not be trusted. The best part for me is that the story kept me guessing until the end (the intrigue and confusion work for me), so I am going to try my best not to give away any spoilers.

Crack-Up is in the public domain. Click here to watch it at the Internet Archive. The visual quality is best if you don’t watch the film full screen. It’s even better if you find a DVD version to buy or borrow.

The film opens with a train whistle. Then viewers see nighttime scenes of a train on the tracks, a close-up of a train passing by, a close-up of train wheels on a track, and so on, all behind the credits, which are on an upward slant. Then, after the credits, a train, with its headlight on, heads toward viewers, with people screaming on the soundtrack. (The shot on the big screen of 1946 movie theaters must have made quite an impression.) Then the film cuts to what at first looks like a passenger window breaking because someone is kicking it in, but it’s really a glass door that shatters. A man (George Steele) is breaking into the Manhattan Museum. He stumbles and falls just inside the doors. A police officer and another man help him up.

Right away, the film upsets viewers’ expectations. They know from the start that they cannot trust everything that they see.

George Steele interrupts a board meeting at the museum when he shatters the glass of its front doors. He insists to the police officer and all the board members that he was on a train and that he knew there was going to be a train wreck. When he woke up, he was at the museum. But there were no reports of a train wreck, per the officer interviewing Steele. Several people are present at the interview, and most of them are ready to doubt George Steele’s version of recent events.

Steele tells his story in flashback. It begins with him earlier in the day giving a lecture at the museum, one with a large audience. His lecture is interesting even for viewers today. He pokes fun at Salvador Dali, surrealism, and modern art in general. An audience member objects to Steele’s opinions, and the audience member is forced out of the museum, to the delight of other audience members.

The woman at the Manhattan Museum listening to Steele’s account is Terry Cordell. I couldn’t figure out who she was until the end of the film, and it’s not giving anything away to say that she is Steele’s girlfriend. For about half of the film, I couldn’t tell if she was his wife or just another museum employee. Either way, she is one of the characters that Steele and viewers begin to doubt. In fact, viewers can barely make sense of Steele’s account or figure out who are all the characters present in the museum to hear his story. It helps to see the film more than once. But part of the purpose of the narrative is to confuse everyone involved, including film viewers.

Another character listening to Steele’s account is Traybin. During World War II, Steele was a captain with the Allied Reparations Commission. He discovered serval forgeries in the Nazi collection, and Traybin recognizes him from his own work with the British group on the commission. After hearing Steele’s account, Traybin has a cryptic conversation with Lieutenant Cochrane, who is a police detective on hand to investigate. Viewers are left to wonder if perhaps Traybin and Cochrane are working to undermine Steele and his version of events, and why they would want to do so.

Traybin is played by Herbert Marshall. Click here for a review of the latest biography about him at the Classic Film Obsessions blog hosted by Jocelyn.

After telling his story and answering questions from the police, Steele is free to go. Terry Cordell accompanies him back to his office, which is ransacked. The mess seems to be yet another reason to think that someone is bent on getting something from Steele, and once again viewers are given more reason to doubt just about everything that they have seen so far.

The scene in Steele’s ransacked office is important for another reason. The title of the film is explained—quite clearly—for viewers. Steele tells Cordell, “See a lot of good guys crack up in this war [World War II]. Cool, composed cookies one day and the next, snap like a tight violin string. It’s the fear everybody had. You kept thinking, Might happen to me.”

Steele describes some symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, although it wasn’t called that in 1946. He isn’t sure what to think because he might suffer from the traumatic effects of military life, but he is not going to let his own doubts stop him from finding out what happened before he kicked in the glass door at the Manhattan Museum.

All the confusion makes Crack-Up more intriguing. The film did a good job of placing George Steele and viewers in almost the same predicament: knowing that something happened but not being sure what it was and the reasons behind it all. I wanted to know how the narrative was going to answer all my questions:

◊ Why did Steele break the front door of the museum?

◊ Was he really on a train at all?

◊ If he is a respected lecturer at the Manhattan Museum, why would he have to break into the museum?

◊ Why do some of the characters doubt his story?

◊ Why should any of the characters believe his story?

◊ Who can Steele trust when he decides he has to find for himself what happened before he arrived at the museum?

Following Steele on his investigative journey is a lot of fun, and I enjoyed the film immensely. And Steele has one of the best noir lines I’ve ever heard:

• Terry Cordell: “You can’t expect to dodge the police indefinitely, George. Wouldn’t it be smarter to go to Cochrane and get this thing out in the open?”

• George Steele: “About as smart as cutting my throat to get some fresh air.”