pure writing excellence: Dread Journey, by Dorothy Hughes

9781613161463

Penzler Publishers/American Mystery Classics, 2019

187 pp 

paperback

Every once in a while (with mega-apologies for the cliché about to be used), I run into a novel that not only knocks my socks off storywise  but also leaves me confident that for the duration of my reading I am in the hands of a master of the craft.   Dread Journey is one of those, and I have to wholeheartedly agree with Anthony Boucher who said of this book (to quote one of the editorial reviews on Amazon)  that it is "Not to be missed under any circumstances."

 Dread Journey is certainly not your average mystery story.  I had an inkling that such was the case on reading the first words of the novel:

"I'm afraid." 

The woman who spoke those words hadn't meant to say them out loud, and it isn't too long before we find out a bit more of what's behind her reasoning:

"It wasn't a tremble of fear. It was a dark hood hanging over her head. She was meant to die. That was why she was on the Chief speeding eastward. This was her bier."

Movie actress Katherina (Kitten) Agnew realizes that it doesn't have to be this way, since she has another option open to her.  She could go to the director of the film she is scheduled to star in (also on the train) and "release him of all obligation," and "from the verdict of death."  Vivien Spender would then be free to star his "newest discovery," young Gratia Shawn, as Clavdia Chauchat in his planned movie production of Mann's The Magic Mountain, the role which he had had in mind for Kitten when he'd first discovered her.   The thing is though, that Kitten won't back down.  Knowing what had happened to those who had come before her, the "innumerable Clavdias," encompassing

"The one in a home for alcoholics. The one picked up soliciting. The one who jumped from a window while Viv was in Florida with the new. And the others, returned to the drabness from which they had once hopefully emerged, walled behind counters, playing walk-ons"

she had hired an attorney to draw up an "unbreakable contract for the role."  But Spender wants Gratia, and Kitten knows from past experience with the man that he usually gets what he wants.  Hence the "Dread Journey," and the suspense begins from Kitten's not-meant-to-be-spoken-out-loud comment and is maintained throughout the story to the point where the book becomes absolutely unputdownable.  

Had this been the sum total of the novel, it still would have been good, but Hughes puts her characters under serious scrutiny here.   As Sarah Weinman notes in her excellent introduction, the author's use of "omniscient viewpoints," allows the reader to examine

"the characters' inner sancta and excavates their fears, their desires, their jealousies, their dreams with the most exacting literary scalpel."

Along with the building suspense, it is Hughes' ability to get her readers directly inside of her characters' heads that elevates Dread Journey well beyond just another crime/mystery/suspense novel, pushing it well into the literary zone, as she has done with the other books of hers I've read. 

 1947 Pocket Books edition, from Goodreads

As just one of the many characters populating this novel, it is the porter James Cobbett who is the most interesting of them all.    He is a man who "had pride in himself," someone who "didn't consider a man equal to him unless he were equal in dignity and pride."  Given that he is African-American, it's to Hughes' credit that she didn't stoop to the racist stereotypes of her time or those which came before.   Cobbett is a sort of outsider, detached from the action of Kitten, Spender, and the other members of this drama; at the same time after  years of doing this job, he has an incredible understanding of human nature.  He sees himself as "responsible for this car and its tenants," and knew instinctively when "something was wrong."    In one absolutely perfect run of prose that lasts for nearly five pages in Chapter Six, it is through Corbett's observations that we see what's happening as he watches his group of passengers while suffering under an unshakeable "weight of depression," and it is not too far off the mark here to say that when "Something cold touched the root of his spine" as he sat watching,  something cold also touched the root of my own spine.  It is a most chilling five pages that I will  never forget.

I love Hughes' books,  and this one is no exception.   It is all about the writing and her ability to direct us immediately into the minds of her characters here, and on top of all that I've mentioned so far in this post, she has an underlying story about the abuses of power and a look at how things really worked in the Hollywood of her time, which is not at all pretty.  It is also a window on the times, with characters down on their luck and affected by the war.  There is so much happening in this little book that keeps it from being just another crime story, and  I'm delighted that Penzler Publishers has released this new edition of Dread Journey.  Despite the fact that Hughes' books are great, she is still widely unknown, so hopefully people will pick up a copy and discover her writing genius for themselves.    I'd recommend it to Hughes readers who perhaps haven't made their way to this novel or readers who, like me, prefer the more literary side to their reading across genres.

I LOVED this book -- it is pure writing excellence and pure reading pleasure.  I can't ask for more. 

The Inugami Clan, by Seishi Yokomizo

9784925080767
ICG Muse, 2003
originally serialized 1951-1952
translated by Yomiko Yamazaki
327 pp

paperback

"...we hear good tidings...

Having finished Yokomizo's The Honjin Murders, I moved right away into his The Inugami Clan -- a) it's the only other novel in this series to have been translated into English and b) I've had this edition sitting on my shelf forever so it was readily accessible.  Pushkin-Vertigo will be releasing another translated edition of this book called The Inugami Curse, available from the UK in February and here in the US in August of this year. 

Yokomizo opens his story with a scene that will be familiar to many readers of crime and mystery stories:  in a "labyrinthine" house on the shore of Lake Nasu, an elderly man is in his death bed surrounded by his relatives all waiting for the end.   The man is "the so-called Silk King of Japan" and family patriarch, Sahei Inugami, and while everyone "sat silently, listening to the old man's breathing,"  it doesn't take long before it becomes obvious that they're not actually there out of grief.  It seems that no one in the family has a clue about Sahei's "intentions" toward his "enormous fortune;" and as he moves toward his end,  the impatience  of the the eldest daughter, "unable to restrain herself,"  leads her to ask him bluntly about his "last wishes."  The family attorney, also in attendance, announces that he is in possession of Sahei's will, explaining that its contents cannot be made known until Sahei's grandson Kiyo returns home.  After the war, he was last known to be in Burma, but no one has seen him in some time.    If that fails to happen,  the attorney is authorized to read the will on the one-year anniversary of Sahei's passing.  As the head of the Inugami family silently slips away to his final moment of life, the narrator, looking back,  reveals that it was his death  that "set in motion the blood-soaked series of events that later befell the Inugami Clan."

 Some months later, Detective Kosuke Kindaichi arrives in Nasu, summoned by a mysterious letter penned by one of the family attorneys who writes of his fears of "events soaked in blood," and "One family member after another falling victim..."    Kindaichi's arrival coincides with the news that the missing Kiyo Inugami has finally been located and will be returning home,  allowing for the reading of Sahei's will upon his arrival.   The unexpected and explosive contents of this will, as the back-cover blurb notes, will trigger

"a chain of gruesome and bizarre murders as the members of the Inugami family are pit against each other in a desperate contest for his fortune." 

At this point, anyone thinking "been there, read that" is sadly mistaken.  While greed is often the underlying motive of many a mystery story,  Yokomizo cleverly adds to the mix long-buried family secrets, gruesome murders that leave even the most experienced policemen baffled and shaking their heads, a certain measure of sleight-of-hand, a unique crime pattern, several grotesque elements that would be perfectly at home in many a Gothic novel, and an unmistakable  pulpy vibe underneath it all.   While there are a number of plot elements that are certainly familiar to regular readers of mystery or crime fiction in this book, it's important to consider that much of what happens here, as in The Honjin Murders, is rooted in the time and postwar cultural vibe surrounding these events.    As an aside, Sari Kawana's Murder Most Modern: Detective Fiction and Japanese Culture is a great resource for regular readers of Japanese mystery novels; it's very helpful, and one I'd recommend for readers wanting more out of these books than simply story.

1976 movie poster from MyDramaList

My issues with this novel were not so much with plot (which I thought was very nicely concocted), but with Yokomizo's penchant for leaning toward the melodramatic and downright cheesy in his word choice/writing style, and then there are his descriptions of certain characters that became repetitive over time to the point where they tended to grate on my inner ear.   All the same, I had great fun with this novel and ended up liking it very much, despite the fact that it was not too difficult to figure out the who behind it all.   While that's an issue in my crime reading most of the time, it bothered me less with this book because it's not just the identity of villain that matters,  since there is so much more going on here. Parts of the plot are seriously demented and even horrific, making it much darker than many Japanese mystery novels I've read, taking it out of the realm of Agatha Christie  (where so many readers have placed it) and into much darker territory, where as a mystery reader I feel most at home. 


I would certainly recommend The Inugami Clan to readers who have some familiarity with older Japanese crime novels.  They're sort of in a class unto themselves and take some getting used to, but I genuinely appreciate these old books and I'm happy to see them being published again. 

ps/ my copy of the 1976 film will be here shortly -- I can't wait to watch it!!

2020: it's all about cleaning out my shelves

The photo above is a messy bookshelf in one room of my house.  See all those books on their sides, and mass-market mystery paperbacks carelessly tossed into baskets?  Notice that there is no room to wedge in even one more book anywhere?  It's become very frustrating, and in an effort to clear this mess up, here and in all of the other shelves in my house which look much the same, my goal this reading year is to focus on books I've owned forever that have never been read.   I don't know how long my willpower is going to last before I buy more books, but I at least have to try.  So this year it's all about the crime novels and mysteries that already live on my shelves (with some new ones I'd preordered earlier).    I don't even know what I have, to be honest, so I'll more than likely surprise myself.