Disquieting is not a word likely to turn up in blurbs. But it’s an appropriate one to describe Memory, in all probability the final novel from Donald E. Westlake and the first book I’ve read in eons that literally haunted my dreams.
The story behind Memory is fascinating; Westlake wrote it in the early 1960s but because it was, in the words of his friend Lawrence Block, “a lengthy serious existential novel by an unknown writer,” it failed to find a publisher. Block, one of the only people to have read the manuscript, recalled it in the wake of Westlake’s death in December 2008 and brought it to the attention of Hard Case Crime. Its appearance in print only burnishes Westlake’s reputation.
Actor Paul Cole is on the road with a play and sleeping with another man’s wife when the other man attacks him. As a result, Cole’s memory is damaged. His mind becomes a sieve, with bits and pieces of his self catching briefly before sluicing through.
Westlake’s crisply efficient writing is in evidence. X-rays of Cole’s skull are “photographs of the city in which he used to live and at the gates of which he was now camped.” Even more effective is the book’s demonically circular structure. Cole learns things only to forget them. Each toehold he finds on the long slope down only makes the next fall that much more painful. Westlake blindsides you at the start of one chapter with the blunt revelation that Cole has lost a critical item. As I read Cole’s emotions became my own: panic, despair, fatalistic acceptance.
Far more disturbing is what Memory suggests about life. Are we the sum of our experiences – or simply the product of our routines? The advice Cole receives from one man about the cumulative effect of one’s decisions has the feel of a secret never meant to be uttered.
Few novels conjure up such a state of pervasive dread, or bring a character to a place where he seems so hopelessly doomed. All without a shot being fired, without anyone being killed. This is the noir nightmare, plain and simple. I read it in a white heat for two reasons: to find out what happened next, and to put myself out of my misery.
For the record, that was intended as an endorsement.
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7 comments:
I found this so disturbing I put it aside until I was in a happier state of mind. The fragility of the lives we lead really becomes clear.
I'm a third of the way through and enjoying it thoroughly (I guess I am a far darker person than either you or Patti). It seems Westlake had his Jim Thompson down pat long before he wrote the screen adaptation of The Grifter.
Jerry House
It is an amazing novel, and as you say, it only adds to Westlake's reputation. Damn, I miss him so much.
It can't be his last novel, he wrote too damn much for this to be the only thing laying around.
Have my copy right here. Can't wait to read it. Thanks for the endorsement, not that it was needed.
Hard Case have prudently put this baby back on the racks and when I first saw it in my local book racketeers window one night I felt like doing a 'brick and run'. I didn't luckily, because he knew I would have done it.
I've read it before, but had to read it once more because it was one of Westlake's finest, so I went in the next day, pulled out some cash, slapped it down on his oak desk and said 'Westlake'. Transaction over.
A disturbing read that cements in my mind the brilliance of this man and the suite of writing styles he could pull off.
Well noticed. You now have a follower.
i agree Westlake's book is disturbing -- but in a good way. if Memory is in fact the last new Westlake, it's a hell of a way to go out.
i'm with Naomi up there when she says "Damn, I miss him so much."
i know exactly how she feels.
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