Mike, I've enjoyed your review of Gerald Kersh's PRELUDE TO A
CERTAIN MIDNIGHT and the broader look at Kersh's career. You
credit Paul Duncan's web site for much of the Kersh
background. Duncan was a participant of this list but must
have dropped off or he would have commented by now. He
certainly knows more about Kersh than anyone I know.
Before I go further, I heartily recommend Duncan's brief
UK-published NOIR FICTION, DARK HIGHWAYS (Pocket Essentials
2000) as it contains brief but sharp takes on many writers
now under discussion on this list including Kersh, John
Franklin Bardin, James Ellroy, Nathaniel West as well as
Cain, Goodis, Willeford, and a host of others.
Now back to Kersh. It has been more than a quarter of a
century since I read PRELUDE and my memory is hazy but
***(Caution for Spoiler)*** I didn't have the foggiest notion
of who the murderer was when I finished. But I loved the
book. One other friend read it and hated it for that very
reason. She needed closure. In NOIR FICTION Duncan notes that
the only "winner" of the book was the murderer. Love it or
hate it.
***(Conclude spoiler warning section)***
As to the ascertain that Kersh's career was damaged by the
novel THE GREAT WASH, I doubt it. The novel was IMO a failure
but I enjoyed it as I am a sucker for what Ted White first
termed "paranoid science fiction." A recent televison example
would be "The X-files." In the US, Kersh's novel was
published by Ballentine as THE SECRET MASTERS, and was about
the fifth SF novel published by Ballentine. I say that even
though looking at my copy, it was labeled "A brilliant
suspense novel." A shorter version was also published by the
Saturday Evening Post, a big money outfit that loved Kersh
for years after this novel.
The fact is that THE SECRET MASTERS was not very good but
then neither were the novels THE SONG OF THE FLEA (1948) and
THE THOUSAND DEATHS OF MR. SMALL
(1950). Kersh hit the skids financially and otherwise because
of a wife problem later in the 50s. He considered his best
novel to be FOWLER'S END
(1957).
Forgetting his attempts at literature (which were successful
now and then), I love his storytelling ability and I think
that is best demonstrated in his shorter work. Look for the
relatively common collections ON AN ODD NOTE
(Ballantine 1958), MEN WITHOUT BONES (Paperback Library
1962), and the Harlan Ellison edited NIGHTMARES &
DAMNATIONS (Fawcett Gold Medal 1968). Many of the stories
within these books fit within the crime field, often noir and
often with the same odd touch that Roald Dahl managed in his
stories. I especially recommend the short novel "Clock
Without Hands" that you will find in MEN WITHOUT BONES.
Kersh is one of those writers who I would have loved to have
spent a few evenings with at some congenial bar. By all
accounts, he was a larger than life figure and a cane in one
hand and a drink in the other, he could hold court like few
others.
Richard Moore
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