A favorite anthology of
mine, featuring vintage hardboiled crime stories, is American Pulp; edited by Ed Gorman, Bill Pronzini and Martin H.
Greenberg, and published by Carroll & Graf in 1997. There are 35 stories between
its covers, from writers like Donald Westlake, Fredric Brown, Mickey Spillane,
John Jakes, Ed McBain, James Reasoner, David Goodis, Lawrence Block—and, and,
and…
One of the stories, and a
damn good one, is John D. MacDonald’s “In a Small Motel”, which originally
appeared in the July 1956 issue of Justice.
Ginny Mallory is a widow.
She owns a small motor-in motel on a major highway in South Georgia. The summer
heat is still strong in the waning days of October, and she is tired from a
long summer season. The story opens with Ginny fighting an uncooperative rollaway
bed. The guests are not cordial and treat her less like an equal and more like
the hired help.
As the evening progresses
Ginny’s motel begins to fill-up and we are introduced to the four secondary
players in the story—Ginny’s dead husband Scott, a full-time motel resident
named Johnny Benton, a strange motel guest who insists on parking his car
behind the motel, and a would-be suitor named Don Ferris.
The story revolves around
Ginny—a single and lonely woman trying to operate a business in 1950s America.
Ferris wants to marry Ginny, but he admits it is not entirely because he loves
her; Benton is a friend, but he seemingly has a dark underside that may
surprise both Ginny and the reader; a guest that is the catalyst for a long and
frightening night; and a dead husband whose long shadow is cast across Ginny’s
life like a long heavy rain.
“In a Small Motel” is an
accomplished and full-bodied story—the characters each have their own subtle
and convincing motives. The setting is brilliantly realized. The climate is
described with short visual blasts:
“Thick
October heat lay heavily over South Georgia. Though she walked briskly, she
felt as if all the heat of the long summer just past had turned the marrow of
her bones to soft stubborn lead.”
And Ginny is perfectly
cast as a strong and resilient woman in a quandary—she doesn’t know whether to
go forward or back. The memory of her husband is a prison. A prison she does
not want to escape, and the motel is its literal translation.
“In a Small Motel” is a
character study cast within the confines of a rich and textured crime story.
The characters—the way they act, talk, and shift from one desire and fear to
another—control the story and plot. It is also a tightly woven story that
MacDonald never loses control of; everything is in place and works perfectly on
the reader. The suspense is pure and it ratchets tighter and tighter as the
story plays out.
There are more than a few
surprises and the writing is so fresh and alive—even after 63 years—that the
reader can nearly smell the autumn Georgia air, the car exhaust, hear the
highway noise, and feel the empty and hard fear escalating from a nervous
vibration to a deep and harrowing roar.
Ben, I have read a couple of JDM novels including, of course, CAPE FEAR. His plotting and writing kind of sent a chill down my spine. I will seek out a paper/ebook edition of AMERICAN PULP; it has many authors I have still not read.
ReplyDeleteThat's one I have, and have read, long ago. Now I need to figure out which box it's in... Thanks for this review, and the jog to the memory!
ReplyDeleteJuly 1953 issue of JUSTICE, as I've found. It's a great anthology...considering the editors, no surprise.
ReplyDeleteHave this one too. Excellent pulp collection. Ed picked some great stories for this one!
ReplyDelete