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Post by dem bones on Dec 18, 2008 13:21:43 GMT
Dave Carson - Woman Hater (Midwood/ Tower, 1960) Don't Be Rough
"Darling ....." she whispered.
"Yes?"
"You're ..... so rough."
That almost made me laugh. I'd done nothing to her, nothing of what I wanted to do. What I wanted was a scream in the darkness, the pain and shame of a girl. I had that too .... with one woman and another. I waited for them in the darkness and when I was finished I walked away and left them sobbing and hurt.
Woman Hater is an incredibly shocking novel of strange and twisted passions told by a master story teller."I've got to do it .... and not only for what you'd call enjoyment or satisfaction. There's more than that; what I do is necessary to me. The way breathing and eating and sleeping is necessary to you." We join the protagonist as he creeps from a house in Bardstown, a tiny village on the outskirts of New York. He's a bundle of nerves, having just murdered a college student and he's not happy about it. When a woman's dead she can no longer suffer which is why, up until now, he's stuck to rape. And there'll be cops this time, asking questions, determined to find the killer. He heads for the highway to hitch a ride to Manhattan and as luck would have it a woman stops for him, Willa Drels. She's around 28 or 30, a little mature and worldly wise for his tastes, and what's she doing driving at this time of night? She tells him "business appointment", but he knows: "She's been out with some man, doing dirty things with him." Good job he has his ropes and handkerchiefs in his pocket. He'll be needing them again pretty soon ... Chapter II, and if we weren't thinking Psycho before we are now as, via a flashback to the time when our giggling rapist was eight years old, we've just met his barmy, domineering, widowed mother. Mother always insisted he was special, just like his father, "better than your ordinary men, better and smarter - that's the way it's going to be". He's not feeling so smart now though, ma having just walked in on him pleasuring himself. She beats him and calls him "dirty" and gets him so terrified he decides to leave home. But as he sneaks past her room he hears strange noises from her room. He peeks inside ... and there's mother, naked, doing the dirty thing to a man. God, how he hates her! By Chapter III he's reached Manhattan and dumped the dead Willa Drels' car. He takes a room at Mabel Chrier's lodging house. At least the landlady should be safe from him: "By daylight, she was unbelievably ugly, and I wished when I saw her that I came at night." His room is the usual, drab, depressing affair but an incredible bonus awaits him in the shapely form of Elsa Talbot, the friendly neighbour. Young, innocent-looking but kinda sharp and definitely comfortable with herself, Elsa is working at a local restaurant between acting jobs and she appoints herself his official tour guide. In Elsa's company he feels totally disorientated as, not only is he enjoying himself for once but he thinks he genuinely likes her .... What can possibly go wrong in the remaining 100 pages of this ugly little book?
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Post by dem bones on Dec 23, 2008 9:19:55 GMT
Finished it now. Very Robert Bloch although that's no bad thing. Our man - we never get his real name but he tells everyone he's 'Ernest Thompson' - wangles a job in local gangster Eddie's seedy book emporium which accounts for much of the action (and the majority of the titillation) in the remainder of the novel. There's a concealed back room at Eddie's, favoured customers - including a self-loathing posh gal - get to use in times of "emergency". With the police dragnet closing in after his latest sexual assault (Police Captain O'Donnell's daughter!), 'Thompson' figures on holing up there with Elsa until the heat is off. But Eddie could use winning some Brownie points from the cops ....
Best bits are the rapist's claustrophobic nightmares and progressive realisation of whose 'fault' it is why he's so messed up, although we've guessed who's gonna cop the blame long before him, having already met Mrs. Bates' stuffed corpse as early as chapter III.
Midwood seems to have been the tentacle Tower Books used for its adult range and if you're at all interested, follow the Isaac Paul Rader link in the previous post where you'll find a neat cover gallery and details of the other titles. On the strength of Woman Hater, they're worth seeking out.
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