FFB Review: "THE BLANK WALL" (1947) by Elisabeth Sanxay Holding --- Reviewed by Barry Ergang

Friday means Friday’s Forgotten Books. Please welcome back Barry Ergang and make sure you check out the other reading possibilities here after you read the review below……

THE BLANK WALL (1947) by Elisabeth Sanxay Holding

Reviewed by Barry Ergang

Set during World War II, The Blank Wall is the story of Lucia Holley, whose husband Tom is serving in the Pacific, and who lives with her elderly father and two teenaged children: 17-year-old Beatrice (a.k.a. Bee) and 15-year-old David, both of whom sometimes seem older than their years but at other times very adolescent in their behavior. They are renting a home in Horton County, state unspecified. It would appear to be New York because several of them take the train into New York City for various reasons.

Bee has gotten involved with Ted Darby, a man twice her age with an unsavory past. Lucia's efforts to stop them from seeing one another seem futile. When Darby turns up dead in the boathouse on the rental property, Lucia is sure her father killed him and takes it upon herself to dispose of the body to protect him from the police and her children from scandal.

I spent two or three hours debating whether or not to reveal anything more about this psychological suspense novel (it's not a whodunit) whose theme is sacrifice, but after writing out a few more plot points, I wound up deleting them rather than spoil surprises for the reader—and there are a number of surprises as additional characters, some menacing, make their roles known. According to her son-in-law, who wrote a prefatory note to the Academy Chicago edition I read, Holding began her career writing literary fiction, but switched to the more lucrative mystery field after the 1929 stock market crash. With two daughters to support, she needed the greater income mystery-writing generated. Like Holding's equally excellent The Innocent Mrs. Duff, this is very much a character-driven novel, and the character delineation is superb: complex and multi-dimensional, resulting in a compelling page-turner I have no hesitation about recommending.

Barry Ergang ©2013

*****

The Blank Wall, in a back-to-back edition with The Innocent Mrs. Duff, is among the many books from his collection Derringer Award-winning author Barry Ergang has for sale at http://www.barryergangbooksforsale.yolasite.com/. He'll contribute 20% of the price of books to our fund, so please have a look. Check out his website at http://www.writetrack.yolasite.com/.