Friday
means Friday’s Forgotten Books hosted by Patti Abbott here. For this final
Friday of the month of May, Patrick Ohl of the comprehensive blog “At The Scene
Of The Crime” is back. Today he reviews The
Dream Walker by Charlotte Armstrong. Lots more books over at Patti’s blog so
make sure you check out the list after reading Patrick’s review.
The
Dream Walker is about a young woman named
Olivia Hudson, a teacher at a fashionable girls’ school, aged 34. She is
narrating her story into a tape recorder as a break from looking at a
Portugal-shaped crack in her ceiling. And the tale she tells is a fantastic
one: it is the story of a plot to bring down a well-regarded man. But how do
you do that? According to Armstrong, you need a crazy plan, one so insane that
even when it is exposed it is hard to believe that someone would go to all that
trouble to fool people. Such a plot apparently took place.
The target of this plot was John Paul
Marcus, a highly respected man whose advice led to Raymond Pankerman’s illegal
activities being discovered. Now, Pankerman desires revenge, and right on cue
he met Kent Shaw, who devised a brilliant and completely mad plan to bring
about Marcus’ downfall. Four people were in on the plot, and Ollie tells us all
about it. For although the truth is now known, the damage to Marcus’ reputation
has been done, and this is Ollie’s attempt to undo it. But it’s hard work:
“Respect is a kind of Humpty Dumpty. All the King’s horses can’t put it all the
way up, again.”
The story of The Dream Walker is a fascinating one. Charlotte Armstrong shows
some plotting brilliance. From the very first chapter, you know who is in on
the plot. The plot involves an apparently-supernatural element, as a young
woman claims to walk around in places thousands of miles away in her dreams, and it really happens. Very few
variations on this impossible trick are possible, and Armstrong wisely decides
to give you the full story from the get-go. The fascination with The Dream Walker lies in how the plan is
slowly executed: the noose around Marcus’ neck slowly tightens, and I spent the
first part of the novel practically cheering on the conspiracy, eagerly waiting
to see how they would solve their difficulties. But after a certain point in
the novel, my allegiance was switched over to the other side, as I eagerly read
on to see how the plot could be defeated.
In The
Virtue of Suspense, a biography of Charlotte Armstrong by Rick Cypert, it
is observed that the novel was one of Armstrong’s responses to Joseph McCarthy’s
Communist witch-hunt. Armstrong observes that nothing is proved against
Marcus—indeed, it never could be proved because Marcus is innocent of any
wrongdoing. But all it takes is the seed of doubt for a man’s reputation to be
blown apart. A life’s work is destroyed in a matter of minutes, and the public
relishes the destruction of an idol, but doesn’t care much for its restoration.
At one point, Ollie tells the reader:
Please, if I am making this clear at
all, please do read the fine print and the follow-up and all the hard, dry
parts in the news. Don’t let your mind jump on to the next sensational
headline. Oh, it’s more fun to float along, enjoying the high spots. The new
murder. The latest scandal. Today’s clash. But afterwards, people have to live.
And if all you remember is a vague impression of some nasty mess, and the thing
that remains is only your notion that this person once fell away from the clear
and unquestioned way—and to know what truly did happen is a task too dry, too
hard—ah, please. It isn’t fair.
I found this the most powerful message
of the book, possibly due to the fact that I myself have had a personal
experience along these lines—though of course nothing as fantastical as
Armstrong’s tale. She conveys it so well that I don’t know where to start
describing her brilliance. Maybe I shouldn’t even try—this is something you
just have to experience for yourself.
The plot moves smoothly along and is a
terrific novel of suspense, quite possibly the finest I’ve read all year long.
In particular the final act is brilliant, as everything falls
apart. Mistakes occur left and right, throwing off the conspirators’ plans, and
after several misunderstandings the climax of the novel is an extremely
suspenseful and chilling confrontation.
The
Dream Walker was enthusiastically received by
critics like James Sandoe (The New York
Herald Tribune) and Anthony Boucher (The
New York Times). Sandoe is quoted as having called it “a most uncommon
thriller, quite the best Mrs. Armstrong has given us since the shattering
‘Mischief.’” I’m genuinely embarrassed that I hadn’t gotten around to Charlotte
Armstrong sooner in my reading career. I had Armstrong vaguely pegged as a
writer in the Had-I-But-Known school of Mary Roberts Rinehart. But I ask you,
can you seriously blame me for this
mistake when one of Armstrong’s books is entitled The Chocolate Cobweb?
Charlotte Armstrong has proven once
again that she could write. In my
previous read, The Case of the Weird Sisters,
Armstrong came up with a unique impossible crime and infused it with an eerie,
surreal atmosphere that fuelled my interest right up until the end. The Dream Walker contains another
impossible crime, but one to which you know the solution from the start. It is
a terrific novel of suspense and an excellent novel overall. It’s an excellent rebuttal to McCarthyism and a
fascinating look at how mere doubt can poison a man’s reputation beyond repair.
The Dream Walker is a wonderful novel
that has unequivocally placed Charlotte Armstrong among my favourite female
writers, right up there with the likes of Margaret Millar and Agatha Christie.
If you’ve never encountered Armstrong before, this makes for one hell of an introduction.
Patrick Ohl ©2014
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