It is disconcerting to me when the events of a book appear differently to me than to others. Is it because I don't pay that much attention to the story and maybe fill in the blanks subconsciously? Is it that I don't have the reading comprehension that I think I do? Or, is it possible that my memory of the story is right and others are getting it wrong?
I just finished Another Time, Another Woman, and as is my wont, I looked for other references to the book on the internet. On the Glorious Trash blog in 2015, Joe Kenney gives a review and a complete rundown of the plot of this trashy novel. It is not my style to spoil the story, but it that's what you want, head on over to Kenney's blog.
There are several differences in the story I read from what Kenney describes. I'm not trying to remember the story from some time ago; I just read the book in the last 24 hours. So I feel that I must be right.
The story is told by Harry Quist, a 32-year-old jazz pianist who lived most of his life in Los Angeles. It starts three years after his wife, Mildred, divorced him and married an acquaintance, Emmett Gregg, M.D. Mildred makes a frantic call to Harry to come to her house, and when he arrives she shows him a dead man, Sidney Flake, in her guest house. Sidney had an ice pick in his ear and was beaten up before he died. Mildred is sure that her husband killed the man after Emmett caught her and Sidney together at the house.
Mildred is sure that Harry will help her cover up for Emmett, because she has something over Harry. Three years ago, the two were driving out to Emmett's house to stay for a while. It was 3:30 in the morning and while Harry was driving he lost control of the car. He hit a car, which went off into a ravine, and the couple and their 14-year-old daughter died in the crash. Mildred was 7 months pregnant and was thrown from the car. They got back into their car and finished the drive to Emmett's house, who used his clout at the hospital to get Mildred in and treated without leaving a record. She lost the baby, and Harry injured his hands, which took him from a talented jazz pianist to a passible one. Emmett and Mildred kept mum, the family was discovered, and the record showed that the man lost control of the vehicle, and that is what sent them down into the ravine.
Harry fled and for the next couple of year worked in the Northeast as best he could, but he liked the people and climate of Southern California, so he had been back in the area working at a bar for the last few months.
Mildred said that Emmett must have killed Sidney, and Harry had to help get Sidney in the clear or she would tell the police about the family that died in the car crash three years ago.
The rest of the story unfolds over the days after Sidney was killed. The police are involved from the start, because a witness had seen the body and reported it. There is a manhunt for Emmett, who conveniently runs into Harry a few times so they can hatch a plan. Sidney Flake was the husband of a rich, eccentric heiress who has gotten involved in a bizarre anti-Christian cult. Harry keeps skipping out on his fellow band members and their singer, Jessie Blake, putting their jobs with the bar owner in jeopardy. Other odd characters are involved, including a Columbo-esque police detective, Ed Combs, who keeps a monkey in his hat.
Combs, Emmett, Mildred, and the bar owner are all putting pressure on Harry, who is caught up in the drama and doesn't seem to help himself in any way. There are several twists in the story, and almost all the bad actors get what is coming to them.
I agree with Kenney that the writing is not so great, as evidenced by the quote above. There are no chapter breaks as we follow Harry ploddingly along. Written 1963, there are a lot of pop culture references from the time, and although I was around back then, I only understood about 60% of the references. Kaylin throws in a lot of slang, as if he is trying to make this novel more pulpy than it needs to be, and some of the slang hasn't aged well. The bar owner says that Jessie needs to "put out" to keep her job, but he simply means that she needs to be more provocatively sexy on stage, not that she has to have sex with the patrons. And I think Kaylin's references to the monkey were a little tongue-in-cheek when Combs kept putting this tiny monkey in his pocket and checking on it. Yes, his pocket monkey.
From Kenney I found out that Kaylin was a prolific story writer for men's magazines, but he only wrote two books. The page filling techniques the author used were clumsy, and several poems, stories, prayers, and chants padded the writing in this 128-page book, so it seemed as if Kaylin was trying to stretch a short story into a novella-length book to earn more money than a story would.
Also, the blurbs and images on the cover are like so many pulp fiction books at the time, making the impression that there is more sex than there really is. In fact, this is a crime novel, not a novel about the lascivious lifestyle of a woman on the make.
So, how do my understanding of the story and Kenney's differ? He writes,
"This is not an action-packed tale by any means. In fact there isn’t a single shootout, fistfight, chase, or even sex scene in the entire novel."
There are no shootouts, but there are guns and shootings, but off-stage. As for car chases, there aren't any, but Harry's car is almost as much of a character as some of the human characters and takes quite a beating. Harry also takes a beating, and two of the fistfights he is in are clearly described in the book. There are no real sex scenes, but the sexual tension between Harry and his ex-wife Mildred is pretty steamy, and I found the scene where Harry peeks down Jessie's pajama bottom titillating, but then I'm a lightweight.
Kenney says that Harry was sober when his car went out of control and hit the other car, but I could have sworn that I read that he had been drinking, and while I couldn't find the reference to be sure, his alcohol consumption in the book was excessive, so I have no doubt that he was drunk driving. The Glorious Trash blog also says that Harry was never remorseful for being the cause of the death of three people, but in Harry's own words,
"I'd flush my own remains down a pay toilet if
that would stop it from ever having happened."
Unlike Kenney, I enjoyed the book despite its faults. It was published in 1963 when my sister was born. The story was set in 1961 and Harry was 32-years-old, so he was the same age as my parents, so it was fun hearing about bars, music, and pop culture of the time. My mother got the only new car that she ever owned in 1962, and so I pictured the cars in the book to be similar.
I thought the plot was interesting even if it dragged a little. The characters were quirky when they weren't beating each other up or getting sloppy drunk. Kenney complained about Harry having not learned anything, but I thought his flawed personality to much more realistic than those characters that come out better in the end, because that doesn't happen in real life.
On the other hand, I have a different perspective and found the forcible kissing and objectification of women disturbing. Mildred had an environmentally caused sex addiction, and I was sad that at the time this would not have been recognized and treated. Emmett was also a pathological liar with low self esteem. I know that in the 1960s much of the behavior of this book was typical, and I know I experienced worse in the 1970s, but that is one reason to read trashy fiction like this: to remind ourselves about social problems that we need to recognize and continue to try to eliminate.
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