Leigh Brackett, The Tiger Among Us
Sep. 29th, 2012 11:42 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
randy_byersI prefer Leigh Brackett's science fiction to her crime fiction, but she was no slouch at the latter and wrote quite a bit of it. Most famously, of course, she worked on the screenplay for The Big Sleep (1946), along with William Faulkner and Jules Furthman. The Tiger Among Us, published in 1957, was her fourth novel in the genre. (In my previous bout of Brackett, I wrote about the third, An Eye for an Eye.)
The Tiger Among Us is concerned with juvenile delinquency, which I believe was all the rage in 1957. It's the first person story of Walter Sherris -- an ordinary man who is attacked for no reason by a group of middle class boys led by a handscome psycho named Chuck. The cops are hamstrung in their ability to do anything about the assault, so Walter starts investigating on his own initiative.
This has been described as an early vigilante novel, but it really doesn't feel like one, especially in contrast to something like The Big Heat (novel in 1952, film in 1953). Walter is angry about what happened to him, but he's not obsessive. He's not out of control. His anger and desire for revenge runs hot and cold. One of the strange tangents of the novel is his wife's reaction to the crime, which is a much a test of her as it is of him. Walter also works pretty closely with the over-worked cop, Koleski. He buys a gun, but Brackett is realistic in her assessment of how difficult it is for the average person to kill cold-bloodedly.
The resolution of the story is fairly conventional, but it travels some interesting territory to get there. The suburban life of Walter and his wife is held up as normal and admirable, but whether consciously or not (she wrote some critical stories about suburban life in her science fiction), Brackett portrays it as a somewhat empty, sterile affair that is specifically something the delinquent boys are trying to escape. Brackett also takes Walter into the underbelly of the small Midwestern town where the story is set, delving delicately into the racism and poverty to be found there. Even with the conventional ending and accompanying moral lecture, there's a bracing (and sympathetic) depiction of middle class money at work to salvage the reputation of the criminal boys, and Walter is left with "a curious feeling of defeat" that feels curiously satisfying.
The novel was filmed in 1962 as 13 West Street, with Alan Ladd as Walter and Rod Steiger as Koleski, but it doesn't seem to have much of a reputation. I'd love to see it.
I've now read all but three of Brackett's novels -- the three rarest: Stranger at Home (a 1946 crime novel ghost-written for, of all people, the actor George Sanders); Rio Bravo (the novelization of the 1959 Western directed by Howard Hawks); and Silent Partner (her fifth and final crime novel, published in 1969 and never reprinted). The completist in my thinks I should track those down. We'll see how dedicated I actually am.
The Tiger Among Us is concerned with juvenile delinquency, which I believe was all the rage in 1957. It's the first person story of Walter Sherris -- an ordinary man who is attacked for no reason by a group of middle class boys led by a handscome psycho named Chuck. The cops are hamstrung in their ability to do anything about the assault, so Walter starts investigating on his own initiative.
This has been described as an early vigilante novel, but it really doesn't feel like one, especially in contrast to something like The Big Heat (novel in 1952, film in 1953). Walter is angry about what happened to him, but he's not obsessive. He's not out of control. His anger and desire for revenge runs hot and cold. One of the strange tangents of the novel is his wife's reaction to the crime, which is a much a test of her as it is of him. Walter also works pretty closely with the over-worked cop, Koleski. He buys a gun, but Brackett is realistic in her assessment of how difficult it is for the average person to kill cold-bloodedly.
The resolution of the story is fairly conventional, but it travels some interesting territory to get there. The suburban life of Walter and his wife is held up as normal and admirable, but whether consciously or not (she wrote some critical stories about suburban life in her science fiction), Brackett portrays it as a somewhat empty, sterile affair that is specifically something the delinquent boys are trying to escape. Brackett also takes Walter into the underbelly of the small Midwestern town where the story is set, delving delicately into the racism and poverty to be found there. Even with the conventional ending and accompanying moral lecture, there's a bracing (and sympathetic) depiction of middle class money at work to salvage the reputation of the criminal boys, and Walter is left with "a curious feeling of defeat" that feels curiously satisfying.
The novel was filmed in 1962 as 13 West Street, with Alan Ladd as Walter and Rod Steiger as Koleski, but it doesn't seem to have much of a reputation. I'd love to see it.
I've now read all but three of Brackett's novels -- the three rarest: Stranger at Home (a 1946 crime novel ghost-written for, of all people, the actor George Sanders); Rio Bravo (the novelization of the 1959 Western directed by Howard Hawks); and Silent Partner (her fifth and final crime novel, published in 1969 and never reprinted). The completist in my thinks I should track those down. We'll see how dedicated I actually am.
