"One-Way Ticket To Death"
Dread Journey is a dark and intense novel, I don't think I've read anything like it. On the surface it's about a transAmerican train journey, old friends and rivals, and the tensions between them. The writing however is terrific, each line filled with emotion like nails on a chalkboard. I love Noir film, and this was a tour de force by Dorothy B. Hughes.
Her most famous title is In A Lonely Place, made into a great 1947 Nicholas Ray film starring Humphrey Bogart and Gloria Grahame. Bogart plays a washed up screenwriter with an explosive temper who may have killed a hatcheck girl; an unusual portrait of the psychological effects war has on a man.
Dread Journey is about Katherina 'Kitten' Agnew, an ascending actress reaching the top of the ladder and her deadly fear of the producer who made her a star. Vivian Spender is the high powered head of the studio who will produce his dream project, the film Clavdia Chauchat. His first wife was also built up as a star, only to die under mysterious circumstances when Kitten was discovered. Now, Kitten fears the same fate as an innocent new starlet Gratia Shawn, is not only along for the journey, but sharing her compartment. As Mr. Spender has the name Vivian, his long time secretary is Mike Dana. She has suffered in love and silence for many years and willing to overlook his controlling nature. On board, they meet old friends - fey Leslie Augustin, who knows he is no more than a prostitute, bitter newsman Hank Cavanagh, and a disgruntled screenwriter recently fired by Vivian. Overseeing it all from his station in the car is James Cobbett, veteran Pullman attendant.
I love anything where they are trapped on a plane or train, and the writing in this is terrific. Each chapter begins from a different perspective, and slightly back in time. Moving forward and back this way throughout, it takes a page to realize who is speaking and what point in the action they are.
As Kitten's paranoia and the others protection of her increases, it seems both impossible and yet inevitable that Vivian will naturally do away with Kitten before arrival. His eyes are on poor Gratia for the new film, and Kitten's contract cannot be broken.
It seems a simple story, but each sentence is dripping with tension as they are trapped together. Old histories rise to the surface as they spit their resentments at each other. They can feel doom breathing over their shoulder (I could as well, and I wasn't even on board!). When the murders do happen they express more resignation than shock.
The writing, the writing, I was glued to the page. The closest thing I have read to this in style would be classic Jim Thompson, possibly Raymond Chandler. The NY Times says "the clash of personalities, the tension and terror are such that few will be able to lay the book down unfinished". If you want to read a Noir novel, this is it.
Dorothy B. Hughes has been rediscovered lately as one of the finest women writers of the time, along with Vera Caspary and Olive Higgins Prouty. She has won the Edgar Award and received the Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Award. Dread Journey is a terrific novel, one of the top for me, and I highly recommend it.
1945 / Paperback / 184 pages
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