My Face For The World To See is a novel of Hollywood, and a masterful study of characters stripped of artifice.
It is reminiscent of The Day Of The Locust by Nathanael West, the classic novel of the obverse of fame, of those drawn to the glare of the kleiglights, without talent or connections, flailing in the dark.
"It was a party that had lasted too long; and tired of the voices, a little too animated, and the liquor, a little too available, and thinking it would be nice to be alone, thinking I'd escape, for a brief interval, those smiles which pinned you against the piano or those questions which trapped you wriggling in a chair, I went out to look at the ocean.
There it was, exactly as advertised."
At a beach house party of not entirely strangers and not exactly friends, he looks down over the balcony, as she wanders out with a yacht hat and cocktail in her hand, directly into the ocean. You might think you've seen her before somewhere, at the beach club if you were a member and had a cabana, along with three of four other girls invited to sit at bar stools, whose legs were equally long and whose hair curled at the shoulders just so.
Panicked she has gone too far, he runs into the ocean and drags her to shore, where she is bundled into the house. Later, they both pretend she hadn't been serious about it, it was just an awkward mishap.
He is a screenwriter for the studios, while his wife stays in New York. At first these were work trips, but finds he likes being away from his wife, and the money is good.
She has plans for stardom, with a complex view of fame. She has been chosen, and understands the starvation and indignities she is suffering is the intention of the men in power, shutting her out until the moment she passes the test and is awarded the fame, the mansion, the money. This is how stars are selected.
For now, there are limited possibilities for a pretty girl, in a borrowed apartment, with a kitchen of dirty dishes and empty gin bottles. She hasn't any money.
He has a marriage he no longer understands, and her analyst has told her to stop dating married men - not that she is honest with Dr. Ritter. He is reminded he is quite lonely too, and they begin dating. That is, until his interest wanes and his wife visits from New York.
There a feeling that you never really know anyone in this town, an invisible wall prevents it. And there is the inexhaustible passion for being famous if you weren't already famous, or more famous if you already are, of becoming wealthy, or wealthier.
Things move slowly in one direction, as what was once intolerable becomes tolerable, the every day failures always present, a chosen smile fixed upon her face.
Hayes has imbued this with an intensity, the two main characters standing in for an unseen Hollywood, two people coming alive who don't even have names.
Books about the hopes and frailty of the unsuccessful are always of interest, and this reminded me of They Shoot Horses, Don't They? by Horace McCloy, featuring another couple unsuccessfully craving the spotlight.
I found this engrossing Noir novella a classic gem. It has been republished by New York Review of Books, like the man and the woman, waiting to be rediscovered.
You might like these reviews:
The Day Of The Locust by Nathanael West
They Shoot Horses, Don't They? by Horace McCloy
1958 / Tradeback / 131 pages
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