"The eerie novel of a beautiful call girl and her deadly secret."
The Pyx was the debut novel by Montreal author John Buell. Three of his five novels were made into films, including this starring Karen Black and Christopher Plummer in 1973. Not having seen it, I gather that it focuses the ending, making clear what the novel eludes to.
Elizabeth Lucy is seen falling from a penthouse apartment in a white evening dress. The apartment is not hers, set up but not occupied. What brought her to this place? Detective Henderson starts his investigation with the woman who runs a ring of call girls Elizabeth was part of, and the locals at the bar she frequented. Nobody cares. Girls disappear all the time. The story alternates between Henderson and Elizabeth, as we see her live the days before her death. She was specially chosen by secretive Mr. Keenan, instructed her heroin habit was to be increased, told to prepare for an event. Elizabeth has a doomed quality, tired of life and resigned it couldn't change, her only escape a secret apartment she can relax in shared with a gay roommate. Her boss tells her the night has arrived, anxiously helping Elizabeth get ready, providing the white dress, disposing her old clothes - the night she will meet Mr. Keenan in the apartment provided and be given a locket without a picture - a pyx.
This is a sparse and seedy mystery, with a dark secret at the root. Buell holds his cards close to his chest, the secret of that night, keeping it vague enough for interpretation, while exposing the core of it. Although I was there in the room I'm left with unanswered questions. If you've read this far I'll say it deals with satanic rites, and like The Exorcist, powerful enough to not be quelled. There is a dreamy quality about Elizabeth accepting her fate - finally someone has chosen her. Henderson is not jaded but fatigued, leaving the reader to wonder how he dealt with the event, or if he just moves on. There is another interesting character in Jimmy, a college loner rejected by his gay community, cleverly and clearly written between the lines for the readers of the time. Fascinating today, in 1959 this would have been shocking.
Neither the story or the characters are gaudy or salacious, but this is a dark neighbourhood with doomed themes of isolation for those who like a grimy mystery.
1959 / Paperback / 133 pages
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