'The Big Clock' Ticks Along

Review of THE BIG CLOCK (New York Review Book Classics 2006)
Author, Kenneth Fearing

THE BIG CLOCK has been called a "brilliant study in noir" (by The Globe and Mail) that has a plot "stretched tight as a drum" (according to the NY Times). I'll second those thoughts and add that in this short, well-crafted novel, Kenneth Fearing skillfully combines elements of the thriller, noir and social satire into a story that moves at a good clip and keeps you hooked--once the hook catches you, which really doesn't happen until nearly halfway through.

I'm not sure exactly what kept me reading up until that point. Maybe it was the arch observations of the protagonist, George Stroud--not a terribly likeable man. Drinks like a fish, cheats on his wife and seems to hold everyone and everything in disdain (himself included--which earns points for him, I guess). He's married to a woman named Georgette and their daughter's named Georgia, but they all call each other George, which is, um, unusual (and made me wonder if George Foreman had ever read this book) and, strangely enough, not as confusing as you'd think--but hardly so interesting as to pull me into the story. There are some amusing and entertaining moments early on, but not amusing or entertaining enough to make the story a page-turner. Even the milieu in which Stroud works--as executive editor for one of many periodicals owned by a publishing magnate named Earl Janoth--while providing Fearing a way of exploring the whole "faceless modern corporate world" thing, is not so compelling (in fact, at times, the plethora of names and publications can get a bit confusing) that I just couldn't stop reading.

I couldn't say for sure, but I may have simply been biding my time during those first few chapters in anticipation of what I knew (based on reading about the book) was to come--that George Stroud has a fling with Janoth's girlfriend, then witnesses her and Janoth going into her apartment building together. The next day, she's found murdered in that apartment. And, given the time of death, Stroud is pretty sure (barring the unlikely intervention of a third party) he knows who-dunnit. Janoth knows someone--a person he can't identify--saw him going into his girlfriend's building right before the murder. Janoth then (wait for it) puts Stroud in charge of the investigation to find--himself! Yes, this is where things get interesting.

As Stroud goes through the motions of trying to identify the man who saw Janoth at the scene of his girlfriend's murder, while doing everything within his power to keep everyone from finding out he is that man, we see the investigation from various points of view (an unusual device for a crime novel of the 1940s, when the book was originally published) and the evidence slowly accumulating and getting closer all the time to implicating Stroud. It struck me after a while that I was reading a low-tech version of the Kevin Costner movie No Way Out, which turned out to be one of two films based on this book (the other called, simply, The Big Clock).

The farther the investigation goes, the more difficult the book is to put down. Fearing manages to combine dread, irony, suspense and laugh-out-loud humor (the last bit particularly in a chapter written from the point of view of an artist who sees Stroud buy a key painting) with great skill. And if the ending seems a trifle pat and strains credulity some--well, I can forgive him for it. I can forgive an abrupt stop to what was a great ride.

By the way, as a reissued classic, the publisher saw fit to have Nicholas Christopher write an introduction. If you've never read the book, I urge you--do not read the introduction first. Christopher assumes we all know the story and brings up at least one spoiler that absolutely wrecked the final twist for me.