The Cruel City by Joe Mackey. Belmont (1960), 159 pp.
Bill Chappell, a reporter from New York, is briefly visiting Los Angeles to find a writing job in the film industry. He’s staying with well-connected Lou London, a caricaturist who likes to party. Bill decides he should join in the fun, so he starts drinking again and goes on the prowl for some female companionship. He spends time with friends whose marriages seem untraditionally open: screenwriter Manny Gilman and his wife Regina, PR man Randy Dietz and his wife Phyllis. He also meets Fabian, an affable gay guy. No one helps very much with the job search. But Lou offers assistance on the other quest, pointing Bill toward Monique, a part-time hooker with a congenial personality.
The story focuses on Bill. He’s in every scene, and only his thoughts are relayed to the reader. That would be fine if his behavior made sense, but it just doesn’t. His job search is incoherent and his pursuit of Monique is needlessly feeble. Which could be explained by Bill’s persistent inebriation -- he’s drinking through most of the novel -- but that interpretation leaves the author with a book about alcoholism not Hollywood, his real target. The ancillary characters are soused most of the time too. They rattle on in pointless conversation or, in the case of Fabian, get frisky in a way that could fuel homophobic dread. Only Monique is portrayed in enough depth to elicit the reader’s sympathy. It’s a shame the book isn’t about her.
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FURY IN THE HEART
Fury in the Heart by W. T. Ballard. Monarch (1959), 157 pp.
Ken Coate had been the interim manager of a Los Angeles PR firm since his well-liked mentor Whitey Osterman was disabled by a heart attack. Ken was expecting to be the permanent replacement, but instead upper management in New York sent inexperienced Don Prentice to do the job. Almost immediately, Ken’s girlfriend, ambitious and voluptuous account assistant Kitten Foster, dumped Ken and took up with Prentice. Now Ken’s tenuous position is being further undermined by Hap Perelman, PR guy for smarmy actor Sonny Isles. Isles stars in a TV show sponsored by the car company that has been Ken’s most important client. Only when Ken meets Perelman’s pretty young assistant, June Hecker, does his future begin to brighten.
Fans of Mad Men will find something familiar in this story of a business dedicated to manipulating the public. The book has byzantine maneuvering within the office, sexual liaisons among staff members, even the need for an auto manufacturer’s account. The novel is like the TV show in other ways. It focuses primarily on a fortyish divorcé who’s burning out on his job, but it also includes a large cast of supporting players whose viewpoint the narrative often takes. And the characters act so often in their rational self-interest that judgments about their behavior are appropriately absent. The world it creates seems credible. Readers who might otherwise scoff at Ken’s approach to achieving happiness will come up short: Didn’t Don Draper do the same thing? Like the author’s The Package Deal (1956), the book offers an entertaining inside look at the business of Hollywood.
BEDEVILED
Bedeviled by Raymond Mason. Hillman (1960), 192 pp.
Ex-Marine Jax Bradley works hard and plays by the rules. In his time at an Oakland department store, he’s risen to head buyer of men’s clothing. He’s confident that his job performance will lead to promotions in the future. His love life is less settled. Jax looks forward to marrying Judy, his fiancée, and living in the suburbs. She, however, refuses to set a marriage date and won’t consummate their sexual relationship in the meantime. When Jax attends a party given by steel tycoon John Benton, he’s aware but unconcerned that he doesn’t fit in with the rich folks. He’s especially unimpressed with the coddled twenty-somethings -- with one exception. She’s irritatingly flirtatious Myra Conover, apparently the boyfriend of Roy West, one of Jax’s former customers and a sometime drinking buddy. Not long afterward a blow-up with Judy and advances by Myra force Jax to rethink his plans for middle-class happiness.
The book takes a plausible look at the problems a man around thirty might face in acquiring an appropriate place for himself in late 1950s America. Jax’s spot in the social order receives special attention. Unlike his parents and married sister, he’s moved out of the working class. Unlike his teacher friends, he has a way to climb further. But unlike the people he meets at the party -- and later joins -- he’s alienated from upper-class morals and behavior. The author may be suggesting that if Jax had earned his way to the top he would have come to accept and perhaps emulate the actions of those already there. Instead, he seems to rely on his combat experience when events get out of control. Jax’s character needs further exploration for his reaction to be convincing, which is exactly what the author does not provide. (Mason had the same problem in Love after Five.) What Jax learns from his journey up the social ladder remains murky. So the book’s ironic ending may leave readers puzzled.
