Fri 28 Jul 2017
A 1001 Midnights Review: FREDRIC BROWN – Night of the Jabberwock.
Posted by Steve under 1001 Midnights , Pulp Fiction , Reviews[6] Comments
by Marcia Muller
FREDRIC BROWN – Night of the Jabberwock. E. P. Dutton, hardcover, 1950. Paperback editions include: Bantam #990, April 1952; Morrow-Quill, 1984. Based on two pulp stories: “The Gibbering Night†(Detective Tales, July 1944) and “The Jabberwock Murders†(Thrilling Mystery, Summer 1944).
This entertaining novel, which takes place in one bizarre night, is a perfect example of Fredric Brown’s somewhat eccentric view of the world. Doc Stoeger, editor of the Carmel City, Indiana, Clarion, sometime philosopher and devotee of the works of Lewis Carroll, has just put the small-town paper to bed. He has a drink in his office, wanders over to Smiley’s Tavern for a couple more, and laments the fact that nothing ever happens in Carmel City.
What wouldn’t he give, Doc says, for just one important story? Then, just as he is about to go home, things start to happen. At first they are mundane: Tuesday’s rummage sale is canceled and there is now a nine-inch hole in the front page; a messy divorce story needs to be rewritten because the charges against the husband were not true. But these are nothing like the surprise that visits Doc later at home.
The surprise is a man with the unlikely name of Yehudi Smith, who claims to be a member of a group of Lewis Carroll enthusiasts called the Vorpal Blades (a name taken from Through the Looking Glass). Smith invites Doc to a midnight meeting in a haunted house, and Doc is fascinated enough to accept. However, other events intervene: Doc’s best friend is injured in an accident and no one can find out what happened; the bank is robbed in a strange way; an escaped lunatic is run to earth; and big-time criminals are on the loose.
By the time Doc keeps his appointment with Yehudi Smith and the Vorpal Blades, he has covered and, for various reasons, had to suppress more major stories than most editors do in a year. And when he and Smith go to the haunted house, Doc is embroiled in an Alice-like adventure that leads him not down a rabbit hole or through a looking glass, but to the sheriff’s office.
Night of the Jabberwock is definitely not a novel for reformed alcoholics or those with strong principles against the consumption of alcohol. Doc partakes of enough drink so that, in reality, he would have passed out by chapter 3. In spite of that — and the fact that there are enough holes in the plot to drive a liquor truck through — no reader will ever forget this one astonishing night in Carmel City, Indiana.
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Reprinted with permission from 1001 Midnights, edited by Bill Pronzini & Marcia Muller and published by The Battered Silicon Dispatch Box, 2007. Copyright © 1986, 2007 by the Pronzini-Muller Family Trust.
July 28th, 2017 at 3:46 pm
I’m glad someone else wrote about the drinking in this book. I’m no teetotaler nor will I ever be someone who preaches against social drinking, but the amount of alcohol consumed and how it never seemed to affect the protagonist was absurd. Maybe that was part of Brown’s point. Granted many of Brown’s heroes are heavy boozers, but this was beyond belief. I went out of my way once to call this book “alcohol-soaked” and was belittled by a couple of big fans of the novel. IMO, Marcia’s final paragraph is spot on.
July 28th, 2017 at 5:22 pm
I am a “reformed alcoholic” and I enjoyed this book both blotto and sober… or as sober as one can be when reading Brown.
July 29th, 2017 at 12:35 am
Brown supposedly used to get on a Greyhound and travel aimlessly until he worked a plot out, and despite his plot control, that rambling approach shows through, so you are almost always thrown when you reach the end and see how much the seeming rambling plot was under Brown’s steady hand.
I don’t judge the drinking in past fiction. It’s impossible to impose modern standards on Brown, Latimer, Chandler, or Rice.
July 29th, 2017 at 2:22 pm
This is recently on ebook for Kindle Unlimited. Not so sure it’s “official” but there it is.
https://www.amazon.com/Night-Jabberwock-Fredric-Brown-ebook/dp/B01N1WIER0/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1501356046&sr=1-1&keywords=night+of+the+jabberwock
Also heartily recommend his “Madball”. Great carny novel.
July 31st, 2017 at 5:42 pm
I understand what JF Norris is saying about the excessive drinking in this novel but the fact is that some drinkers can hold a tremendous amount of booze and still function. Max Brand was known for his legendary drinking and still functioned as a writer. Same thing with Walt Coburn and others. I knew guys in the army who were constantly drinking and they were proud of their ability to hold their liquor.
They probably died early deaths but they could drink all day and night.
August 1st, 2017 at 10:06 pm
Famously Raymond Chandler had a studio chauffeur keeping him supplied with lubricant to finish the script for BLUE DAHALIA when Alan Ladd was drafted. Some heavy drinkers do function, at least for a while. Like any steady abuse it takes its toll.
But iron livered private eyes, newspaper editors and newsmen, lawyers, and husband and wife Tec teams were such a staple in that era it seems unfair to call them on it now. Bulldog Drummond swigged enough beer, martinis, brandy, and whiskey to fell an elephant in the average adventure. Bill Crane and John J. Malone downed enough to give the reader jaundice. Even quiet types like Poirot sip constantly at something stronger than tea.
It’s good to recognise drinking was overused, but a lot of great books get thrown out if you judge by today’s more enlightened standards.