Prelude to a Certain Midnight Book

I'd been wanting to read a Gerald Kersh novel for some time. I'd enjoyed several short stories in the past few years; stories that were often of a rather fantastic and strange nature, and knew that his novel Night and the City was the basis for the superb noir film of the same name starring Richard Widmark at his sleazy and energetic best. It interested me, too, that kersh was harlan Ellison's favourite writer. It seems that he's not very read today, and based on my experiences so far, I'd say that's a damn shame.

Don't be fooled by what you might read about this book. It's not really a murder mystery. For this reason I'm not too fussed about spoiling anything while writing this review. Oh, it concerns the horrible rape and murder of a young Jewish girl in 1930s London, and at the end, you will know who the murderer is, but it won't really leave you with any sense of satisfaction. This is more a study of human beings: how strange, frustrating and yet lovable they tend to be; how they react to adversity; what kind of mentality leads someone to be violent, or a perpetual victim, or maternal, or any number of other human foibles. If you think of a novel as a journey from beginning to end with focus and a clear goal in mind, you might find yourself disappointed. This book is probably 75% digressions. The thing is though, that they're very, very entertaining ones. Kersh invites you to sit beside him and let him tell you about these people who weave through the smoky streets with their lives and petty obsessions and eccentricities. These are not really character sketches or background though; they're more like impressions. Often they're sad and lonely, but sometimes, even then, they're uproariously funny. Kersh isn't being mean-spirited though, I think; he knows these people and the prose can turn "on a dime" from sort of contemptuous to affectionate. And isn't that the way most of us are with the people we know?

The most interesting person in this book is doubtless Ms. Asta Thundersley. She is, I think, what some impatient people today might term a "social justice warrior". Quite well-off in her way, quick to jump on board any cause that tugs on her heartstrings, and eagerly getting in peoples' faces and shouting loudly at them about this or that injustice. Sometimes Kersh takes the piss out of her a bit, but he is careful to show that most of the time, she's in the right, just lacks subtlety and finesse. She is brash and forthright and doesn't always make the best choices. It's an interesting combination of boldness and vulnerability that in fact I found rather endearing. You definitely get the sense that she is written as a "woman out of time", somewhat, and that today someone like her would have a lot more opportunities to make a positive social impact. Despite her railing against misogyny, abuse, racism and the like, she's also not quite as open-minded as one might suppose. her conversation with the police inspector about the meaning of sadomasochistic sexual relationships is really edifying in more ways than one, not to mention startlingly candid for a book written in 1947.

It's this candid quality that I think most drew me to the book. Kersh doesn't mince about or cater to anybody's sensibilities. he wants to tell a story and does in a way that is clever, sharp and occasionally really intense. Oh, you won't find graphic descriptions of rape and torture here but they are certainly alluded to, and no less strong because of it. Toward the end of Book II of this short novel we suddenly get chapters from the point of view of "The Murderer", as he apparently thinks of himself, and these are not just point of view chapters. This Murderer shares something in common with Asta Thundersley: They both have very vivid imaginations. So in Asta's case, we get her journey into the house where the young girl was killed, and it's a tour de force in uncanny writing, where the horror of the situation is brought out in very sharp detail and we can instantly see why kersh wasn't afraid to dabble in areas of the fantastic and "weird". When we turn to our Murderer, we get his daydreams, and there are a lot of them, and they are extremely strange and a very interesting study of psychopathy. He is a man who lives very much inside his own head, who is normally quiet and reserved yet nurses all his frustrations and pains and plays out scenarios in his head where he is alternately saviour and executioner, martyr and killer, poet and survivor. It's very heady stuff.

Ultimately I felt this was often a story about people reaching for something and almost getting there, but not quite making it. Asta is given the chance to sniff out the killer, and she does this by throwing a party at her home, to which she invites all the people who frequented the Bar Bacchus, because she is sure that one of them must be the monster. The party scene plays out like one of those embarrassing episodes in life a part of you wants to forget but which you just keep returning to because there was just something fascinating about it all: seeing people who are normally rigid and controlled being loosened by drink and saying and doing outlandish things. It's the kind of party where a man picks up a woman by saying, "are you a masochist? There's something about you that invites violence". The Murderer is indeed in attendence and keeps thinking that after the next drink he'll surprise them all by giving himself up (!), but of course the opportunity never seems quite grandiose enough, and then it's just too late. It's Asta's prim older sister who suddenly, in the last moments, perhaps in an attempt to impress her sibling, tries to be a hero because she thinks she's got it all figured out. Only, she can't quite make it happen, and in the end, feeling she's overstepped herself, feeling humiliated and embarrassed, she drops the whole thing and makes a quick exit, leaving Asta none the wiser and believing that her company and hospitality is being spurned. It's sad, sad business, because for a moment there, I thought she was going to be able to rise to the challenge, become a Ms. Marple so to speak, but .... this just isn't that kind of book.

The murderer is not apprehended. One of the last chapters describes how he loves to take his nephews and nieces' to the circus. he always gasps and cries out when the tamer brings out his beasts, or the acrobat, pretending to be drunk, vaults to the high wire. The children laugh at him, because they think their silly old uncle is sensitive, sweet; that he somehow doesn't realise that this is what goes on at the circus all the time. But he's really waiting for something to happen. Something tragic. Something violent. Maybe this one time the man on the wire might really be drunk. Maybe the trapeze artist will miss her mark. perhaps the savage beasts will turn on the trainer and claws will rend and teeth will tear, and then, there will be blood.