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Ilves-sarja #84
Flight to Darkness
According to Lynn Munro's bibliography, Flight to Darkness was Gil Brewer's fourth Gold Medal paperback original. It's a stylish potboiler with its own merits. The hallmark Brewer frenetic prose, good v. bad girl dynamics, and lush descriptive powers are on full display
154 pages
First published January 1, 1952
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57 people want to read
About the author
Gil Brewer
139 books58 followersFlorida writer Gil Brewer was the author of dozens of wonderfully sleazy sex/crime adventure novels of the 1950's and 60's, including Backwoods Teaser and Nude on Thin Ice; some of them starring private eye Lee Baron (Wild) or the brothers Sam and Tate Morgan (The Bitch) . Gil Brewer, who had not previously published any novels, began to write for Gold Medal Paperbacks in 1950-51. Brewer wrote some 30 novels between 1951 and the late 60s – very often involving an ordinary man who becomes involved with, and is often corrupted and destroyed by, an evil or designing woman. His style is simple and direct, with sharp dialogue, often achieving considerable intensity.
Brewer was one of the many writers who ghost wrote under the Ellery Queen byline as well. Brewer also was known as Eric Fitzgerald, Bailey Morgan, and Elaine Evans.
http://www.gilbrewer.com/
Brewer was one of the many writers who ghost wrote under the Ellery Queen byline as well. Brewer also was known as Eric Fitzgerald, Bailey Morgan, and Elaine Evans.
http://www.gilbrewer.com/
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
April 21, 2018
A cool, actiony book about the paranoia of coming back from (the Korean, in this case) war to find everything fixed against you. At least that's what I think the true symbolism of the plot was. Pretty obvious mystery but it didn't matter.
July 25, 2023
Flight to Darkness (January 1952) continues Brewer’s line of femme fatale noir thrillers and, indeed, has much in common with Brewer’s 1951 noir thrillers, Satan is a Woman and 13 French Street. Leda, like the irresistible sirens in Satan and 13 French Street, has, if you look closely enough, cash registers where she ought to have eyeballs, that is, if you look closely enough, and lacks conscience. Eric Garth is a babe in the woods like the other poor saps in Satan and 13 French Street and is only too easily led away and, eventually, on the run from the law for a murder he might not have committed.
But, Flight to Darkness is not just a repeat of Brewer’s earlier novels with a different setting (although after the huge success of 13 French Street, the reading public might have eaten up anything Brewer put out). For one thing, Eric Garth is a war veteran like Alex Bland in 13 French Street, but the war for him (the Korean War) didn’t end well. Eric survived battle carrying a dying comrade on his shoulders, but had visions that the corpse he carried was his brother, Frank, the brother that he hated his whole life, and that he had beaten Frank to death with a wooden mallet.
Needless to say, Eric ends up plucked from the battlefield to a psychiatric hospital in California where he tries to get rid of his nightmares of killing his brother, the brother who had lorded it over Eric his whole life. In the hospital, though, Eric meets Leda, the sexiest nurse to ever burst out of her uniform. Eric is declared sane (or at least sane enough to drive away) and soon leaves the hospital in a brand new fancy convertible with this heart-stopping eye-popping blonde in the passenger’s seat. Of course, he never stops to wonder what a woman like that is doing working in a psychiatric hospital or what would cause her to fall seemingly head over heels in love with a crazy man who suffered nightmares of beating his brother to death. Instead, they head off down the highway with stars in their eyes, returning to Cypress Landing, Florida, where his dying mother lives with his brother Frank, the one who has taken over the family business, one that generates lots of cash, and put his name and his name only on a big sign that everyone in town can see. It is the town where Eric still has a home and an art studio where he sculpts with wooden mallets as well as a steady girl, Norma, who is steadfast and true in contrast to the red-hot dynamo that is Leda. Everyone considers some place home and thinks they can go home again.
But things go awry long before they reach the Florida coast and Leda takes off after Eric is left following a hit-and-run in a psychiatric hospital (another one) that his brother somehow engineered Eric’s way into. Months later, Eric breaks out and literally escapes from the loony bin and returns home to find Frank is not welcoming back and that Frank, forgetting that he was supposed to look out for his younger brother, has total control over the family business, the family mansion, and has married Leda. It’s enough to drive you nuts.
Norma tries to pick up where things left off, but she knows that there was another woman in Eric’s life and, when she realizes it was Leda, feels nothing but pity for Eric cause women know. They just know with that crazy intuition that they have when something is not good.
The thing here is that Eric knows that, with his background, twice being institutionalized for being looney-tunes, no one is ever going to believe him when he says he is innocent. Not when he had claimed previously that Leda was his wife. Not when he spent afternoons sculpting a nude statue of his brother’s wife, one who won’t leave him alone and who drives Norma away.
While it might have been interesting to hear about who Leda was (none of Brewer’s femme fatales seem to have much in the way of a past), Brewer paints her as diabolical and fool that Eric is, he is caught in her web and can’t get out.
But, Flight to Darkness is not just a repeat of Brewer’s earlier novels with a different setting (although after the huge success of 13 French Street, the reading public might have eaten up anything Brewer put out). For one thing, Eric Garth is a war veteran like Alex Bland in 13 French Street, but the war for him (the Korean War) didn’t end well. Eric survived battle carrying a dying comrade on his shoulders, but had visions that the corpse he carried was his brother, Frank, the brother that he hated his whole life, and that he had beaten Frank to death with a wooden mallet.
Needless to say, Eric ends up plucked from the battlefield to a psychiatric hospital in California where he tries to get rid of his nightmares of killing his brother, the brother who had lorded it over Eric his whole life. In the hospital, though, Eric meets Leda, the sexiest nurse to ever burst out of her uniform. Eric is declared sane (or at least sane enough to drive away) and soon leaves the hospital in a brand new fancy convertible with this heart-stopping eye-popping blonde in the passenger’s seat. Of course, he never stops to wonder what a woman like that is doing working in a psychiatric hospital or what would cause her to fall seemingly head over heels in love with a crazy man who suffered nightmares of beating his brother to death. Instead, they head off down the highway with stars in their eyes, returning to Cypress Landing, Florida, where his dying mother lives with his brother Frank, the one who has taken over the family business, one that generates lots of cash, and put his name and his name only on a big sign that everyone in town can see. It is the town where Eric still has a home and an art studio where he sculpts with wooden mallets as well as a steady girl, Norma, who is steadfast and true in contrast to the red-hot dynamo that is Leda. Everyone considers some place home and thinks they can go home again.
But things go awry long before they reach the Florida coast and Leda takes off after Eric is left following a hit-and-run in a psychiatric hospital (another one) that his brother somehow engineered Eric’s way into. Months later, Eric breaks out and literally escapes from the loony bin and returns home to find Frank is not welcoming back and that Frank, forgetting that he was supposed to look out for his younger brother, has total control over the family business, the family mansion, and has married Leda. It’s enough to drive you nuts.
Norma tries to pick up where things left off, but she knows that there was another woman in Eric’s life and, when she realizes it was Leda, feels nothing but pity for Eric cause women know. They just know with that crazy intuition that they have when something is not good.
The thing here is that Eric knows that, with his background, twice being institutionalized for being looney-tunes, no one is ever going to believe him when he says he is innocent. Not when he had claimed previously that Leda was his wife. Not when he spent afternoons sculpting a nude statue of his brother’s wife, one who won’t leave him alone and who drives Norma away.
While it might have been interesting to hear about who Leda was (none of Brewer’s femme fatales seem to have much in the way of a past), Brewer paints her as diabolical and fool that Eric is, he is caught in her web and can’t get out.
February 21, 2021
Noir paranoia and obsession at it’s finest. Eric Garth is a Korean War vet recovering in a psychiatric hospital and because this is a first-person narrative we readers are on an unstable foundation right from the start, never knowing whether his narrative is reliable or not. Brewer puts in some neat foreshadowings and doubts early on and that pays big dividends as the plot unfolds. Leda Thayer is the femme-fatale - and she has to rank up there near the top of the FF pantheon - and Brewer just buries Garth in his obsession with her. As the book begins she is his nurse at the hospital and is quitting her job as he is released. He has a big inheritance coming and she is all about that money, just needs to get him back home so he - they - can claim it. Garth, though obsessed, is also conflicted, at least until he finds himself locked up in another sanitarium. And, shall we say, game on?
December 30, 2009
According to Lynn Munro's bibliography, Flight to Darkness was Gil Brewer's fourth Gold Medal paperback original. It's a stylish potboiler with its own merits. The hallmark Brewer frenetic prose, good v. bad girl dynamics, and lush descriptive powers are on full display. The plot is a Korean War vet who's released from the VA mental hospital and leaves with his voluptuous nurse. Of course, the vet has a rich family in Florida, and his sick mother is dying. That's the volatile fuse to light and send up this first-rate noir written in the rich vein of John D. MacDonald and Charles Williams.
January 3, 2018
If Gil Brewer knew one thing, he knew this: Ordinary guys with perpetual erections should stay far, far away from sex-crazed she-devils. He illustrated this point in his debut novel, Satan Is a Woman, and then showed it again in his third novel, 13 French Street. While both novels are well executed, there is never much mystery where they are going. What makes Brewer's fourth novel, Flight to Darkness, more interesting is that his protagonist/narrator, Eric Garth, is not an ordinary guy. Rather, he is a veteran of the Korean War with a tenuous grip on his sanity. In fact, everyone in the novel seems at least a little bit crazy, which can make it hard for readers to be sure that they ever really understand why anyone is doing anything. And in noir, that can be a good thing.
First reading: 21 May 2008
Second reading: 1 January 2018
First reading: 21 May 2008
Second reading: 1 January 2018
November 3, 2019
Like one of his characters, Gil Brewer had multiple personas. On the one hand, he was a pulp writer who specialized in portrayals of horny deadbeat men and the conniving women who lead them to ruin. On the other, he was a pioneer at enriching genre novels with unexpectedly layered character analysis. Brewer gave few interviews during his lifetime, but it's probable that he was a devoted reader of psychology and drama. If a typical pulp novel relegates character to servicing the plot, Brewer brings it up front to amplify reader identification and immersion. Depictions of sleazy genre action are classed up by interior monologues that find characters rationalizing their revolting acts so believably that you can never quite judge them. In Brewer's world, no one does anything just for the money or the girl. The money and the girl are certainly factors, but they are stand-in motives for traumas associated with familial breakdown, mental illness, wartime service and professional failure. So it is in Flight to Darkness, where a would-be sculptor with combat shock and an unhealthy desire to kill his brother travels to Florida to claim his share of the family business. Our hero is joined by a secretive nurse from his most recent hospital stay who may or may not be plotting against him. That's about all you need to know in terms of premise. Brewer sticks to simple stories and emphasizes the reality of his character's motives and flaws, illustrating how the two swiftly drive behavior to the darkest, cheapest, and dumbest places. His books are almost an inversion of pulp, in that thoughts and emotions grip the reader, while a story unfolds at a near-unconscious level. His writing has a quality akin to oral storytelling. Imagine sitting in a dimly lit bar and listening, riveted, as a man politely explains the enormous bloodstains on his pants and jacket. That's a Gil Brewer novel.
January 21, 2010
Wow! No one creates femmes fatale like Brewer. This one is almost perfect. I would actually rate it 4 and a half stars if we could do half stars. The only problem is that Brewer tips his hand very early on. Actually from the opening pages, but then knowing the inevitable end doesn't keep it from being any less of a page turner. He ends almost every chapter with a bombshell revelation.
I'm on a Brewer jag now . . .
I'm on a Brewer jag now . . .
October 4, 2024
I was looking forward to reading this novel, which has a certain prestige among Gil Brewer fans and was written shortly after he began his cycle of crime novels for the Fawcett publishing house (the legendary Gold Metal collection) with the arrival of the 50s. As in Sunset Boulevard (1950), the story is narrated in the first person, addressing us, the reader, by Eric Garth, a former Korean combatant, now convalescing in a sanatorium for war veterans, who suffers from a certain amnesia, as well as a series of strange dreams that recur in his mind (among them, that he has beaten his brother Frank to death) and that he will begin a romance with the beautiful nurse who is in his care (Leda). The plot will become more complicated once Eric is discharged and leaves the sanatorium with the nurse, and shortly after is accused of an accident (hit and run, apparently, with his car) while he was sleeping in the roadside motel. Well, these are the cards that Brewer puts on the table. We are in Woolrich/Irish territory. Amnesia, mists in memory, what is real, what is not… The title is already revealing, as well as suggestive… although it is true that it may suggest, hint, more than it actually ends up offering. Let's say that it is an estimable piece, which is easy to follow, thanks to a certain punch demonstrated by Brewer, with psychologically well-profiled characters, and with a certain poetic halo for the descriptions of the women in question as well as the rural environments where the action takes place… However, one has the feeling that there are too many twists, or at least that the story lacked a stronger trunk to prepare the reader for the final part (in which, as always, the “mystery” part ends up being revealed). I don't think it is as solid as The Red Scarf (1958) or The Vengeful Virgin (1958). As always in Brewer, there is a very genuine vision of the feminine world, of the predominant role of women, who, as in some of Charles Williams' works, use sex to achieve their goals and do and undo as they please, attracting the gullible to their web like a poor fly. On this occasion, our protagonist, like Mitchum in "Out of the Past" (Tourneur based on the novel by Geoffrey Holmes) is split in two by the character of the other girl, of a more "positive" moral nature. It may be that these works by Tourneur or even Siodmak were in Brewer's subconscious (most likely) but there is no doubt that noir literature reached its maximum splendor in the 50s, once it had absorbed all the essence condensed in themes and styles of the two preceding decades. We will continue with Gil Brewer and of course with Gold Metal.
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(Spanish)
Tenía muchas ganas de leer esta novela, que goza de cierto prestigio entre los fans de Gil Brewer y que fue escrita poco después de que iniciara su ciclo de novelas policiacas para la editorial Fawcett (la legendaria colección Gold Metal) con la llegada de los años 50. Como en Sunset Boulevard (1950), la historia está narrada en primera persona, dirigiéndose a nosotros, el lector, Eric Garth, un excombatiente coreano, ahora convaleciente en un sanatorio para veteranos de guerra, que padece cierta amnesia, así como una serie de sueños extraños que se repiten en su mente (entre ellos, que ha matado a golpes a su hermano Frank) y que iniciará un romance con la bella enfermera que está a su cuidado (Leda). La trama se complicará una vez que Eric recibe el alta y sale del sanatorio con la enfermera, y poco después es acusado de sufrir un accidente (atropello y fuga, al parecer, con su coche) mientras dormía en el motel de carretera. Pues bien, estas son las cartas que pone Brewer sobre la mesa. Estamos en territorio Woolrich/Irlandés. Amnesia, nieblas en la memoria, qué es real, qué no lo es… El título ya es revelador, a la par que sugerente… aunque es cierto que puede sugerir, insinuar, más de lo que en realidad acaba ofreciendo. Digamos que se trata de una pieza estimable, que resulta fácil de seguir, gracias a cierta pegada demostrada por Brewer, con personajes psicológicamente bien perfilados, y con cierto halo poético por las descripciones de las mujeres en cuestión así como de los entornos rurales donde se desarrolla la acción… Sin embargo, uno tiene la sensación de que hay demasiados giros, o al menos de que al relato le faltaba un tronco más fuerte que preparase al lector para la parte final (en la que, como siempre, acaba desvelándose la parte “misterio”). No me parece tan sólida como El pañuelo rojo (1958) o La virgen vengativa (1958). Como siempre en Brewer hay una visión muy genuina del mundo femenino, del papel predominante de la mujer, que, como en algunas obras de Charles Williams, se vale del sexo para conseguir sus fines y hacer y deshacer a su antojo, atrayendo a los crédulos a su red como una pobre mosca. En esta ocasión, nuestra protagonista, como Mitchum en “Retorno al pasado” (Tourneur basada en la novela de Geoffrey Holmes) se ve partida en dos por el personaje de la otra chica, de carácter moral más “positivo”. Puede que estas obras de Tourneur o incluso de Siodmak estuvieran en el subconsciente de Brewer (muy probablemente) pero no hay duda de que la literatura negra alcanzó su máximo esplendor en los años 50, una vez que hubo absorbido toda la esencia condensada en temas y estilos de las dos décadas precedentes. Seguiremos con Gil Brewer y por supuesto con Gold Metal.
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(Spanish)
Tenía muchas ganas de leer esta novela, que goza de cierto prestigio entre los fans de Gil Brewer y que fue escrita poco después de que iniciara su ciclo de novelas policiacas para la editorial Fawcett (la legendaria colección Gold Metal) con la llegada de los años 50. Como en Sunset Boulevard (1950), la historia está narrada en primera persona, dirigiéndose a nosotros, el lector, Eric Garth, un excombatiente coreano, ahora convaleciente en un sanatorio para veteranos de guerra, que padece cierta amnesia, así como una serie de sueños extraños que se repiten en su mente (entre ellos, que ha matado a golpes a su hermano Frank) y que iniciará un romance con la bella enfermera que está a su cuidado (Leda). La trama se complicará una vez que Eric recibe el alta y sale del sanatorio con la enfermera, y poco después es acusado de sufrir un accidente (atropello y fuga, al parecer, con su coche) mientras dormía en el motel de carretera. Pues bien, estas son las cartas que pone Brewer sobre la mesa. Estamos en territorio Woolrich/Irlandés. Amnesia, nieblas en la memoria, qué es real, qué no lo es… El título ya es revelador, a la par que sugerente… aunque es cierto que puede sugerir, insinuar, más de lo que en realidad acaba ofreciendo. Digamos que se trata de una pieza estimable, que resulta fácil de seguir, gracias a cierta pegada demostrada por Brewer, con personajes psicológicamente bien perfilados, y con cierto halo poético por las descripciones de las mujeres en cuestión así como de los entornos rurales donde se desarrolla la acción… Sin embargo, uno tiene la sensación de que hay demasiados giros, o al menos de que al relato le faltaba un tronco más fuerte que preparase al lector para la parte final (en la que, como siempre, acaba desvelándose la parte “misterio”). No me parece tan sólida como El pañuelo rojo (1958) o La virgen vengativa (1958). Como siempre en Brewer hay una visión muy genuina del mundo femenino, del papel predominante de la mujer, que, como en algunas obras de Charles Williams, se vale del sexo para conseguir sus fines y hacer y deshacer a su antojo, atrayendo a los crédulos a su red como una pobre mosca. En esta ocasión, nuestra protagonista, como Mitchum en “Retorno al pasado” (Tourneur basada en la novela de Geoffrey Holmes) se ve partida en dos por el personaje de la otra chica, de carácter moral más “positivo”. Puede que estas obras de Tourneur o incluso de Siodmak estuvieran en el subconsciente de Brewer (muy probablemente) pero no hay duda de que la literatura negra alcanzó su máximo esplendor en los años 50, una vez que hubo absorbido toda la esencia condensada en temas y estilos de las dos décadas precedentes. Seguiremos con Gil Brewer y por supuesto con Gold Metal.
September 29, 2019
In Flight to Darkness, Brewer introduces readers to Eric Garth, a Korean war vet and a would-be sculptor who meets Leda a nurse during his time spent as a patient in a psychiatric hospital in California. Eric has always been preoccupied with a recurring dream of killing his brother Frank with a sculptor’s wooden mallet. So before Eric can be released his doctor has to make sure he is cured of these dreams.
Eric is all too excited to head home to Florida and to the loan business which Frank is running until he gets back. This business is supposed to be split between the two brothers when their mother dies. He and Leda plan to marry but things take a turn when he is accused of a hit and run and then gets committed to a sanitarium in Alabama with Leda nowhere in sight.
However, when he gets a hold of the police, he is then told the charges are dropped and he is free to go. Only problem, he couldn’t get released from the sanitarium so he escapes and heads home to Florida. And that’s where things get murky: Eric finds out Leda is married to Frank, Norma – the girlfriend he left behind is still in love with him although he is in love with Leda, Frank is found murdered with a mallet, and Eric is again on the run and questioning his sanity.
I thoroughly enjoyed this roller coaster ride. The twists were deliciously fun and I cheered on as Eric found out the truth about his brother and Leda. Brewer has nailed it again with developing a male protagonist who spirals out of control because of love.
Two thumbs up! Great read!
Some of my favorite lines:
I’d been through a war, gone crazy, been tied up in straight jackets, fallen in love with a woman who walked out on me the first rough time we had, and I was still hanging onto a dream. That Norma Dean was still my girl.
And there was another wild dream, too—the wild one that cropped up that day in Korea all full of blood and dark damnation. So go on home to the old home where your mother’s dying and see for sure if you want to kill your brother. See if you’re going to kill him now. Go ahead, find out…
Eric is all too excited to head home to Florida and to the loan business which Frank is running until he gets back. This business is supposed to be split between the two brothers when their mother dies. He and Leda plan to marry but things take a turn when he is accused of a hit and run and then gets committed to a sanitarium in Alabama with Leda nowhere in sight.
However, when he gets a hold of the police, he is then told the charges are dropped and he is free to go. Only problem, he couldn’t get released from the sanitarium so he escapes and heads home to Florida. And that’s where things get murky: Eric finds out Leda is married to Frank, Norma – the girlfriend he left behind is still in love with him although he is in love with Leda, Frank is found murdered with a mallet, and Eric is again on the run and questioning his sanity.
I thoroughly enjoyed this roller coaster ride. The twists were deliciously fun and I cheered on as Eric found out the truth about his brother and Leda. Brewer has nailed it again with developing a male protagonist who spirals out of control because of love.
Two thumbs up! Great read!
Some of my favorite lines:
I’d been through a war, gone crazy, been tied up in straight jackets, fallen in love with a woman who walked out on me the first rough time we had, and I was still hanging onto a dream. That Norma Dean was still my girl.
And there was another wild dream, too—the wild one that cropped up that day in Korea all full of blood and dark damnation. So go on home to the old home where your mother’s dying and see for sure if you want to kill your brother. See if you’re going to kill him now. Go ahead, find out…
May 13, 2024
Brewer at the peak,
PTSD From Korea,
The inevitable vixen from hell,
Guys that think with their wieners,
Add money and family,
See what happens.
PTSD From Korea,
The inevitable vixen from hell,
Guys that think with their wieners,
Add money and family,
See what happens.
January 11, 2015
Ilmeisesti tämänkään kirjan suomentaja ei pahemmin pohtinut, mitä suomensi vaan kerta laakista tuotos paperille ja kaikki olivat tyytyväisiä. Toisaalta, se kyllä toi touhuun aika surrealistisen ja tahattoman humoristisen piirteen.
Mutta ei sekään kyennyt tahraamaan tämän kirjan toimivuutta. Gil Brewer on mestari ja nero luomaan hahmoja joiden kohtalot kiinnostavat sekä käänteitä juoneen, joka saa lukemaan into piukalla. Mahtavuutta.
Mutta ei sekään kyennyt tahraamaan tämän kirjan toimivuutta. Gil Brewer on mestari ja nero luomaan hahmoja joiden kohtalot kiinnostavat sekä käänteitä juoneen, joka saa lukemaan into piukalla. Mahtavuutta.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews