The Face on the Cutting-Room Floor

by Cameron McCabe, Ernst Bornemann

Something Very Special (Again!) In The Way of Detective Stories First novel by Cameron McCabe (Ernst Julius Bornemann). Published in 1937, it's a fascinating story of murder and intrigue, with the killer dying half-way through, and his narrative picked up by the policeman who'd been trailing him. Unique. And worth it just for the fake quotes by leading literary figures of the day.

Genres: Mystery, Fiction, Crime, British Literature, Mystery Thriller, London, Thriller

224 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1937

Reviews

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve just finished the most incredible book I’ve ever read. The problem is, I’d struggle to describe it to you as it’s virtually impossible to do it justice. Julian Symons got closer than most: ‘the detective story to end detective stories… a dazzling and perhaps fortunately unrepeatable box of tricks’
Why is it so incredible? Well, for a start it’s written in the most extraordinary version of English you’re ever likely to read (the author was a nineteen year old political refugee from Germany who by his own admission “could barely speak English”), full of tongue-twisting sentences, peculiar use of grammar (or sometimes lack of it – one paragraph near the start of the book I can remember doesn’t have a single comma or full stop in it), pseudo English/American slang and cliché, language so strange I re-read almost every sentence twice because I couldn’t believe what I’d read the first time; secondly, there’s the plot itself, a murder/suicide story narrated by the author of the book himself who is then killed off two-thirds of the way through, a plot which doubles back on itself so many times that in the end you just have to admit defeat and go with it, with the last third of the book being written by an acquaintance of the victim, followed by a series of faked-up reviews of the book you have just read, quoting real reviewers from the time the book was published: reading this book, you feel that the author wasn’t just trying to break the rules of crime fiction (if that’s what he was doing), but also of fiction and language in general.
For years nobody really knew who ‘Cameron McCabe’ was, but when the book was reissued years later the author was revealed as Ernest Borneman, and in the most recent edition of the book to be published (sadly in the mid-80s), there’s a wonderful overview and interview with the man himself, a man whose life is as bizarre as the novel he wrote as a teenager – not only did he work with Orson Welles, Eartha Kitt and others he also worked in TV and films, later becoming a renowned sexologist. A little search online found that he eventually committed suicide aged 80, after an affair.
A few weeks have passed since I read The Face on the Cutting-Room Floor and I’m still as astounded by it as I was then. It is my favourite book. I can’t imagine reading anything so bizarre ever again. I’ll finish with something else Julian Symons said: that this book is ‘worth getting hold of at almost any price’. I couldn’t have put it better myself.

[Mec · Rating 2 out of 5]

È un romanzo ripetitivo e contorto, diviso nettamente in due parti, che mi ha fatto faticare e mi ha lasciato un po' perplessa.
La prima parte è una sorta di memoriale in cui il protagonista presenta al lettore il fatto di sangue da cui si dipana l'intera vicenda. McCabe riveste tutti i ruoli possibili e da una pagina all'altra passa da testimone a sospettato, con un intermezzo da aiutante della polizia. La vicenda però viene narrata più volte e le indagini non hanno un percorso lineare, con un effetto straniante ed in fin dei conti estenuante.
Ho preferito la seconda parte, strutturata quasi come una critica letteraria del memoriale del protagonista, con tanto di articoli critici.
Il finale riscatta parzialmente il libro, perché devo ammettere che mi ha divertito.
Probabilmente è una storia che renderebbe meglio sullo schermo grazie ad un buon adattamento cinematografico.
Godibilissima la biografia dell'autore.

[Marc Nash · Rating 5 out of 5]

Th guy wrote this when he was 19, and as a refugee from Nazi Germany had only been in Britain a couple of years and yet wrote it in English. Also had an amazing appreciation of detective fiction (and attendant criticism), the impact of Hollywood on detective fiction and on and on. A masterful and so mature a piece of work.

Video review to follow

[Orla · Rating 1 out of 5]

A book about a film editor who may also be a murderer, that was also a book in dire need of an editor.
Was really excited to find and read this book since it has been hyped to the high heavens (by Julian Symons and his ilk) as an unrepeatable masterwork of crime fiction.
Loved the libel warning at the start, and the first few pages, but then the trouble started: there were jarring phrases, run-on sentences (aspiring to stream of consciousness?) that went nowhere and meant nothing. A hundred pages in, the whole exercise felt like a slog.
Was I surprised to find that the novel was written by a 19-year old German ex-pat? No. There were sentences in there that did not make sense no matter how many books of the time you've read (and I've read plenty), there was way too much of being hammered over the head by the author's own views and convictions. It only gets worse in the author interview tacked on at the end of my edition.
All told, you'll enjoy this more if you read about the concept (which, admittedly, is very clever) and forget about trying to wade through the thing itself.
Finished this one with bad grace.

[Chris Browning · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bloody hell. If ever a book could be considered critic proof it’s this. I’ve known it has a certain notoriety among crime fiction fans but am delighted none of that prepared me for the experience

Firstly, “McCabe” - who is of course not actually McCabe, but one Ernest Bourneman, of whom more in a bit - states in the end of the book (the interview after the afterword if you like) that he’s surprised a rather thin novel he wrote as a 19 year old just learning the English language is still so beloved. I can understand this because at times it’s hard going: much of it appears to have been based on his peers in the film industry and much of the language, and idioms, recorded verbatim. But that means it’s sometimes tough going to wade through as “McCabe” isn’t remotely interested in making things easy for us. He assumes that the modes of speech of each character will eventually mean that each character stands out uniquely, which I guess it eventually does. But we are so used to having this spelt out for us that it’s quite a disorienting experience to navigate at times

Secondly, at times the book is weirdly repetitive. There is a reason for this, and it becomes very apparent what he’s trying to do in the ”Müller” section of the book. But before you realise what’s going on it can be a tough old read at times to get through. All of it is very deliberate and I can’t think of many books so riddled with structural problems, most of which are swiftly explained once the first part of the novel (the largest part) is done

So we then get to “Müller”. When this gentleman turns up in the narrative, you begin to wonder - deliberately, I think - if McCabe (character and narrator - yes, this is confusing but it’s the book we have!) is having a form of psychosis. An older German gentleman just turns up at a train station and starts talking in depth to our narrator, in the weirdly combative form that comes to an apex with McCabe and Smith’s uncomfortable relationship. When the book suddenly shifts to Müller’s perspective you get a different read on so much of the novel that’s just gone by. There’s all manner of unspoken stuff that is explained here, and it’s a dizzying experience

But that’s not all, because then “Müller” decides not so much to knock down the fourth wall as destroy it utterly, whilst also explaining what he’s doing and what the wall actually represents. This section purports to be the new narrator criticising the reviews of the “McCabe” section, and although using the names of actual critics to do this every bit is made up by him. This doesn’t so much make it critic proof as actual critic baiting

And the reason he does this is so he can outdo the infamous locked room lecture in John Dickson Carr’s Hollow Man, where Gideon Fell addresses the reader about the conventions of that subgenre. “Müller” seems to find that not adventurous enough and decides he wants to address the crime novel as a whole. All of it. He weaves philosophical and literary ideas throughout, undercuts his own novel, synthesises Anthony Berkeley’s Poisoned Chocolates Case as an example of the potentially infinite answers to a crime novel and then swaps to Berkeley’s alter ego - and a real precursor of this book’s narrator as criminal - Francis Iles and Malice Aforethought as the focus of his discussion

And once he’s opened up the potentially limitless responses to crime as a genre, he plays one ludicrously proto postmodern game on the reader by returning to the novel, suggesting a new answer for the whole thing and then getting his second narrator to commit ANOTHER murder in what feels almost like the closest the book gets to actually breaking out of the genre entirely. It feels almost like the famous shot at the end of 1903’s The Great Train Robbery where Justus D Barnes shoots at the camera, and by extant, the audience. It’s exhaustingly clever

And then there’s more!!! In the Penguin edition I’ve been reading, there’s an essay about the novel and how the real author - Bourneman - was identified by Fredric Raphael and Julian Symons, followed by a fascinating interview with the man himself. And, honestly, as he tells you stories about his life and involvement with Orson Welles, Eartha Kitt and Oscar Peterson and how he became one of the most respected sexologists of all time, his film making career - and the very real inspirations for the novel - feel like mere footnotes. And because of the wickedly subversive and playful nature of the book itself, if it was revealed to be ANOTHER level of trickery and it was written by SOMEONE ELSE all along I wouldn’t be surprised at all

It’s astonishing. Exhausting, but truly astonishing

[Alan · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a strange and singular novel. Published in the 1930s, The Face On The Cutting Room Floor has something of a cult status among doyens of detective fiction. It breaks the rules, it's proto-postmodern and very metafictional, it prefigures books like Pale Fire - and it's a great detective story too (possibly. Maybe. Who's to say?)

I wrote my Master's thesis on postmodern detective fiction. If I had known about this book at the time I would certainly have written about it.

[Shir L · Rating 3 out of 5]

Most of the way through it reads like a pulpy noir that you are all too familiar with (written by a clever author with a keen wit, sense for slang, and wordplay). Towards the end everything starts to get surprising and confusing, philosophical and metafictional. Worth a read! The most interesting part may be the interview with Bornemann at the end of the book - what a fascinating personality.

[Latkins · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a 'lost classic' of a crime thriller, first published by 'Cameron McCabe' (a pseudonym, as he's the character narrating the book) in 1937. For many years, no-one knew who really wrote it, but all is revealed here in a fascinating afterword, including an interview with the author from 1979; and an introduction by Jonathan Coe.

This isn't your average thriller - it reminded me of Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov, one of my favourite novels. The first section reads like a pastiche of Raymond Chandler, as McCabe narrates his experiences as he's caught up in a murder case in London, itself bound up in the film industry. The dialogue is very American, and there are lots of cinematic tropes in the language. Reading this bulk of the book, it doesn't seem that brilliant - McCabe battles with a tireless policeman, Smith, to see who comes out on top, and there's a dramatic trial. What sets it apart is the 'Epilogue', ostensibly written by another character in the novel, which features lots of (made up) literary criticism of the novel and the genre of crime fiction in general. This playful, and at times funny piece has fun with the very idea of novel writing, truth and techniques. Any criticism you might have thought of while reading the first part are dealt with soundly, and the whole thing sends your head spinning.

Reading the afterword and the introduction, it's clear that the author was a fan of modernist literature such as James Joyce - but it's postmodernist fiction that comes to mind when you're reading it. A classic, indeed.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's hard to imagine this book was first published 80 years ago. It's so knowingly post-postmodern that despite some archaic explanations it reads more like a university student's arch knowing dissertation of crime novels rather than a crime novel in itself (unlike such a thesis, however, it doesn't boast of it's own cleverness). From the opening statement - where the reader is warned of libeling the author - to the ending - where genuine literary critiques of other books have had their comments transposed to this title - McCabe's determination to pull out the rug from under everything - including himself - is paramount. Given the past few decades obsession with literature obsessively cross-contaminating literature and our expectations thereof, The Face On The Cutting-Room Floor must have been an even more baffling read in 1937, particularly for those seeking an 'ordinary' crime novel.

Without giving too much away, the central character - also Cameron McCabe - becomes involved in a suicide or murder and a subsequent murder or suicide, one of which he may or may not have committed. The book hinges around knowledge drip fed to the reader and then this information is challenged by McCabe - often in ingenious ways, eventually culminating in a trial whereby McCabe subverts all the allegations previously made in the book.

Sometimes this is a joy, occasionally it becomes a slow battle of dense repetition. And I did struggle at times to push through the pages and find some headspace. Overall, though, it justifies its existence and will be a novel that isn't easy to forget.

[Kelly · Rating 2 out of 5]

Great snappy dialogue, a nice little mystery, but the last 50 pages is what killed it for me. Took me 5 days to read those fifty pages. Really painful, overly pedantic critique of itself written by another character. The only reason why I'm giving it two stars instead of one is because the first 190 pages are pleasant enough to read.

[Andrew Davis · Rating 1 out of 5]

A crime story of murder in a film studio. I have attempted a few times to continue reading this novel but to no avail. I just could not put up with its spurious verbosity and nonsensical plot. Life is too short for this kind of rubbish, regardless of some literary value indicated by the professional critics.

[Owen DeVries · Rating 5 out of 5]

There's no good reason why a detective story published in 1937 should be so cussedly postmodern. But "The Face on the Cutting-Rom Floor" is just that. Over the course of 200 pages, our mysterious narrator - whose identity remained a secret until 1974 - dishes up enough intertextual intrigue and meta-narrative mischief to keep a Yale graduate seminar busy for a full semester. I'm not surprised that crime fiction author Julian Symons called this novel "the detective story to end all detective stories."

Here readers encounter a text within a text, a mystery story that keeps on returning to its own first principles, a possibly unreliable narrator, and a crazy-quilt deconstruction of the entire tale akin to what Roland Barthes attempted in "S/Z". The author of the book inevitably enters the story as a character - also as a murder suspect. Famous literary critics are eventually drawn into the mix, where they offer conflicted opinions in a cascade of misattributed quotes. Different interpretations of the texts clash and contradict each other - not just outside the text, but in the very pages of the novel. The extravagance of the whole is so extreme, that the reader barely blinks an eyelash when the author starts comparing his work to James Joyce's "Ulysses" and the paintings of Picasso.

In short, this is a novel that doesn't want to settle for being just a novel. It also wants to fill the role of a commentary on itself, and on the detective story genre in general.

The book starts out with no hints of the excesses to come. An actress's body is found in a film editor's office, the fatal wound either a sign of suicide or evidence of murder. But this straightforward opening gambit soon develops into a series of maddeningly complex variations. No fewer than three people step forward to confess to the murder. Then it turns out that a camera had filmed the whole event, and the footage indicates that the actress took her own life. Or did she?

But the reader ought not get too focused on this crime - it's all just misdirection. The real murder has yet to take place in this novel. And, yes, there is a detective, but he falls several notches below Sherlock Holmes - and, for all we know, might be a murderer himself. The fakeouts and stutter steps continue unabated until the novel's conclusion. Even the final page throws a parting curveball.

The experimental quality of the story coexists with a great degree of banality. Many scenes are awkward and formulaic, almost to an unbearable extreme. The dialogue often sounds like a bad parody of a Hollywood crime movie script - and the reader is not quite sure whether this is a sign of the author's clumsiness, or a part of a deliberate effort to poke fun at the movie industry. Many years later, when the author was identified as Ernest Borneman - the anglicized name of Ernst Bornemann, a refugee from Hitler's Germany who had settled in London - the real story behind the bad writing emerged: Borneman had arrived in his new country knowing very little English, and was still learning the language when he wrote "The Face in the Cutting-Room Floor".

Other writers have written books which keep returning to their own starting points - such as Raymond Queneau's "Exercises in Style" or Italo Calvino's "If On a Winter's Night a Traveler" - but the mystery genre is especially resistant to retelling and rereading. Once the reader know "who done it," once the puzzle is solved and justice served, the allure of the story dissipates. But Borneman delivers a quirky exception to the rule in "The Face on the Cutting-Room Floor," a mystery in which the same facts are recounted at each retelling. According to the author's own tabulation, the story is related nine separate times - but even that admission comes too soon, since at least two more retellings take place after the final count - include one from a dead witness.

Sir Herbert Read commented, when this novel was first released: "This thriller is cunningly constructed on the formula of the Hegelian triad: thesis, antithesis, synthesis." The author describes the same effect in more matter-of-fact terms, explaining that "every time the story is told you learn more about it, new clues are discovered, new facts disclosed, you see the thing from a new angle." Yet I'm not so sure - I suspect that some of these accounts do more to mislead than inform, and I could imagine more than a few readers debating the murderer's identity even after finishing this peculiar and unprecedented book.

[Gary · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of the weirdest books I have ever read. On one level it is a very intelligent and well thought out crime & detection novel. On another level it is a literary critique of crime novels and the ‘rules’ they are supposed to follow, with multiple points of view in a 63 page Epilogue and a 34 page Afterword! These include spoof reviews from real reviewers – including footnotes!

The author’s name on the spine is Cameron McCabe, which also happens to be the main character’s name. The story is written in the first person and purports to be his journal / a novel he wrote in lieu of a journal. The real author was Ernst Bornemann, a German immigrant who escaped Nazi Germany and spoke no English until four years before writing this novel – an impressive and admirable achievement.

One of the most infuriating aspects of this book is that the characters all speak like 1930’s/40’s LA gangsters, even though the story is set in London, so one instinctively reads it with an American accent (no, not aloud) but the places are English, so it doesn’t make sense. Imagine Humphrey Bogart and Jimmy Cagney in Piccadilly: it just grates. This style is explained and defended later in the book, where it is raised in the critique section of the book but it’s still bloody annoying.

The story itself concerns the death of a young woman in a film studio and the efforts made by the author (in a private capacity) and the police to find the killer. Later a man dies and at the end there is a third death. The author is one of the suspects.

The really clever part is that the story unfolds in stages, with extra bits of information discovered or revealed gradually and others disputed by other characters, given that the story is written from one character’s point of view. This is effective and feels realistic, rather than the way stories are often told with hidden details and a big revelation at the end. I won’t go into any further details about the plot, which is quite complex in any case, so you’ll just have to give it a go.

The epilogue goes on way too long and by the time I got to the afterword I was speed reading and barely taking it in. The only reason I finished it was that I hate not finishing a book, even if I’m not enjoying it. You are probably wondering why I gave this book four stars: it is because I admire the intelligence of the author, his amazing thought processes and plot planning, and his ability to write a good story. Yes, it is a good story, it’s just bloody hard work to get through. I haven’t decided whether this is a once-only read or will benefit from a second reading. I’ll keep you posted.

I must point out that I did not pay for this book. It was an advance proof copy and the bookshop - Red Lion Books in Colchester High Street, where I attended a book launch, was having a clear out, so I just put some cash in the charity box by way of not wanting to look cheap! (And to help people, of course :-))

[Cameron Blanchard · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I first finished the actual story within the book, the fictional aspect with a plot, I was bored, annoyed, and plainly confused. I chalked it up to a book trying to be too different from its genre, or maybe that it was too old, or maybe that I was too dumb to understand it.

I almost stopped reading at the Epilogue. If you are reading this book, definitely don’t do that. It’s odd and perhaps confuses even more, but it entices you to read the afterword, which helped me glean a much better understanding of this book.

This book was written under a pseudonym by Bornemann — at the age of 18 — and this man had just emigrated to England from Germany. He knew almost no English but wrote the book to better understand and learn English slang and idioms. THAT changed my perspective about this book entirely. Bornemann was confined by the genre he chose to write in, and I think the foreword (which I saved for last) expresses that exact sentiment. Imagine setting out to see if you can write something in a language you just learned, and the result is that you’re defined as someone who broke all the barriers around the crime novel. Impressive doesn’t begin to cover it. Bornemann’s life is even more so inquisitive than this book, and I highly recommend reading the Q&A at the end of the Picador version of this book to learn more about him. Film expert, jazz critic, professor of sexology — this man cannot sit still. I think this book reflects that.


Bornemann, speaking as McCabe, said that women will always get you in the end. Speaking as himself, he said that women were more superior to men in every way. He committed suicide after his affair was discovered at the very end of his life, at the age of 80. No matter how highly he esteemed women, he was right — they got him in the end.

I started this book because I wanted a good mystery read, and I didn’t get that. But I got a whole lot more than I was expecting in the form of nonfiction and in how it challenged me to question what a good mystery novel looks like and how an author’s own life can be melded into that picture.

Favorite quote, from the content of the book, comes on p. 289: “The climax of all slapstick comedy is the smashing of something — smashing crockery is very effective — but smashing a man’s skull is the real stuff.” In other words, we should want bullshit to be squashed, but those who love the crime genre value the excitement and mystery of the plot and deaths involved more. Death is the warped thing that drives us as we read.

[JM · Rating 4 out of 5]

Took forever and was not quite the be all and end all, apocalyptic final word on noir that I was told it was. It is easily the strangest book I have read in a while, it feels while reading it that the text is making fun of you as you're trying to play along with the investigation.
The set up is fairly simple, our protagonist (kinda) is Cameron McCabe a well respected film editor embroiled in the mystery of who killed a leading lady that he had been ordered to cut out of a film he is working on entirely. But throughout Cameron gives conflicting accounts as to the situation while at the same time repeating what happened. Then there is the narrative the author purports to be Cameron but it becomes clear that this can't be and then there is brilliant meta commentary on authorship and nature of fiction itself. In this edition there is also a great interview with the author real name Ernest Borneman who lived a massive life himself and wrote this novel essentially as a way to learn English. This makes the book even more impressive as it's questioning the genre of detective fiction through it's own parody of mystery, there is also just wonderful sequences particularly in the final chapter showcasing impressive dialogue and at the same time explaining the plot but without making you feel stupid. This is a twisted love letter to the genre as well as a send up of the problems in it that was confronted, an exploration of what or who is a protagonist and whether a satisfactory ending is owed to a reader.

[Gypsi · Rating 2 out of 5]

Going into this novel, it's best to know as little as possible about the plot, so as to preserve the surprises. The premise is that the book's author, Cameron McCabe, is narrating his experiences in the investigation of the murdered of an actress. After McCabe's manuscript ends, an epilogue follows, written by another character in the drama.

This book starts off at a frantic pace, pushed on by a stream-of-consciousness-narrative that doesn't always make sense and rarely stops for breath during McCabe's portion. Borneman does an admirable job of giving the epilogue author a distinctive voice, and that portion feels entirely different, though it felt entirely too long. There are many twists and turn in this bizarre and original mystery, but it was impossible for me to enjoy the story due to McCabe's prose.* The brief wrap up of the plot was too abrupt and, anyway, by then I was just so relieved to be nearly finished that the ending fizzled instead of shocked.

*Note: I say this as a fan of earlier stream-of-consciousness authors such as Woolf. It's not the style Borneman chose that is the problem -- it's his execution of it.

[BrokenTune · Rating 1 out of 5]

I found it a slog to read at the start, and after a break, this did not change in the middle or at the end.
The story surprised in that it is set in London, yet has all of the hallmarks of hard-boiled American crime noir – even down to the speech patterns of the characters. In short, the book has a lot of aspects that I very much do not enjoy in my vintage crime mysteries.

But I persevered because the plot promised a twist or two (if one can believe fellow reviewers), and I wanted to see what happend. Curiosity got the better of me. In the end, however, I felt that the clever twists were too clever for me and destroyed what little enjoyment I had in the story completely.

Sure, the author, whoever he was, was a clever guy. But there is clever and there is pretentious, and this book fell into the latter category for me. This probably is not surprising at all, because there seemed to be similar elements at play in this book as in John Dickson Carr’s The Hollow Man, which I also hated with gusto.
This one was not for me and I am so glad that I can return it to the library.

[Eve · Rating 4 out of 5]

I actually have no idea how many stars to give this book. It's one of the oddest I've ever read - certainly in the mystery genre. I found it alternatively tedious, bewildering, creative, poignant, irritating, insightful, surprising, and funny. I had to force myself to keep reading it at times... but there was no way I was going to stop reading it, because I wanted to know WHAT THE HELL WAS GOING ON. I'm giving it 4 stars because it is so original, in a way I think merits attention, and because I really enjoyed certain themes in the conclusion, which I can't write about without giving too much away. Did I like it? Not exactly, but I found it an intriguing literary experiment and I'm glad I finished it.

All that said, I only recommend reading it if you're very into Golden Age mysteries. It would probably be merely irritating otherwise. Which, again, I can't explain without spoilers. Julian Symons called it a "dazzling and perhaps fortunately unrepeatable box of tricks" and that's about right.

[Richard · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nighttime reading.

An interesting presentation by "McCabe" of the murder of a starlet who stole a movie with her acting. The issue is complicated by the contest between the Scotland Yard inspector Smith and McCabe upon whom the focus falls. In the resulting trial, McCabe scorches the prosecutor's "circumstantial" evidence. McCabe's text makes it to one of the witnesses, A.B.C. Muller, who does an extended critique of the work and an analysis of the trial, driving home elements that a reader might have missed, the mandatory rational explanation of what has occurred outside the framework of the trial.

Initially, I found the style and some of the dialogue off-putting because of the film jargon and the dry English ironies, but, overall, the story and its analysis were diverting and effectively entertaining.

The afterword contained information regarding the publication and reception of the work and ultimately revealed the author as Ernest Borneman[n].

[Chris Cowan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sometimes described as an intellectual masterpiece in a genre where intellectual brilliance is rare, also described decades later as puerile by the author himself on re-reading it. I’m with the author.

Written in the mid-30s, this is the very definition of ‘meta’ in as much as I properly understand that much-used word. Its narrator is also the main character, then he dies and a new narrator takes over. It’s totally self-referential, and I’d say right up its own arse: very pretentious and very tedious indeed. There are twists and turns, but nothing and no one makes me care enough about any of them. In the 2nd half I was skipping over the book’s analysis of itself. The first 100 or so pages are quite fun but then I start just stopped caring where it’s headed.

Recommended if you like cerebral reconstructions of genres novels, because I guess it’s quite clever in its way. Otherwise, I’d avoid

[Russio · Rating 5 out of 5]

I actually hated this to start with. It seems glib and casually racist and homophobic; clumsily written too. The only thing is that much of this is intended (the archaic views of non-hetero whites aside).

What emerges from this inauspiciously opening is the most devious of detective stories, all seemingly edits of the truth, as the writer (himself a pen name) writes and rewrites the same story, shifting the viewpoint and colliding truths into others until nothing seems true anymore.

And then, when a conclusion has finally been reached, he appends the novel with 40 pages of basically lit crit, slagging off what has come before and putting yet another spin on things. And it points out what it is doing as it does it, so as to keep you guessing right to the final line - and beyond.

A bonkers experiment!

[Elliott · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoy the concept of this more than the actual reading of it. we have an unreliable narrator and a framing device that our first narrator's work is then criticized by one of the characters from the story. it sounds incredible! it is, however, an extremely dry story. the first narrator tells the story over and over again, the details changing slightly each time, such that we never know what has actually happened. in fact, in the epilogue/framing device, a dead character returns - unclear whether the second narrator is being facetious with his writing - and there's yet another murder. or is there!? which seems to be the whole point of the book.

one of my favorite parts of the book was an interview with the author at the end, as his life seems incredibly bizarre.

[Stefano Solventi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un giallo davvero insolito, anzi un poliziesco, un legal-thriller, un noir, oppure niente di tutto ciò. "La faccia sul pavimento della sala di montaggio" (in italiano purtroppo tradotto col più esplicito m banalotto La ragazza tagliata nel montaggio) fu pubblicato da Ernst Bonemann nel '37 con lo pseudonimo di Cameron McCabe, che poi è il nome del protagonista-io narrante della vicenda, un montatore cinematografico rimasto coinvolto in uno strano, duplice omicidio (o forse un suicidio/omicidio). Ci sono i soliti (e insoliti) sospetti, confessioni improbabili, un ispettore di Scotland Yard dai metodi scivolosi, amanti enigmatiche, dialoghi in punta di cinismo à la Hemingway, elusioni sconcertanti. E un epilogo che colloca tutto su un piano meta narrativo intrigante.
Lettura sorprendente.

[Chris Cangiano · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really wanted to like The Face on the Cutting Room Floor. I am normally a fan of novels that go in for metafictional deconstruction and mystery novels that purposefully subvert genre tropes but this ended up being a slog. The heavy use of noir-ish slang (or pseudo-slang), overly quippy dialogue and the quite frankly word salad style of writing made it nearly unreadable for me. The last third of the novel consists of an epilogue by a previously minor character acting as an editor of the preceding text and makes clear what the author was trying to do with the novel as a whole and is interesting but for me it was a case of too little too late. It’s 2.5 stars for me but I will round up for sake of the rating system.

[James Lawther · Rating 2 out of 5]

McCabe’s prose is very slick with some of my favourite one-liners:

"The fat woman came and offered us Turkish cigarettes and little red cubes of sweet stuff that smelled like soap and tasted like hell."

Whilst very clever, this is not an easy book to read. You have to pay serious attention to the constantly developing plot and whip crack prose. The last fifth of the book, an epilogue that revisits the case — or as one critic described it “elaborate metatextual apparatus” — was maybe just a little too clever for its own good… Or maybe just a little too clever for me.

A little more at https://crimebooks.uk/?books=cutting-...

[Cat · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is hard to review - it's brilliantly written and incredibly self aware and meta, but I didn't enjoy the 'post-mystery' part of the novel. If I knew more about 1930s detective fiction and wanted to read satire of contemporary literary criticism before bed I'd have enjoyed this a lot more, so perhaps my rating is unfair. It's clearly very intelligent and I enjoyed the discussion of truth and perception very much. I'd say this is a book to study rather than to read for my own pleasure. I recommend for any university students out there

[Macqueron · Rating 2 out of 5]

Déception que ce livre soit disant novateur, mais qui gruge tout le monde en racontant l’avant, le pendant et l’après d’une série de meurtres, à coups de faux raccords et de mensonges éhontées, mais qui ne cache en fait pas grand chose. En tirant vers le roman noir, le livre tombe par ailleurs dans le cliché

[The_Cozy_Critique · Rating 2 out of 5]

Confusing and repetitious, but engrossing nevertheless. This is an unusual and unpredictable murder-mystery. And the mystery of who the author was is equally engaging. However, I did find the jargon off putting and the last 60 odd pages really let it down. I struggled to finish but forced my way through.

[Stevyn Colgan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an unusual and unpredictable murder-mystery. And the mystery of who the author was is equally engaging. The whole story is explained in a fine intro by Jonathan Coe. A worthwhile read for any lover of murder-mystery and an essential for scholars of the genre.

[Keith Astbury · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well the bottom line is it went on a bit! And the last part, from the perspective of another character was unnecessary and felt like the author showing off (and it was a struggle to bother reading it). It was a shame really because it had some really good moments.