The Ten Faces of Cornell Woolrich: An Inner Sanctum Collection of Novelettes and Short Stories

by Cornell Woolrich

10 Short Works:
-One Drop of Blood
-Somebody on the Phone
-Debt of Honor
-The Man Upstairs
-The Most Exciting Show in Town
-The Night Reveals
-Steps Going Up
-The Hummingbird Comes Home
-Adventures of a Fountain Pen
-I Won't Take a Minute

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction

286 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1965

About the author

Cornell Woolrich is widely regarded as the twentieth century’s finest writer of pure suspense fiction. The author of numerous classic novels and short stories (many of which were turned into classic films) such as Rear Window, The Bride Wore Black, The Night Has a Thousand Eyes, Waltz Into Darkness, and I Married a Dead Man, Woolrich began his career in the 1920s writing mainstream novels that won him comparisons to F. Scott Fitzgerald. The bulk of his best-known work, however, was written in the field of crime fiction, often appearing serialized in pulp magazines or as paperback novels. Because he was prolific, he found it necessary to publish under multiple pseudonyms, including "William Irish" and "George Hopley" [...] Woolrich lived a life as dark and emotionally tortured as any of his unfortunate characters and died, alone, in a seedy Manhattan hotel room following the amputation of a gangrenous leg. Upon his death, he left a bequest of one million dollars to Columbia University, to fund a scholarship for young writers.

Source: [http://www.hardcasecrime.com/books_bi...]

Reviews

[Shawn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read two stories out of this old collection - miraculously found for me by ILL - it's actually a tie in to the old horror/suspense radio show THE INNER SANCTUM (famous for it's creaking door!). When listening to transcriptions of the show about twenty years ago, I remember Raymond, your sardonic creep of a host, often hawking books in this series but never expected to read one.

"I Won't Take A Minute" starts with another Woolrich standard - a sudden, nightmarish scenario welling up out of nowhere in the everyday life of an average man. Here, our somewhat cynical main character has finally found a girl he loves and who loves him. They stop, before a planned night out on the town, so that she can run up to an apartment and drop something off for her boss. She never comes down. He waits and waits. Nothing. Finally, he searches for her and finds no trace (the apartment she was bound for is empty), eventually he brings in the police, who exhaust all the options available after searching the building and interrogating the inhabitants, casting the net wider and wider until her very existence in this world comes into question - did she really exist, is he crazy? The opening does a fine job sketching character, a tone, a relationship and an attitude through simple voice writing in first person. It's The Lady Vanishes (and a predecessor of Richard Matheson's "Dying Room Only") of course, and the answers, when they come, can never be as satisfying as the set up - as I've said before in other reviews, Woolrich has a penchant for weaving vast conspiracies into some short stories which he must invariably dismantle by the ending, usually to less satisfaction than the wind-up. There's some very nice mounting desperation (our narrator almost faints once or twice!) and a funny little grace note on the end (manly comeuppance!) but truly it's just an adequate story.

Not so "Steps Going Up" (aka "Guillotine") which is a masterpiece and should be more well known. It's perhaps the ultimate race-against-the-clock" suspense scenario ever devised by Woolrich, and also an interesting example of how true suspense writing can be almost deliberately amoral in its deployment (more on that in a second). We start with a condemned man in a prison cell, detailing his mundane last moments (the honorary glass of rum, last rites, the shaving of the neck, last cigarette) before he begins that long walk up the 21 steps to madame guillotine (this is present day France, 'natch, there is some talk of the "savage" Americans who fry their criminals with amperage). Cut into this forward progression are slices of flashback that ratchet up the tension as we learn the whole scenario that led the condemned man there and why he seems unperturbed by certain death - the robbery, the murder, the betrayal, the capture, and then the plot with his female accomplice to save him from the blade - all it takes is for the state executioner to die on the day the criminal is scheduled to be put to death. And so, out of love, she moves to put this into effect.

The two story threads eventually join at the scaffold, merging together seamlessly - and here is where that interesting amorality comes in. Much like those moments in heist movies where you realize that you want nothing more than the criminal's scheme to succeed (because you've seen all the hard work they've put into it), this story plays on those same discordant notes - you feel for the condemned man, because no one wants to die; you feel for his lover, because she works so hard to attempt to poison the executioner (some wonderful scenes of tension here); you feel for the executioner, first because he is a lonely man easily duped by a young beauty and then, later, an honorable man struggling against a dying body to do his final job, whatever the effort and cost! It's simply amazing and, on top of a killer plot, the writing just flows like water, with a marvelously sketched bar scene in a den of iniquity at the opening and some subtle twinning of actions (rolling the drunk in the opening versus poisoning the executioner, the executioner and criminal's struggles up the same scaffold steps). Those who read only for edification miss the chance to experience wonderful tales like this - a perfect exemplar (the work of P.G. Wodehouse is another) that the term "style over substance" is not always an insult and instead can hide the pure joy of effect-driven writing (which, to do well, is just as hard as edifying writing). I myself had to unlearn such dismissiveness and I'm a much happier reader for it. One of the most enjoyable stories I've ever read (with a killer last line too boot)!

[Stuart · Rating 4 out of 5]

A surprising new find for me. A great collection of "noir" style mystery stories. I knew of Cornell Woolrich vaguely from a writing credit on an episode of Darkroom ("Steps Going Up" was turned into an episode). I also know he wrote some Alfred Hitchcock plots. But I really enjoyed every story in this collection.

The plots are good, but it is the suspenseful build of each story that really grabs you. You never know what is happening. There are a few quirky coincidences. In one story the narrator even points out a once in a lifetime coincidence. Still, it is the journey in these stories that I enjoyed.

My favorite was "I Won't Take a Minute" where a man waits outside an apartment building for his girlfriend who has stopped off just to drop off a package for her employer. She never comes out, leaving him in a panic to figure out what happened.

Other great ones are "Steps Going Up" about a man on death row whose only chance to live is a traditional pardon granted if the executioner dies.

"Adventures of a Fountain Pen" tells the twisted tale of an exploding pen that goes from hand to hand before doing its job.

Highly recommend the collection.

[Holger Haase · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is no such thing as a bad Cornell Woolrich Noir collection but some are better than others and this one unfortunately features a handful of his more average tales together with some true classics like THE NIGHT REVEALS and I WON'T TAKE A MINUTE. It's also a beautifully designed hard cover with a very much idealised portrait drawing of the author on the back cover. If Goodreads allowed half points this would have been a 3.5 for me.

[Winnie Marth · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love it. Is it because of the language, or the way it’s being used? Is it the stories, or how it’s being told? I can’t tell. It just got under my skin.

Like in some of those worst dreams, you were staying close to watch, almost too close… No matter who they were, where they were, what they were doing, you were always magically shifted to a spot under the shadow, close but safely distanced, and watched. You knew it’s safe, for you, as you were aware that you were merely watching. You knew you were safe because from somewhere in your consciousness, you always knew it was a dream. However, from time to time, occasionally there was a feeling, and suddenly you became not that sure. Because you worried that they would find you, look into your eyes. Because you worried that the shadow that covered you would move away, anyway it was just a creation of your subconscious imagination. Because most of the time in your dream, your body didn’t listen to you even when you’d yield at it: escape…

Unlike these worst dreams, that usually wouldn’t announce their arrival, these stories only manifest themselves when you are ready. Well, believe me, that is much better. You’ll love the feeling when you are ready, and when you are watching, and when everything comes to an end.

Full review here https://drwinniemarth.com/2017/03/13/...

[Robert · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ten short stories. A decent read. None stand out necessarily, but worth the read.

[Neil · Rating 4 out of 5]

The unvarnished badness of the villains is what makes most of these stories work. These guys are unapologetically unredeemable. And I wanted all of them to win, well maybe not ALL of them. I mean the one guy’s poor mother is blind! These are fun stories which you’ve probably seen some version of fifty years later but they still work because he quickly creates characters you care about in conflicts you want to see play out.

[Jeff Hobbs]

Read so far:

One drop of blood --3
Somebody on the phone --2
Debt of honor (aka I.O.U: One life) --
The man upstairs (NA)--
*The most exciting show in town (aka Double feature) --
The night reveals --
Steps going up (aka Men must die) (aka Guillotine) (NA)--
The hummingbird comes home --
Adventures of a fountain pen (aka Dipped in blood)--
*I won't take a minute (aka Finger of doom) (aka Wait for me downstairs) --