Vive le marié!

by Day Keene

178pages. 11,7cmx18cmx1,3cm. Poche. La petite chapelle empestait les corps pas lavés, le whisky bon marché et les rêves enterrés depuis si longtemps qu'ils sentaient le pourri. La mort, mes frères, n'est qu'une illusion , proclamait le petit bonhomme à brioche. Pour moi, la Mort était une brune aux jambes fuselées, avec un diamant grand ccmme un bouchon au quatrième doigt, enveloppée dans un vison de trois mille dollars, pas tout à fait assez ample cependant pour dissimuler trois petits trous sous un sein pigeonnant.

Genres: Crime, Noir, 20th Century, Mystery

192 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1954

About the author

Day Keene, whose real name was Gunnar Hjerstedt, was one of the leading paperback mystery writers of the 1950s. Along with writing over 50 novels, he also wrote for radio, television, movies, and pulp magazines. Often his stories were set in South Florida or swamp towns in Louisiana, and included a man wrongly accused and on the run, determined to clear his name.

Reviews

[Dave · Rating 5 out of 5]

Like Thompson’s “The Getaway,” which came out four years later in 1958, Keene’s “Joy House” is a meditation on sin, guilt, and the descent into hell.

It’s protagonist is not one you’d call a hero in the classical sense. He’s a crooked lawyer, a liar, a cheat, a wife-Killer, and he can’t let anyone know who he really is.

It all begins in a Chicago mission where Mark Harris wakes up after losing five weeks, five weeks where he doesn’t know what happened or what he did. All he knows is that he’s a desperate man on the run, a wealthy lawyer to the Stars who cut corners and ethics and freaked when his wife Maria threatened to go the state Bar with evidence of his wrongdoing. He knows he wrestled the gun from her hands and that in anger he left her with bullet holes in her chest, fleeing up the coast, drinking to make the pain go away, and watching his car go over a Monterey cliff. Although the authorities may have thought his body washed out to see, Harris knows his wife’s brother will never believe it and never stop looking. And here he is another broken down dirty stinking bum in skid row.

That’s all in the first couple of pages. And then the story starts grooving as a do-gooder angel who has a figure he can’t ignore and who volunteers at the mission makes eyes at him. May, who is richer than the Vanderbilts, is going to reform him. And he’s going to be her chauffeur, if she ever stops running her hands over him enough to let him drive.

But, he’s been warned that May might be an Angel, but she’s kind of a crazy angel who lives in a rundown mansion all boarded up. Indeed, living there in this creepy place with this rich widow and her maid is downright creepy.

Harris is consumed by guilt. He can’t stop seeing images of his wife and imagining people are watching him. Every creak in the old house has him on edge.

It’s a short novel, but Keene keeps it tight and focused right up until the end.

[Carla Remy · Rating 5 out of 5]

11/2020

From 1954
A perfect meshing of a gothic novel and one of noir crime. Includes an epic (and freezing) scene of corpse disposal.

A Year or so Later:
I upped the rating from 4 to 5 stars, because of what I said in this review, and because I love this book in memory.

[Kurt Reichenbaugh · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an appropriate novel for Lion to have published. The anti-hero of the story is a hot shot lawyer named Mark Harris on the run after murdering his wife. After a long drunken blackout he resurfaces in a Chicago homeless shelter where he meets an attractive volunteer named May Hill. May sees something different in our hero than just another drunken bum and offers him a job as her chauffeur. Mark, afraid his crime will catch up to him, takes up May's offer. Using an assumed name he moves into May's crumbling mansion. May is a widow, after her rich old husband was murdered ten years before. She now lives alone with her assistant named Adele. So, this is a noir novel and everyone has a secret they're hiding. The screw tightens, Mark and May begin a strange sexual affair, lying to each other that they're in love. Mark feels that people are watching the house. May wants to get married right away and move to South America. Mark hears laughter and footsteps in the empty house. Paranoia and drinking ensue. It's a good, if a bit strange, novel. Closer to Jim Thompson than any other Day Keene novel I've read. This also has some really nice writing in it. Worth seeking out, or getting in the Stark House Press edition.

[WJEP · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mark Harris is on the run and haunted by the memory of his dead wife — the one he murdered. For retribution, Day Keene runs Mark through a "pink plush-lined sausage grinder" by the name of May Hill. Keene skillfully sets you up for several twisted endings but then gives you one that wasn't in the catalog.

Contrary to the title, the main setting was an overheated Chicago brownstone "that smelled of powdered feminine flesh, expensive perfume and spilled blood."

[Joe Nicholl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Day Keene is always a blast! I saw the ending of Joy House coming up a mile away but who cares....Sleep With the Devil will always be my favorite Day Keene novel but Joy House is a lot of fun...Goodis is great but Keene edges him out as my fave '50's author....4.0 outta 5.00!

[AC · Rating 5 out of 5]

Of the three Day Keenes I read this week, this was the strongest…, though Sleep with the Devil was also pretty solid. Keene’s writing is prosaic, and his characters and tropes are all formulaic and commonplace in 1950s noir. And there is always the tincture or aroma of artificiality.

But where Keene excels is in his ability to weave these nasty little plots, whose endings are neither quite expected (though the ending does start to dawn on you as you approach it) nor at all implausible, but grow rather organically and twistedly out the story line.

And so, while not the absolute greatest of noirs, they definitely have a unique appeal to them.

[Cynthia Orszag · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mark, un avocat cu sânge rece, extraordinar de chipeș, isi ucide sotia într-o seară de beție, iar apoi isi insceneaza moartea. Fratele victimei, Cass il cunoaste insa foarte bine pe cumnatul sau si stie cat este de inteligent si e convins că trăiește, ca nu s-ar fi sinucis.
Mark isi schimba identitatea si se angajează ca sofer la o văduvă excentrică. Noaptea aude zgomote, râsete, pasi si se simte captiv, cu toate că nimeni nu il tine "sub cheie".
Incepe o aventură cu angajatoarea lui, care are un apetit sexual extraordinar, prea mult si pentru el, dar lucrurile devin din ce in ce mai ciudate in interiorul casei cu gratii la fereastra si lacate.
Mark si May, deși atrași foarte tare unul de celălalt, se mint reciproc ca se iubesc, fiecare din motive diferite.

Fragmente interesante

Apetitul lui May nu avea limite, iar eu toata noaptea plăteam pentru hainele scumpe si toate atentiile primite in timpul zilei. Acum voia sa ma insor cu ea. Un lucru era sigur: pentru a-mi păstra titlul de soț al milionarei Hills, va trebui sa muncesc din greu noapte de noapte."

Un alt paragraf foarte fain se refera la comparatia pe care Mark o face intre activitatea lui ca avocat si un preot fanatic " Singura diferenta dintre noi doi, e ca el chiar crede ce spune"

[Ann-Marie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mark Harris is a crooked lawyer on the run for murder. He's an unlikable character and he even acknowledges that he's a heel and a coward. What makes Joy House an intriguing read though is that while Mark is so caught up in his troubles and thinks he's found a temporary safe hideout in Chicago with a mysterious woman who took him into her home — and bed — he slowly discovers that she has her own dark secrets too.

I loved the surprise twist ending. It was a perfect conclusion to this noir mystery thriller.

Movie adaptation:

Les Félins (1964)



Starring Alain Delon as Marc, a playboy who escapes the wrath of a gangster only to find himself in another situation that may be just as dangerous.



The book is a little darker in tone, but the movie still has a foreboding atmosphere about it that works beautifully in contrast to the setting of the bright and sunny French Riviera.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

First person narrative of a descent into hell, Noir/Gothic/pulp. First published in 1954 by cheapo paperback purveyor, Lion Books. Filled with the kind of sex that lead the revolving paperback rack at the back of your local Five & Dime store to be off limits to kiddies!
Set mostly in Chicago, one of the many places Keene lived during his life, he really gets it right. Marshall Fields, the lakefront, newspapers, crumbling old elegant neighborhoods, and the Skid Row of W Madison Street.
My thanks to Stark House, who made this now not inexpensive PBO affordable as an ebook 3-Pack of Keene novels at $6! Good Intro as well (David Lawrence Wilson - ?????), mostly about this novel of the 3. Some "typos" - I was scared, with the first one turning up in the very first sentence, but there are less than 10 in the whole, short, novel.
You'll probably figure out what is gonna happen by the end. But not how, and that keeps you on the edge of your seat, and reading this quick, short pulp. Great stuff! Just builds such atmosphere - punching the boarded up house, the heat, the cold (coldest October ever in Chicago, he thankfully explains), the time table to leave, and the noises in the otherwise empty house over and over again......

[femcel fatale · Rating 2 out of 5]

it took a real GOAT to turn slop like this into the best movie of all time. for a book that's only ~130 pages long it's also shockingly sluggish.

[Jeffrey Powanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyable Fifties pulp fiction by Day Keene (real name Gunard Hjerstedt). It was originally published in 1954 by Lion Books, which also published noir thrillers by Jim Thompson and David Goodis. This lean thriller features only three characters, the narrator, who is a murderer on the lam, a young Chicago heiress, and her maid. That's it, all three of them packed in a boarded-up Chicago mansion. It moves swiftly and has a nice twist at the end. The book was adapted into a wacky 1964 Rene Clement film starring Jane Fonda as the maid, Lola Albright as the heiress, and Alain Delon as the playboy.

[Kayla · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of the few instances where I would recommend the movie over the book. It's just not the same without Alain Delon and Jane Fonda.