(from the archives)
THE EXPENDABLE MAN, Dorothy B. Hughes
A resident at UCLA hospital reluctantly gives a teenager a ride on a
deserted road near Phoenix. Right from the beginning, he seems guilty,
worried, and we wonder if he perhaps is an unreliable narrator. His
actions seems blameless so why the fretting. The girl comes to his hotel
room later that night, demanding an abortion, which he refuses to do.
But after 50 or so pages of his fretting and pacing, we find out why he
is overly concerned and it changes everything we have thought about him
until that point. Irritatingly, many reviews will give this away so if
you plan on reading the novel, stay away from other reviews. I think
this moment in the novel is far too important to be divulged.
Written in
1963, THE EXPENDABLE MAN was one of Hughes' last works and it reflects
much of what is coming in the later sixties. Although she didn't die for
another thirty years, her only other writing seems to be a biography of
Erle Stanley Gardner.
I found this to be a moderately exciting read, although I must confess
that Hughes' progressive thinking in some areas is undercut by her
judgmental attitude in others. Perhaps this reflects the time but she
comes down very hard on doctors who provide abortions and girls who need
them. It is well written and the characters are deftly drawn. We get a
good sense of Phoenix at the time. All in all, a good if not perfect
read.
8 comments:
You make a good point about book reviews, Patti. They often do give away pivotal moments that would be much better discovered by the reader - at least I think so. I like the setup for this one, too.
I agree, from what I remember. This was one of the books reprinted in the Avon Classic Crime Collection of paperbacks in the early 1970s, along with books by Hilda Lawrence, Simenon, Dick Francis, Charlotte Jay, Vera Caspary, Robert Van Gulik, James Hadley Chase, Amanda Cross, Rex Stout, Michael Innes, Philip MacDonald, John Dickson Carr, Emma Lathen, C. P. Snow (DEATH UNDER SAIL), and W. Somerset Maugham (ASHENDEN).
I loved those AVON Classic Crime Collection paperbacks. I just picked up the Amanda Cross IN THE LAST ANALYSIS yesterday!
I had the whole series but over the years, I got rid of all of them other than the two Maigrets.
Societal attitudes change over time. Someone born in 1904 may not have the same attitude toward abortion rights as sommeone much later. Luckily many people also grow as they age, sloughing off some feelings they once have been told were proper. Despite excessive propaganda from the right ever since they adopted their abortion stance because they needed a social issue they could exploit, the right for a woman to chose remains strong in most states. Once the far-right syncophants are voted out of office, things may turn around even more for the pro-choice forces.
Michael Crichton won a 1969 Edgar for A CASE OF NEED (written under his "Jeffrey Hudson" pen name). That novel had a strong anti-abortin stance, making it unreadable for me. That novel was published five years after THE EXPENDABLE MAN and Crichton was born 38 year after Hughes. Things have changed a bit since both books came out.
It seems heartless now. Not just outmoded.
I feel certain if there were legal abortions in 1947, I would not be here.
Yes, it's notable how thoroughly "abortionist" in pop culture in the '50s and into the '60s was meant, in most cases, to be synonymous with "back alley abortionist" (guess it helped the lurid nature of everything that way). Even a fine mid-50s Damon Knight story, "You're Another", has a little sour drop of this in it.
Two women who have been vitally important to me have had abortions, for better than good reasons, and no doubt others have had them that I'm not aware of, which is more than fine. (One was living in a country where contraception was intentionally made difficult to obtain, and abortion was the usual default for women and girls there--defining heartless as well as perhaps an attempt to drive up the population.) And another friend, a staunch anti-abortionist, would probably disgust the fanatics inasmuch as she has neither religious nor medical objection to Plan B and other situations in which the post-conception zygote might not be allowed to implant. She does see a fetus as of equal rights with the pregnant woman or girl. I certainly disagree. So it will go for quite some time.
Glad you're here, Patti...and sorry if that certainty in any way has made you feel guilty over the years.
Crichton was a fool in many ways.
I want to read more books by Dorothy Hughes and I have several on my shelves, including this one. I agree with you on reviews giving away important plot points. Sometimes I won't read reviews before I read a book because of that.
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