I do not understand that Mysterious Press cover. Is it some weird attempt to sell the book as ‘chick lit’? Because too many ‘modern’ men are going to be terrified of a book with ‘pink’ in the title already. This is a gritty and atmospheric novel that showcases Hughes skill at rendering lost men struggling to find their way without the traditional cultural handholds. As usual, she’s brilliant as she allows the downward spiral to snake all the way down. But you knew that, right? Chandler told you.Sailor is a hood from Chicago, thrust into the wild frontier of New Mexico, looking for his boss, the Senator, who betrayed him while setting up the murder of the Sen’s wife. He discovers that he’s not the only one following the boss: Mac, a cop from the Windy City, has made his way to this desert town, too. But is he after Sen — or Sailor?The desert and its people confuse Sailor, but his habits of thought give way to new discoveries — and new alliances — without understanding why. The fiesta with its ritual observances casts an almost uncanny shadow over the town for this Catholic boy. His confusion about what’s right and wrong — and who is really a friend — demonstrate his confusion and anger. He has chances to avoid his noirish fate; he almost takes some of them.Like all Hughes novels, there’s a boatload of awesome quotes. Here’s a few:In destroying evil, even puppet evil, these merrymakers were turned evil…Fire-shadowed, their eyes glittered with the appetite to destroy.He didn’t know why giving her a ride had been important…whether it was placating an old and nameless terror. Pila wasn’t stone now; she was a little girl, her stiff dark hair blowing behind her like the mane of the pink wooden horse.And standing there the unease came upon him again. The unease of an alien land, of darkness and silence, of strange tongues and a stranger people, of unfamiliar smells, even the cool-of-night smell unfamiliar…The panic of loneness; of himself the stranger although he was himself unchanged, the creeping loss of identity.‘Only the Indians are proud peoples…Because they do not care for nothing. Only this their country. They do not care about the Gringos or even the poor Mexicanos. These people do not belong to their country. They do not care because they know these peoples will go away. Sometime.’And the rage was eating him again.The Sen said something to Iris Towers and she slanted her eyes up at him and the smile on her mouth was the way you wanted a woman to smile at you. The way you didn’t want a woman to smile at a murderer.The whole town was a trap. He’d been trapped from the moment he stepped off the bus at the dirty station. Trapped by the unknown, by a foreign town and foreign tongues and the ways of alien men. Trapped by the evil these people had burned and the ash that had entered their flesh.Another dance. A warrior dance, the dancers lunging at each other, without warning letting out startling whoops. It made him jumpy. Then it was over, the dancers jingling away on soft feet, the drum beating away into silence. The crowd broke, speaking silly things to exorcise the spell.And I could have gone on and on. Hughes is a great stylist who captures an unsettling sense of tension and dread incredibly well. Not enough people read her. They’re missing out.
Decades before Cormac McCarthy, Dorothy Hughes seems to have created and mastered a style that is six parts craggy, hard-boiled prose, three parts dense, lyrical inner narrative and one part numinous magic. And she deploys this style more effectively, in the service of a more taut, gripping story than I am certain McCarthy can (my experience with him being confined to admiring some of his stylistic quirks while failing to complete any of his novels).This novel is a noir and crime classic, and deservedly so. It's a lean, haunting tale of a gangster at the end of his tether, trailing his erstwhile master for one big payoff before he makes a break for a new life. Only, we slowly learn that it isn't that simple; you can't build a new life on the ill-gotten gains of the old and retribution comes a-knocking in the form of a determined homicide cop, hot on the heels of Sailor, slum kid turned slick hoodlum and the Sen(ator), his former boss. They're in a town near the Mexican border, a place where the annual fiesta is taking place. Hughes uses this exotic background and the confluence of Indians, Hispanics and gringos to add an exotic touch to the narrative, underscoring major beats in the plot with scenes of great mythic and visceral resonance drawn from the festivities in this town or from Sailor's encounters with the locals: a man who runs a ramshackle merry-go-round and emerges as a sort of tentative father figure and good angel, a little Indian girl in town for the fiesta who evokes Sailor's own lost innocence and a meeting with the Fates in the form of three Spanish slum women who administer herbal medicine to Sailor. And then there's the policeman, Mac, who emerges both as a good twin and rejected mentor to Sailor, long ago thrown over in favour of the seductive, sly and treacherous Senator. There are reveries on religion, morality and the choices we make and their consequences, there are pivotal points when Sailor can still take a turn that leads him back to a good life; but perhaps it is a false hope, and there are some decisions that we can never turn back from. There seems to be some amount of racial stereotyping here, with the Indians portrayed as a stony, dark-eyed race of monoliths who have watched the ages pass and will survive their momentary conquerers; the Spaniards are failed conquerers gone native and so forth. I'm not sure it amounts to racism - Sailor uses racist language, but what else do you expect from a Chicago gangster? I think Hughes is using the possibilities of her exotic setting to highlight different ways of thought and bring in a broader cultural set of perspectives to Sailor's life and choices. To acknowledge and make use of the fact that your characters are of different races isn't necessarily the same as being racist, even if some of the treatment does venture into stereotypical territory. In short I liked this book a lot; Hughes is going to be up there with Hammett, Chandler and Thompson in my pantheon of noir writers if her remaining novels are of this calibre.
What do You think about Ride The Pink Horse (2002)?
Even if you are a fan of noir crime fiction as I am, and despite some intriguing supporting symbolism in the novel – the fiesta, the merry-go-round, Sailor’s hanging about with people very much like those he came from - you might want to avoid this vintage 1946 piece.I was reminded that back when Dorothy Hughes wrote this for the pulps, I imagine, or a pulp publisher, you were paid by the word, and it is sadly obvious here.This would have made a far better long story or novella than a novel –it feels as if there is enough padding here to make a skinny person into Old Saint Nick himself – sadly, it is not as interesting as our friend Santa.
—Bill
Wow, every Dorothy Hughes book i read is different, but always hard boiled literary pulp. Prefiguring patty highsmith, and jim thompson, Hughes brings a fresh noir palette to each book. Ride the Pink Horse has a wild carnival atmosphere set in a small new mexico town, with Sailor, one of the greatest greasy gangsters with a heart of gold you will meet. Strangers on a train level sweaty nervous tension meets under the volcano existential fiesta noir or sonething.so cinematic, there is a movie, directed by quirky actor director Robert Montgomery. I am going to watch that tomorrow night.
—Josie Boyce
I tried very hard to enjoy this book, but perhaps I am not a mystery-oriented person. Still, I can respect the mastery with which Dorothy Hughes approached the tale. I particularly enjoyed Sailor. So much potential, but he simply could not overcome himself and killed the one man who could grant him a new life. Some people are beyond redemption, while others - like Sailor - don't want it in the first place.It was hard for me to overcome the overwrought text. I barely made it through the first seventy pages. How many lines can I read that describe Sailor angrily looking for a hotel room and being disgusted/terrified/fascinated of Mexicans and indians? Yes, I know that a man from Chicago in the 40s must have felt that he was a stranger in a strange land, but as a lifelong So. Cal. native it all felt very familiar and therefore Sailor's racial anguish grew tiresome. Oh well. A fine book all in all, but I think I will take my leave of mysteries.
—Christian
