I didn’t want to look in the damn mirror any more. That’s why I parked the car and started walking in the rain. What was stopping it from happening now? Why was I me with some kind of lucky charm around my neck that kept me going when I was better off dead? Maybe I would be washed down the sewer with the rest of the rottenness sometime. Maybe I liked it too much to taste anything else. what could possibly be the reason for existence when there was no good in me? None at all. And to the good there was only the perplexing question: Why did I live and breathe now. One day I would die and the world would be benefited by my death.

Goddamn, he wouldn’t let me alone! He went on and on cutting me down until I was nothing but scum in the butter, his fists slamming against the bench as he prophesied a rain of purity that was going to wash me into the sewer with the other scum leaving only the good and the meek to walk in the cleanliness of law and justice. A judge has just reamed him out for doling out street justice.

On the contrary, the bulk of chapter 1 focuses on Hammer’s complicated emotional life and his struggle to make sense of who he is. Someone whose life revolves around violence, who doesn’t shy away from it, and yet who is definitely not a one-note character. We’re introduced immediately to a rich, complex character. It’s like this dumb joke I tell about why I don’t love the Beatles: “Eh, they sound just like every other band I’ve ever heard.”īut aside from some dated language, this chapter felt surprisingly fresh. Readers’ tastes have changed, and what was novel and shocking in 1951 can feel trite today. How do you separate the universal features of effective writing from those that are particular to time and place?Īfter all, it’s been nearly three quarters of a century since One Lonely Night was published. There’s an interesting challenge in trying to draw lessons from crime novel classics.

One lonely night by mickey spillane