FFB: An Air That Kills - Margaret Millar

In an effort to crank out more posts on the books I read this year I have come up with a formula that will highlight the aspects that I think make the books worth reading and I'll conclude with a "Things I Learned" section, which has grown out of my yearly post about the arcane information I have gleaned from my reading of these vintage books. In some cases I find so many fascinating bits of trivia, history and geography that I fill an entire index card separate from the notes I take on the content of the book and its story. This year I'll be talking about the "Things I Learned" for every book rather than saving up the most bizarre info I've collected for a post at the end of the year.

THE STORY: An Air That Kills (1957) is a perfect example of what Sarah Weinman likes to call "domestic suspense", a subgenre pioneered by women crime fiction writers in the post World War Two era. Elisabeth Sanxay Holding began writing about the dark underpinnings of marital discomfort and suburban malaise as early as The Death Wish (1935) but writers like Millar, Charlotte Armstrong and many others built upon the same ideas Holding first explored and delved deeper with ever increasing innovation. In An Air That Kills what first appears to be a soap opera of two unhappy married couples turns out to be a subtle story of a crime of passion, perhaps several crimes of passion if one interprets the phrase as a metaphor. Philandering husband Ron Galloway disappears en route to a fishing lodge for a weekend getaway with his buddies and the search for him develops into an exploration of suspected adultery, jealousy, marital deceit and a subtle and cleverly hidden murder mystery with some unexpected detective work.

THE CHARACTERS: Thelma Bream is one of Millar's most unusual creations. On the surface a model wife who is spookily like a 1950s Stepford wife in her parroting of her husband's wishes, her obedience, and devotion. But beneath this carefully cultivated mask of a perfect wife is a daydreaming, half crazed, hugely dissatisfied woman longing for a child. And she is willing to do anything to achieve her fantasies. She is filled with contradictions and simultaneously infuriates the reader with her rash behavior and near mad worldview while provoking ironic sympathy for her plight. The men tend to dominate the story and each one has a distinct voice and personality from the logically minded college professor Ralph Turee to Harry, Thelma's deluded husband.

There are a variety of very minor characters so well drawn and intriguing you wish that they had their own sequels so that you can get to know them better outside of their brief appearance in this story of Ron Galloway's vanishing. A chapter that takes place in a rural Canadian elementary school is a highlight with the character of a Mennonite girl and her two teachers trying to find out where she found a man's hat and if it might be tied to the news story of the missing man.

THE QUOTES: "He had a sensation that he and Harry were stationary and the night was moving past them swiftly, turbulent with secrets. To the right the bay was visible in the reflection of a half moon. The waves nudged each other and winked slyly and whispered new secrets."

"She slammed down the lid of the trunk, but the gesture, like Pandora's, was a little too late. Too many things had already escaped."

"The long erratic journey had ended for Harry. The crazed bird had grown weary, the misguided missile had struck a meteorite and was falling through space."

THINGS I LEARNED: In the school sequence Millar mentions in passing that two children are Doukhobors. What? I had to go looking that up. The Doukhobors were Russian dissidents who emigrated to the United States and Canada to escape religious and political persecution. They believe that God resides within all humans and not as a supernatural entity housed in a church. They rejected all traditional organized religions and the Bible. Instead, they created their own psalms and hymns to celebrate their beliefs. Their history is fascinating and I could write an entire post about this little known sect. For those who wish to be enlightened as I was I suggest you read the article on them at The Canadian Encyclopedia.

Esther and Thelma have an intimate tête-à-tête at a place called Child's. I thought at first Millar just made it up until I read the phrase "by the time they reached the nearest Child's" which seemed to indicate it was a real life chain. And of course it was. Child's was one of the earliest restaurant chains in the US and Canada. Started by brothers Samuel and William Childs in 1889 in New York's Financial district it was a pioneer in quick service, restaurant hygiene and was credited with the invention of cafeteria style tray service. According to the Wikipedia article (I know, but that's the only place that had info) the chain "peaked in the 1920s and 1930s with about 125 locations in dozens of markets, serving over 50,000,000 meals a year, with over $37 million in assets at the time." The article claims it was sort of the McDonald's of the early twentieth century. So ubiquitous and popular was the chain it has been immortalized in countless songs, stories, plays and musicals.

FFB: The Survivor - Dennis Parry

It's paradoxical that The Survivor (1940) is considered a ghost story. True, there is a malevolent spirit at work here exploiting the body of a naive young woman in order to continue a relentless assault of emotional abuse, verbal cruelty and psychological torture. What seems on the surface to be a story of supernatural possession and an exchange of souls, however, is really not much more than a family saga.

From The Dybbuk (1912) to The Exorcist (1971) tales of possession rely heavily on mystery and suspense and a search for reasons and causes of the soul's takeover. The characters are often faced with questions of faith as they delve into a realm of unfathomable supernatural beings, forbidden texts, religious rites and a struggle to reconcile the paranormal with the mundane. In The Survivor, however, there is no worry about religion, no wrestling with faith, and any talk of demons is metaphoric. The evil comes not from another dimension nor from a mythological underworld, but from Earth. He is wholly human, a nasty piece of work, but human all the same.

In life James Marshall was a monstrous bully, in death even moreso. Parry discards all manner of devils and demons and gives us a mortal man whose power in life extends beyond death. Marshall is a man so determined to make his family miserable that on his deathbed he manages to influence his malleable and terribly naive young ward to serve as his conduit of cruelty. When Olive promises that she will not let her "Uncle" James die from the influenza that has been decimating the town's population he takes advantage of her childish wish and manages to make a deathbed psychic connection with her.  Olive has previously been alarmed at the odd talent she has in thinking exactly what James Marshall has been thinking.  This is the only trace of the occult or paranormal that enters the story.  Parry's tale is less one of the mystery of why or how James took over Olive's persona, and instead a battle for control of a family and its wealth.

Parry begins his story with an unconventional sardonic, sometimes farcical, humor. At first James Marshall seems at his wit's end and his sarcasm is his saving grace. He endures his uptight, prissy spinster sister Eva and his layabout indifferent brother Roger without a trace of civility. In his role as local physician we see him doing his best to battle the flu epidemic sweeping the countryside and trying to educate his patent's families against indulging in ignorant folk remedies in favor of intelligent modern medicine. It's a losing battle that he will succumb to himself. Only on his deathbed does the humor give way to a domestic horror tinged with guilt and shame.

The reading of Marshall's will initiates his plot to conduct a reign of terror and mind games from beyond the grave.  He punishes Eva and Roger with meager financial legacies and reveals a past love named Delia Pond who receives a sizable amount of money, more than his blood relatives combined.  When Delia turns up unexpectedly at the funeral a shocking surprise is in store for the family.

Olive's behavior grows increasingly erratic and volatile. She lashes out in insults, bursts into hysterical laughter at the funeral, and cries out a charge of sexual assault. Just as quickly she returns to her docile innocuous self claiming to have blacked out and not remembering anything. But the family knows James' language, James' thinking, and most of all James' voice.  There is no question that Olive is not Olive at all.  No one needs to consult arcane books of forbidden knowledge nor call upon the local exorcist. The family deals with the problem not as one of ghostbusting but of soul watching, a constant vigil, and a revelation of long held family secrets that should never have been hidden.

The Survivor has been reprinted by Valancourt Books in their usual handsome paperback edition. The book includes an introduction by noted supernatural fiction maven Mark Valentine who discusses Parry's all too short novelist career (he died in a car accident at the age of 42) and draws similar conclusions as I did by calling the book a "realist ghost story".  I didn't read the intro until after I read the book and had made all my notes for this post. That both Valentine and I found Parry's unique approach to telling a ghost story of a malevolent possession by grounding it in reality and not the supernatural was very satisfying to me. It's the primary reason that The Survivor will appeal to readers who generally avoid ghost stories for their elements of fantasy and gruesome horror. The story still terrifies, but does so with its feet firmly planted in a very human world. Sometimes the most chilling stories are those we tell about our own families.