End of the Night
by John D. MacDonald
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Book Summary Information
Author: John D. MacDonaldEdition: Mass Market Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1987-01-12
ISBN: 0449131955
Publisher: Fawcett
Book Reviews of End of the Night
Book Review: History Is Blind, But Man Is Not
Summary: 5 Stars
Stephen King has compared John D. MacDonald's novel "The End of the Night" to Arthur Miller's "Death of A Salesman" and Theodore Dreiser's "An American Tragedy." Those are two classic American tragedies; MacDonald is still frequently regarded as a mere "pulp" writer. But King is right about this novel. It is compellingly readable but also ferociously ambitious; MacDonald's goal is nothing less than a wrenching examination of the randomness and absurdity of life; a big theme indeed.
The story is told from shifting perspectives: from the letter of a chatty prison guard, to the memoranda of a harrassed defense attorney, to the diaries of a death row inmate, to a sardonic, omniscient third-person narrator who mordantly comments from a God-like perch on the flailings of the characters. The story follows the spree of the "Wolf Pack" killers, a group of four who travel from state to state raping and killing for thrills. This novel was published in 1960, before all the chaos of that decade erupted. So the novelty, the shock and horror of such suddenly vicious crimes is vividly depicted. People thought those things simply didn't happen in America, although this novel is remarkably prophetic about the dark side of the youth revolution of the '60's.
The two most important characters are Kirby Stassen, the clean-cut, all-American college senior who becomes part of the "Wolf Pack"; and Helen Wister, their final and and most tragic victim. His prison writings detail how he slowly slipped down the slope from privileged, upper-class comfort into a noir underground. His tale involves his job with a Hollywood director and his movie-star wife. These two introduce Stassen into big-time decadence, with horrific consequences that trigger Stassen's final descent into evil. Helen Wister is in many ways Stassen's counterpart; beautiful, the darling of her hometown--but also possessing qualities Stassen lacks; genuine sweetness and innocence but also a savvy understanding that is however ultimately useless in the face of the savagery of the gang.
MacDonald illustrates through the fate of Helen Wister and the other victims how fate can seemingly single someone out for terrible tragedy for no discenable reason at all. But the author also chillingly lays out the intellectual rationalizations and self-deceptions of evil men and women in a way that doesn't let the killers off the hook. As Robert Penn Warren once wrote about fate: "history is blind, but man is not." We don't have total control over circumstances, but we still have responsibility over how we deal with them. On the last page of the novel a character describes how "he felt on the very edge of some cosmic equation which balanced a logic of love, innocence, accident and death. But it was gone before he saw its shape." This novel ponders, in an exciting way, that "cosmic equation."
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