Rendezvous in Black

The introduction to this novel says that Woolrich has been described as the "Hitchcock of the Written Word," but adds that maybe he wouldn't have liked this description. It might be even more accurate to say that Hitchcock is the Cornell Woolrich of the cinema - since many of Woolrich's works came before Hitchcock's, and Hitch even adapted one of Woolrich's stories into one of his most famous movies, Rear Window. The point, though, is that this guy writes suspense like you've never seen. I say "seen" because reading his novels is really a visceral experience. I don't know how he does it but Woolrich can write a beautiful, elegant story that you can sort of just almost SEE unfolding like a movie --- a movie that will move you emotionally and also scare the bejesus out of you. Rendezvous in Black contains six interlinked stories about six doomed love affairs threatened by violence. Five of these are labelled "The First Rendezvous" through "The Fifth Rendezvous." The sixth is the story that ties them all together (but it comes first in sequence). I don't want to spoil the experience of reading this book for anyone, but overall it is just amazing and I cannot recommend it more highly. Woolrich, as has been noted here already, was a protege of F. Scott Fitzgerald's. Like Dashiell Hammett, he's an author who makes mysteries somehow as beautiful as what passes for "literature" - yet so emotionally gripping that you hardly notice till you are done how beautiful the craft of what you just read really was. The characters are spectacular and each one is described with wonderful psychological details. One of my favorites is this description of the police detective: "He was too thin, and his face wore a chronically haggard look...His manner was a mixture of uncertainty, followed by flurries of hasty action, followed by more uncertainty, as if he already regretted the just preceding action. He always acted new at any given proceedings, as if he were undertaking them for the first time. Even when they were old, and he should have been used to them." Little gems like this are on almost every page of this book and they make for a wonderful reading experience you won't forget. I envy anyone about to read Cornell Woolrich for the first time. This book is a great place to start.

This is a suspense story in which one knows the killer and his victims and where there is nothing random about his choice of victims. The murders are acts of revenge against an unpremeditated, accidental death - a death that one can only characterize as 'fateful.' A bottle has been thrown from an airplane, killing a young woman standing by a store window in a busy street. She is waiting for her fiance. Out of the hundreds of people walking that street, it is she who has been dealt this fatal blow. It is an accident that could not have been foreseen, though it can be argued, that its negligence might have been anticipated. That is the beginning of the story. Woolrich wastes no time in setting the psychological tone. Her fiance arrives at their place of rendezvous, the scene of the accident, looks at the stricken woman, denies that it is his "Dorothy", then leaves the scene. Despite this initial denial, he knows, of course, that it is she, and from that moment a cataclysmic change occurs in his personality and his present world falls apart - a world of romance, marriage and well being. He sheds all innocence and becomes a man singularly possessed - a man seeking revenge against the carelessness of other men - determined to have them pay for this carelessness in the same way he has been forced to pay - destruction of what they prize most. It is a story, wonderfully told - direct, gripping and so thoroughly credible that you read through it quickly, hoping against hope that it will have a happy ending. But it doesn't.

How could anyone not love Cornell Woolrich? He ranks right up there with James M. Cain, Dashiell Hammett, and Raymond Chandler as one of the godfathers of pitch-black noir. Unfortunately, Woolrich's voluminous short stories and his many novels for the most part remain out of print. No excuse exists to merit such blatant disrespect. Happily, several Woolrich works have begun to reemerge to the delight of noir fans. For example, Woolrich biographer and all around noir aficionado Frances M. Nevins edited a collection of fourteen delightfully bleak stories in the recent "Night & Fear." Now we have "Rendezvous in Black" thanks to the Modern Library publishing house. We can only hope that other novellas head to store shelves soon, specifically "The Bride Wore Black" and "Night Has A Thousand Eyes." But even more fascinating than his stories is the author's life. Cornell Woolrich lived from one black depression to another. He worshipped his mother, drank incessantly, and kept his true sexuality repressed. It was an overriding fear of his mortality and the cruel randomness of the world around him, however, which fueled his desolate visions. Sad to say, but Woolrich's miseries have given generations of fans something to sing about ever since. "Rendezvous in Black" excels as an archetype of white knuckled, totter on the edge of your seat noir, a story even better than the author's phenomenal and oft copied "I Married a Dead Man." This yarn concerns the activities of one Johnny Marr, an ecstatic young man set to marry the love of his life. When his girl, Dorothy, perishes in a freak accident involving a bottle dropped from a low flying plane, Marr's sanity melts away. The desolate young lover discovers the names of five men who bear the blame for the tragedy that destroyed his life, and he promptly embarks on a mission to wreak bloody revenge on these strangers. Marr will go after the people these men love the most in life, using any tricks he can muster in an effort to avenge his shattered life. Woolrich makes sure the reader understands exactly how far gone Marr is in the first chapter, as we see the young man continue to turn up at the couple's favorite meeting place night after night, waiting desperately for a woman who will never show up. Marr's activities assume a mindless repetition, an unremitting yet senseless hope that Dorothy will eventually appear, thus setting the tone for his single minded, relentless revenge plots later on. A rendezvous for each of Marr's enemies, five in all, unfold with cold, methodical precision. The first rendezvous achieves the least suspense of the five, a short chapter serving as a post-mortem of Marr's first act of revenge. It is here we learn how Marr will attack his enemies (through important women in their lives), and meet the cop, Detective Cameron, who takes on the case. The second rendezvous will set your nerves on edge as an illicit affair leads to disastrous consequences, including a vengeance seeking wife

At last! "Rendezvous in Black," the greatest suspense novel from the greatest suspense writer of all time, Cornell Woolrich, is back in print in a handsome trade paperback edition. Do not pass up this chance to encounter one of the most startling, emotionally rattling, and beautifully written pieces of noir in American literature. "Rendezvous in Black" is nothing short of a masterpiece: strange, horrifying, sometimes illogical, stark, achingly poetic, and ultimately devastating.Cornell Woolrich (1903-1968) was the father of noir. Originally an author of `disaffected youth' novels in the jazz era, Woolrich turned to suspense and mystery stories for the pulp magazines in the mid-thirties. In 1940 he wrote the novel "The Bride Wore Black," kicking off a hugely creative period in which he wrote eleven novels (sometimes under the pseudonyms William Irish or George Hopely) between 1940 and 1948, concluding with "I Married a Dead Man" (available in the compilation "Crime Novels: American Noir of the 30s and 40s" and also one of his best works). Woolrich then entered a long phase of writer's block, turning out a few more novels and stories before he died an alcoholic recluse. His work is deeply concerned with doom and fate, people trapped in an uncaring world, the slow loss of love, and the inevitability of death. Through it all flows his incredible sense of pacing -- he can wring you dry with "races against the clock" that make your chest pound like race car piston -- and his stunning word magic that can break your heart with just a sentence."Rendezvous in Black" is the second-to-last novel of his major period, and it seems to return to the plot of "The Bride Wore Black"...at least on the surface. In "The Bride Wore Black," a woman named Julie Kileen loses her husband to a bizarre accident on their wedding day. Julie then goes on a quest to track down the five men she believes are responsible for the accident, and kill them one by one after inserting herself into their lives. "Rendezvous in Black" reverses the sexes, and adds an extra twist. Johnny Marr, an anonymous, average young man, loses his fiancee a few days before their marriage in a weird, bolt-from-the-blue accident (the perfect Woolrich example of the random cruelty of the universe). Marr eventually snaps, and discovers the identities of the men he feels are responsible for the accident. He then seeks to slowly, meticulously track down each one, discover who the most important woman in the man's life is (daughter, wife, protege), and kill her, so that man will forever know the pain that he feels.It's a grim, frightening premise. Woolrich repeats the episodic structure of "Bride": after the opening chapter introducing the main character and his quest, each chapter after that switches to the P.O.V. of the next person on Marr's `hit list.' But "Rendezvous" isn't just a rehash of "Bride." As Woolrich's biographer, Francis M. Nevins, pointed out, it is "Bride" as it should have been, written with

Plot summary: Ordinary young man loses the love of his life and vows revenge on people who took her from him: once a year, on the anniversary of her death, he will take the love of their life from one of them. A lone policeman becomes suspicious, but cannot convince anyone else that there is a pattern behind the deaths.This is last book in Woolrich's "Black" series of books, and is reminiscent of "The Bride Wore Black", the first book in the series. It is a fascinating portrayal of a young man turning from a cipher into a force of nature to avenge his loss. Although episodic in nature (giving the prelude, revenge incident, and aftermath for each of the five men he holds responsible for his love's death), each episode is tied together and the intensity of feeling and suspense builds nicely. Although there are some major lapses in continuity and logic (eg. - one episode crucially happens after the end of World War II, while the following episode crucially happens *during* World War II), Woolrich is able to sweep you along so that you either don't notice these flaws, or you don't care about them.