Frank Townsend is knocked unconscious by a falling piece of plaster. When he comes to, he wanders home to find his apartment empty and his wife gone. He tracks his wife down to find that three years are missing from his memories and that he ran out on her sometime after the last day he can remember. Frank tries to rebuild his fragmented life until a man from the missing three years shows up looking for Frank. Will Frank pierce The Black Curtain and put the missing piece of his life in place?This Woolrich was okay, if a little long-winded for what it was. Frank Townsend, aka Dan Neary, loses three years of memories after a bump on the head, then goes about clearing his name. The revelation of who the man in the gray suit was was one of the better parts of the story. Everything else seemed a little convoluted and flimsy. The women, as per usual in Woolrich's stories, didn't have many favorable qualities. Who would let a man back into their life after he ran out on them without a word three years before, no questions asked?As a friend recently commented, Woolrich's Black series were probably his way of coping with his alcoholic blackouts and it's nowhere more apparent than in The Black Curtain. Townsend trying to piece together the fragments of his memories is very similar to someone trying to figure out what they did during a blackout.Not my favorite Woolrich but not terrible.
I recommend the 1941 novel, The Black Curtain, as an introduction to Woolrich. In it, Frank Townsend gets a bump on the head and suddenly three years of his life disappears–or reappears. He searches for his home and discovers his apartment is vacant and that his wife has moved out. He finally finds her and she tells him she hasn’t seen him for three years.So starts this different version of an amnesia story. After he’s been back with his wife a short time, Townsend discovers someone is following him. The more dangerous the pursuit becomes, the more Townsend realizes he must figure out what happened during the missing three years.His struggle to discover his past leads him through a threatening world of suspicious looks and dead ends. The fast-paced story includes a case of murder and a decrepit, isolated mansion.The Dancing DetectiveLike most roman noir novels, there isn’t exactly a Hollywood ending. The plot twists at the end leave some unanswered questions, but each step along the quick trip through Townsend’s cloudy world is worth the effort and then some.
Vintage 1941 pulp fiction -- really fun. Like reading a noir movie. Some of the phraseology set me back a bit. On page 73, "His face was an unbaked cruller of rage." First of all, crullers are fried, not baked. Second of all, what the? But I could overlook that in the midst of such an intriguing, fast-moving plot. Then on page 178, "The ticket seller had hard crullers of stubborness around his eyes." Seriously, take a break, Woolrich, treat yourself to a doughnut and a cup of coffee and get past this obsession. There were maybe a few plot holes but, honestly, I was having too much fun reading it to be very picky (other than that cruller thing). Overall, a great, quick, moody diversion.
—Karen
I wanted to like this book more than I did. It dragged on a bit towards the middle, and while I like the ending and found it suspenseful, some of the loose ends were not tied up as neatly as I would've liked – for example, I never found out why Townsend left his wife and became Dan in the first place. Maybe they said it in the book, and I just missed it – but I thought that was a pretty big thing to leave up to the reader's imagination or to be so cagey about. The book wasn't bad – it just wasn'
—Sarah
It was a little bit of a struggle to get through this one and I can now see why it is regarded as one of Woolrich's weaker novels. Part of the problem may be retrospective. Was amnesia the horrendous cliche in 1942 that it is today? I'm not sure, but the plot was certainly cliche on this end. It is vintage Woolrich, in that it has incredibly improbable plot turns. However, it is inexplicable in having a rather upbeat (for Woolrich) ending. It's not without all redeeming value, but it is weak enough that it should be well down on any reading list.
—Tim Schneider
