I had read another of Holden’s books years ago so when I read Craig McDonald’s Friday’s Forgotten Book post on Four Corners of Night it got bumped higher up the TBR pile because I had a copy on the shelf.
After reading it I can only say, Holy hell what a book. I can’t think of another novel, crime or otherwise, that has left me feeling the way that Four Corners of Night did. It is a book that not only has stuck with me all these weeks later but changed me on some fundamental level. What Holden does in this book, specifically with the character Bank Arbaugh, is nothing less than a masterstroke.
There is sometimes talk/debate of the phrase “transcend the…” and I have certainly made my position on the matter known before. But I think we can talk about it here on a smaller scale. One of the most basic of mystery plots is to have a current case intersect with an old case. From this basic platform thousands of mystery plots have launched. Four Corners of Night utilizes this basic framework to transcend the plot type.
The sometimes complex plot mechanics aren’t the whole thing here though they too are handled expertly. This is a meditation on the relationship between these two men. While these men have relationships with friends, parents, spouses and children it is their relationship with each other that is the longest and deepest. It is also the most complex.
The story takes it’s time in the telling and the disaffected narrative voice of Mack is an alluring one. Much of the story takes place in the nighttime and the darkness of the setting underscores the thematic elements of the story as well as the action.
I noticed something in the concurrently running timelines and was trying to think if I had seen the device employed before. The past timeline is told in the past tense and the present timeline is told in the present tense. It’s a small technique thing but an effective one.
Bank, what is there to say about this character except to say that I have witnessed the creation of one of the great fiction characters of all time. What Holden did with Bank is nothing short of amazing. The arc of the character, the revelations about him and the ambiguity that surrounds him is handled in such a way that the intensity of his arc is so great that the reader will have strong emotional reactions over the course of the book – there were moments that I was choked up, and even rarer still for a book, made me shed a tear.
Rarely have I come across a crime novel like Four Corners of Night though I strive constantly to do so. It is emotionally dark and shows the full breadth and depth of what the crime novel is capable of.
One of my favorite books in recent years. Thanks!
Yeah, a great book. Great characters, great story.
Wonderful appraisal, Brian; if I haven’t already made clear myself in that piece you link to, or in the interview with Holden in ROGUE MALES, I regard CH’s novel as one of the handful of truly important ones in crime fiction (though I’d make a case for this one well outside of genre, as well).