For the Rest of Her Life by Cornell Woolrich from Best American Noir of the Century – review

By Steve Weddle

This isn’t your run-of-the-mill shopping in Paris, murdered puppy, Marquis de Sade short story. This one starts as a sort of metaphysical
consideration of togetherness, of love, and ends in horror and dread. You might already know Cornell Woolrich from his stories, or you might know him from The Rear Window, the Hitchcock movie based on Woolrich’s story. The Jimmy Stewart character? Vintage Woolrich, if cleaned up for the screen. Woolrich lost his leg from an infection. And he was an alcoholic. And, writing under his name and his pseudonyms – William Irish and George Hopley – Woolrich wrote about two dozen novels and had about the same number of movies made from his numerous stories. From Rear Window to The Bride Wore Black to The Return of the Whistler, Woolrich’s stories, whether movies, novels, or shorts, were cinematic in the best sense.

“For the Rest of Her Life” is an exceptional story, but not an exception in his oeuvre. This story, which first appeared in a 1968 issue of EQMM, was turned into a movie in the 1970s. They needn’t have worked terribly hard as the story itself has a vivid, filmable quality.

A woman and man pass. They connect. Soon they must be together. And that is the way it will always be. Until she notices something in his eyes, something in the way he “shows his teeth” when upset. Something in the way he burns a waitress, in the way he kills a puppy. This is the sort of story that could only have been written by a master in the field. The story starts slowly, in a meditative mood, then moves to new depths until finally crushing everything in a mad, suspenseful rush.

A powerful story unlike any you’re used to these days from a man who dominated noir writing for much of the twentieth century from page to screen. The only shame here is that more people don’t read Woolrich today.

Steve Weddle is a part of the Do Some Damage blogging crew and the editor of Needle magazine. His short fiction has appeared at Beat To A Pulp, Crime Factory, and A Twist of Noir.

Steve Weddle

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