The Actor

by Donald E. Westlake

Hospitalized after a liaison with another man’s wife ends in violence, Paul Cole has just one to rebuild his shattered life. But with his memory damaged, the police hounding him, and no way even to get home, Paul’s facing steep odds—and a bleak fate if he fails...

This never-before-published novel by three-time Edgar Award winner Donald E. Westlake is a noir masterpiece, a dark and painful portrait of a man’s struggle against merciless forces that threaten to strip him of his very identity.

Genres: Fiction

400 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2010

About the author

Donald E. Westlake (1933-2008) was one of the most prolific and talented authors of American crime fiction. He began his career in the late 1950's, churning out novels for pulp houses—often writing as many as four novels a year under various pseudonyms such as Richard Stark—but soon began publishing under his own name. His most well-known characters were John Dortmunder, an unlucky thief, and Parker, a ruthless criminal. His writing earned him three Edgar Awards: the 1968 Best Novel award for God Save the Mark; the 1990 Best Short Story award for "Too Many Crooks"; and the 1991 Best Motion Picture Screenplay award for The Grifters. In addition, Westlake also earned a Grand Master Award from the Mystery Writers of America in 1993.

Westlake's cinematic prose and brisk dialogue made his novels attractive to Hollywood, and several motion pictures were made from his books, with stars such as Lee Marvin and Mel Gibson. Westlake wrote several screenplays himself, receiving an Academy Award nomination for his adaptation of The Grifters, Jim Thompson's noir classic.

Some of the pseudonyms he used include
•   Richard Stark
•   Timothy J. Culver
•   Tucker Coe
•   Curt Clark
•   J. Morgan Cunningham
•   Judson Jack Carmichael
•   D.E. Westlake
•   Donald I. Vestlejk
•   Don Westlake

Reviews

[Anne · Rating 4 out of 5]

A noir gem!

Paul Cole’s affair with a married woman ends in tragedy and forever alters his path in life.

Cole narrates his account of the events, and the reader can feel the range of emotions in the text. I was surprised that the author could render me sympathetic to this callous and narcissistic reprobate but that’s what happened. It was a dark and saddened story of how Cole’s life and identity just slipped away from him. The vivid description of what he goes through, the feelings of desperation, fear, uncertainty, of having nowhere or no one to turn to or guide him along was heartbreaking. It was difficult to recall the callous lout that started the novel off. I kept hoping the ending would grant Cole some measure of comfort or security, but I had to keep reminding myself that this is a noir masterpiece.

[Glenn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Westlake's most Kafkaesque jam.

[ML · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’m never going to finish this book. It is WAY too depressing. Way TOO NOIR for my attitude rn.

[Robert · Rating 1 out of 5]

Interesting premise. This story could have gone in many different directions. Instead it went nowhere, just meandering in a strait, somewhat boring line. I figured there must be a whopper surprise at the end. Nope. 400 pages. The most memorable part for me was when Mr. Molloy was imparting his wisdom to the main character re marriage, decisions etc. Mostly a big letdown of a book from this author.

[Brandi Stanback · Rating 2 out of 5]

I just feel that I really didn’t get any answers to Paul’s questions all along and it leaves you feeling incomplete at the end. I wish Paul was able to at least end up in a place where he felt he belonged in some capacity. Kind of disappointing.

[Donald · Rating 2 out of 5]

Paul Cole is caught in bed with a married woman, and is beaten so badly that he is unconscious for 58 hours! He wakes up with major memory problems that inhibit him from remembering enough information to make it hard for him to figure out a way to get back home to NYC. And when he does get back there, he's not sure that he likes who he was!

“He’d lost part of his memory, and he needed that part of his memory so he could get quickly back to New York City and find that part of his memory.”

“His mind was a sieve, in which some of the larger pieces of memory took longer to wash through, but everything washed through eventually, nothing was retained.”

I didn't really get into this book and was kind of bored by it as the pages racked up. I mean, how many times did I need to have another example of how Paul had lost his memory? I did like the ending, because I thought it was going another way, and it didn't, which really made me happy!
Also, there is no hard case crime in the book. Unless you count the adultery at the beginning, which I don't.

It is interesting that this is being made into a movie because it kind of already has been. Twice.
"Momento" and "Regarding Henry".

[Jesse · Rating 3 out of 5]

Westlake's least fun novel by miles. I've read, what, 40+ of his books, and there are adeptly constructed goofs like The Hot Rock and Bank Shot I'd happily reread, as well as hard-as-nails Parker novels whose construction and lean efficiency are always instructive. So, you know, fun. This one, a bleakly existentialist trudge through the aftermath of an attack on actor Paul Cole as he's committing adultery, isn't. It's well done, certainly, but in no way enjoyable.

Caught in flagrante with someone else's wife while the traveling show he's with is somewhere in the plains states (when? hard to say, since there are no date markers, but at one point Paul's making a dollar an hour at the tannery, and there are beatniks in the Village, so...late 50s? early 60s? The movie seems to be set in "1950s Ohio," so there you go), Paul gets hit by a chair and apparently suffers a permanent concussion that denies him anything but short-term recall, and sometimes not even that. (The word itself isn't used until more than 2/3 through, and introduced with an aura of surprise that suggests how little was known--though I suppose by now we know it's possible that one concussion could have such life-changing impact.) And the next 390+ pages is Westlake doing his best Kafka and/or nouveau roman (with a number of plot points later used in Christopher Nolan's Memento), as Paul has to figure out where to go, how to get a job, how to have a love life, whether he can or should go back to his New York career if he can't remember lines or even conceive of exactly how acting functions. The daily sufferings are told well (weirdly, it reminds me of, say, Saramago's Blindness in the sudden Everest-like difficulty of mundane tasks), and with a decent variety of problems to confront (the trip to sell used books at one of the old 4th-Avenue shops is kind of riveting), and things...don't turn out as bleakly as they could have, I suppose.

Still, this is an impressive technical achievement whose aura of unrelenting bleakness does not make me likely to ever want to go back to it.

[Terry Mulcahy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a work of literature. It is noir. It is Kafka-like. Westlake was known for his mystery/crime novels. I've enjoyed several: Call Me A Cab, The Cutie, Lemons Never Lie. In a crime novel, we find out who the criminal was, or the killer, or the reason for a crime. It has a certain structure. This early novel of his was rejected, and published after his death. In it, a character, brutalized, but without memory, searches for his memory. He wants to be restored. He wants to know what happened. He wants to go back to his old life, even if it is just to jog his memory. We feel with him as he goes on with a new life, desperate for the old life. We can identify with him. There are clues, because, after all, this is crime novel, right? And one clue in particular intrigues, because as the reader, we don't know anything more about it than he does. But it's important, and it's mentioned many times in different contexts with different people. As a reader, I want to know what it is, what it means, and if it will help. The ending may surprise you. I was somewhat disappointed, but not really. The ending went where it had to go. I enjoyed the writing, the characters, and the tension. There were many ways to end this novel, but they would have been trite contrivances. If you like mysteries, and you read with a questing mind, without expectations, you'll like this.

[Solitairerose · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Actor is a novel that was rejected when Westlake sent it out at the start of his career, and was publishing posthumously and I can see why. Not that it is bad, it’s not, but that it is highly unusual and doesn’t fit into any category easily.

The story starts with the protagonist in the hospital after being beaten by the husband of a woman he was sleeping with, and he is suffering from a kind of brain damage. As he is forced to leave town by a local policeman, he begins a quest to get back to New York City as well as figure out what has happened in a life he can’t remember. This is a story that takes a lot of twists, does an excellent job of making us feel as disoriented as the lead character, and gives a overwhelming sense fo dread as we experience his memory issues through 3rd person narration.

Do yourself a favor and don’t read anything more than that about the novel. The novel moves rapidly, and works best when the reader is going through the story at the same time as the protagonist. There some section where it drags a bit, but that is necessary to give the same feelings the lead character has.

[Dah · Rating 1 out of 5]

If 'THE ACTOR' is Westlake "at the top of his game" (Philadelphia Inquirer) then his books at the bottom of his game must be filled with blank pages.

My main novel reading is crime noir / hardboiled crime, so here's my take:

I closed 'THE ACTOR' after Chapter 8 (about 125 pages in), and it was an emotional struggle for this avid reader to make it that far into this ungratifying crime story.

If you like your crime noir with no thrills, no suspense, but with pages of drivel, along with dialogue / narrative repetition, then this story is for you. For me, the 'THE ACTOR' did not meet the high expectations of the hype surrounding it. I have to wonder, did the reviewers (who raved about 'THE ACTOR') actually read the story?

Maybe the forthcoming movie will inject some life into this otherwise corpse of a novel.

[Sheri · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Actor by Donald E. Westlake

Paul Cole wakes in Hospital with no memory of what happened or how he got there. As he struggles with this memory loss, not sure who he is and where he belongs. Just a feeling of needing to get back to New York City. His mission is to recover his memory and his purpose in life.

Moving at a steady pace with attention to detail told from Cole's point of view. As his journey progresses, we slowly learn of his past. Searching for (the) hidden truth, we will meet people from past to present, along the way.

The Actor is classic crime noir at its best. Unreliable narrator, with a troubled past, searching for answers. Overall I found The Actor very enjoyable. Fans of Donald E. Westlake will not be dissapointed. I highly recommend to all.

[Russell · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Actor, originally published as Memory, is a Westlake masterclass in how to write a moody, atmospheric story that keeps you reading. After a head injury that he no longer remembers, Paul Cole is cast adrift and left to fend for himself. Difficult to do when your memories fade into the mists of time quickly and quietly. Do you really know who you are when you can’t remember who you were? And why are the police giving him a hard time? Keep reading.

[Garry Hoffmann · Rating 5 out of 5]

The late, great Donald Westlake channeled his inner Kafka in a 1963 noir novel that wasn't released (and renamed) until after his death. An unsparing story of a touring actor knocked senseless and his struggle afterward to regain his memory and what he thinks should be his life.

[Bryan Boles · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’ve read most of the Parker books and they are all great. This had that Westlake page turner vibe but the ending was unsatisfying to me. There didn’t seem to be a point to it all.
Another great reissue from Hard Case Crime. Outstanding publisher.

[Jeremy Koster · Rating 5 out of 5]

Probably my favorite Westlake read so far! Have read a dozen or more books, and easily my favorite book.

[Michelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked this book up because I enjoyed the three Stephen King titles that Hard Case Crime published. This book was not as engaging as King but a solid read and I’ll pick up more from the “series”.

[Meg · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. weird and unsettling and I was left with questions and no answers. But, still, it's Westlake, so it's readable and compelling.

[Rusty Lundgren · Rating 4 out of 5]

3 1/2 rounded up.

[Chad · Rating 5 out of 5]

A good story.