Chalk Face

by Waldo Frank, John Pelan (Introduction)

Waldo Frank was known for his serious works and so CHALK FACE came as a surprise to his readers in 1924. It's a dreadful story -- in the sense that it inspires dread -- of an unreliable narrator who loves his exclamation points and is so smug that he uses letters instead of numbers for his chapter names. John Pelan tells you the story of Waldo Frank in his introduction so you are prepared for the atmospheric tale that ensues.

146 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1924

About the author

Waldo David Frank was an American novelist, historian, political activist, and literary critic, who wrote extensively for The New Yorker and The New Republic during the 1920s and 1930s. Frank is best known for his studies of Spanish and Latin American literature and culture and his work is regarded as an intellectual bridge between the two continents.

A radical political activist during the years of the Great Depression, Frank delivered a keynote speech to the first congress of the League of American Writers and was the first chair of that organization. Frank broke with the Communist Party, USA in 1937 over its treatment of exiled Soviet leader Leon Trotsky, whom Frank met in Mexico in January of that year.

Reviews

[Warren Fournier · Rating 4 out of 5]

Does this book contain the seeds of Eric Knudsen's Slenderman? Probably not, as it is likely Knudsen never read it, since "Chalk Face" (1924) is another of those rare books that time almost completely forgot yet deserves to be resurrected for modern audiences. Thanks to splatterpunk author John Pelan and Ramble House, this disturbing Radium-Age gem has awakened some recent attention among scholars of horror, weird fiction, surreal fiction, soft science fiction, and mysteries.

Here is the essential premise, and I am afraid to even give this much away. A physician in his late 20s is desperate to marry and become independent of his doting and wealthy parents who seem to not ever want him to grow up. But suddenly his ambitions are cut short when he becomes obsessed with a series of mysterious deaths where witnesses all report seeing a tall man in a tight-fitting black suit and a bald white head with smooth indistinguishable facial features.

What comes next is a soul-twisting mystery, and the ultimate meaning behind the events of this book have been long debated. The author, Waldo Frank, was fascinated with the work of the then still living Freud, and this novel is his application of early analytic theory to paint a migraine-inducing psychological puzzle with no clear answer. Well, of course, I know the REAL answer! But I'm not sharing... :)

There are a few gripes I have, but they are minor. For example, halfway through the book, our doctor friend starts sticking his nose into the murders like he's Sherlock Holmes. I can't imagine how crimes were ever solved 100 years ago, as it seems police investigations were always pretty sloppy, at least in novels. This book contains yet another example of how a random guy can show up to an active crime scene and mess about with stuff while the real detectives just stand idly by.

"Duh... Who're you?"

"Oh, just a friend of the guy who's dead."

"Really?"

"And I'm important. I'm a doctor!"

"Golly... That IS important, George..."

"You mind if I snoop around the dead body and mess around with the evidence in private? As in, with the door closed? And you not here watching me? It's for science, you know."

"Duh, duh... Gee thanks a lot, pal! We always do what we can to help our amateur sleuths, we do. Uh, yup."

The other thing I feel compelled to warn you about is the style of writing found here. It can be a very difficult read due to it's flowery and melodramatic poetics. But it serves a purpose to put us in the mindset of our narrator. He is obviously extremely intelligent but emotionally stunted and immature. As if to drive the point home, Waldo Frank gives his character a bit of an oral fixation as he seems to have quite a breast fetish. Therefore, he writes in pseudo-intellectual drivel, cognitive distortions, and narcissistic fantasies. He flaunts his education in his writing, but uses words inappropriately or makes analogies that sound poetic but which fall flat. Everything is painted with such a bloated sense of importance, because everything is all about him, Mr. Center-of-the-Universe. You will dislike the narrator, and that is purposeful.

"I think of the design on a man's palm. Is the design of the stars a similar chart recording the destiny of a man's brain? Of course, there is rapport here--but what of nature? Man's destiny, the graph of molecule, cell, electron in man's brain, and the congeried stars--are they related as will, voice, phonographic record (where then is the Will?), or as simultaneous projections of some body that includes us all? This search is my work. I feel with exquisite anguish... and behold the stuff of a great thought! Am I not young, exhilarant, equipped?... I am unhappy... Emptiness fills my room."

Geez, my man! Go outside and get some fresh air, will you?

But the Emo narrator doesn't distract from your enjoyment, and you even get into his groove a bit as you move along. This is a thought-provoking, disorienting, eerie, and overall flat-out bizarre tale that attempts to deconstruct the notion of Unity, the foundation of all modern philosophy, religion, psychology, physics, and civilization. Yes, it is an ambitious novel, but you can decide for yourself how well it follows through with it's pretense.

Books fall into obscurity for a variety of reasons. But this one was rare from the start, with only a few hundred copies published and circulated among the bohemian intelligentsia. By the 21st Century, it became one of those books popular among collectors of esoteric literature to seek out for exorbitant prices or to have reproduced by shady facsimile publishers. My copy is one of the latter, but it actually is quite a beautiful product. Then in 2015, the ever ingenious Ramble House published a paperback edition with a scholarly introduction by John Pelan which has gained some notoriety among certain readership circles. I cannot comment on Pelan's thoughts about the book, but I've read his other introductions to Ramble House publications and find him to have some genuinely good insights into these kinds of works.

So I recommend finding yourself a copy while there are more of them now floating around. When I first discovered and read this book years ago, there was hardly anything written about it, so I went into it completely blind. I recommend you try to do the same.

I can't say much more about the book itself for fear of spoiling it. Also, I wouldn't want to upset the man with the white face.

[Heneiddio · Rating 3 out of 5]

What no maidens does to a mf.