Flee the Angry Strangers

by George Mandel

Diane Lattimer is an eighteen-year-old single mother struggling with the separation from her infant son who has been sent to live with a foster family in Long Island. Strapped with guilt, Diane searches for redemption in souls as lost as her own, in the jazz-and drug-fueled hipsters of Greenwich Village. Finding solace only in one-night stands and an increasing dependence on drugs, Diane spirals into a world of violence and drug abuse, leaving her destitute and addicted to heroin. Struggling to stave off the addiction, Diane searches for help from the various people who move in and out of her life. Diane's mother tells her daughter she must reject the sins of the Village and turn to God; Dincher, the tough, young junkie, who dreams of some day playing horn alongside Louis Armstrong; Joe Letrigo, the southern gentleman who can't forget Diane's ungainly reputation; and Carter Webb, the husband of Diane's gravely ill sister, Edna, and possibly the only person who can truly save Diane. Years before its time in dealing seriously with topics like drug abuse, women's liberation, and sexual freedom, Flee the Angry Strangers is the first Beat novel and a true rediscovered classic.

Genres: Literary Fiction, Fiction

496 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1952

About the author

George Mandel (born February 11, 1920) is an American novelist and short story writer. A native of New York City, Mandel was educated at the Pratt Institute, The Art Students League of New York and The New School. His first novel, Flee the Angry Strangers (1952), was one of the first Beat novels.

His subsequent novels include The Breakwater, Into the Woods of the World, and The Wax Boom (1962). His short story "The Beckoning Sea" was included in the anthology Protest: The Beat Generation and the Angry Young Men, and he also wrote a short story, "Adjustments" (1956), which appeared in an Alfred Hitchcock horror anthology. He also wrote Crocodile Blood, a novel about a Native American Seminole girl, and Scapegoats (1970) as well as two cartoon books, Beatville U.S.A. and Borderline Cases, and the Saturday Evening Post short story "The Day the Time Changed".

Reviews

[Oriana · Rating 5 out of 5]

According to the endorsement on the back of the 50th anniversary edition, this is the book that launched the Beat Generation. I have no comment on that, but it's a gritty, unforgiving story of artists and junkies in the Village in the '50s. Phenomenal dialogue and characters, stunning depictions of a long-gone New York, aching and gorgeous and harrowing and beautiful, and pretty consistently heartbreaking... I'm running out of adjectives here but seriously, I adore this book and have read it three times.

And guys, again? No one else has reviewed this book! And only like four people have even rated it! What is going on??

[Nicholas During · Rating 4 out of 5]

Called the first "Beat" novel, Flee the Angry Strangers is a look at post-war US--okay, really just New York, okay, really just the West Village--where the potential for positive action has already been destroyed by drugs. The young people of this book are seriously fucked up. They get into drugs, and all its consequences easily and quickly, lack the standard moral compass, and every spring there are a series of suicides. Pretty depressing stuff.

Great depiction of the West Village in the the late 40s though. Interesting dialogue, though a lot of it really does sound unlikely, and I loved the look into the bars, clubs, musics, and slang of the time.

The two male heroes are the only characters with an attempt to change the world. They are try to take on the inequality, racism, and general lack of care that Mandel sees as pervasive in the post-war Europe. What I find weird is combination of the positive role for the open-minded and generous Carter, with the pretty appalling life that Diane leads. Are we meant to judge her promiscuity? Or her drug use?

Doesn't have the experimental vision of William Burroughs, though the content is just as gritty. Still, there is some really good writing here, and there is no doubt that Mandel is trying something different, not just by giving a non-judgmental view of the lives of young, aimless, and often brutal youths, a rarity most likely in cookie-cutter 50s US.

My only fault is the characters are too philosophical, too discursive in their daily lives about serious and ugly issues. I think that people just aren't like that. And the best way for a novelist to try to influence her reader is to make them feel compassion. Which I definitely did in this book, but it took a while to get through.

[Codered Summer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Run, hep cats! The hippies are coming!