By the late 1940s, Fessier had relocated to New York, where he wrote a satirical novel, Clovis (available from Turtle Point Press), about “a bumptious, bumbling, highly educated, highly opinionated parrot” that comes to lead a “‘phony’ Los Angeles religious cult.” In the mid-1950s, Fessier turned his creative talents to television, writing episodes for an eclectic mix, including Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Mr. Horace McCoy dedicated the existentialist noir They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? (also published in 1935) to Fessier. As the Los Angeles Times put it, he scripted “witty Westerns” and several Fred Astaire–Rita Hayworth musicals, including You’ll Never Get Rich, which made Hayworth a star. ![]() One of Fessier’s first stories, “That’s What Happened to Me” - about a bullied high school boy who wins the hearts of townspeople with his miraculous jumping ability - was anthologized more than 70 times.įessier landed in Hollywood, where he wrote and produced. By the mid-1930s, Fessier was publishing short fiction in popular national magazines like Story and Esquire. As did many authors of the era, Fessier started in journalism, writing and editing for several California newspapers. The youngest of four children, he was 14 when his mother died and his grief-stricken father abandoned the family. “I knew I should feel amazed or frightened but I didn’t.”įessier was born in 1905 in the Northern California gold-mining town Angels Camp, where his father ran a saloon. It happened to me and it was still happening,” Price asserts. ![]() However, Fully Dressed’s distinctive amalgam might best be classified as magical-realist noir due to how matter-of-factly it portrays the absurd’s intrusion into everyday life: “It had never happened to me before and I don’t suppose anything like it ever happened to anyone before. The novel’s melding of mystery, horror, fantasy, and science fiction has enabled fans of all four genres to lay claim to it over the last 87 years. e is an ordinary human being with an enormous capacity for evil.įessier, though, remains noncommittal regarding these characters’ origins.Īs this plot synopsis makes clear, Fully Dressed and in His Right Mind defies categorization, making it a kind of literary Rorschach test. Therefore your little old man is made of flesh and blood and possesses no magic. Why in hell should someone be trying to sell us a fairy tale? We are adults and we know ogres and ghosts and Zombies do not exist. Dorgan - the voice of reason - says:Īfter all we’re not kids. Price and his painter friend, Dorgan, debate whether these two beings are human or supernatural. He falls for the swimmer, named Trelia - but there is something eerie about her as well. Price seeks respite in late-night strolls through Golden Gate Park, where he spots a young woman swimming naked in a lake. A consummate everyman, Price has no identity beyond recounting and reacting to other characters’ actions. “Him slipping in like that’s just about as pleasant as finding a cobra in your bed,” Price complains. Even his apartment is no refuge: the old-timer unpredictably enters - whether or not the door is locked - and makes himself at home. The old man initially seems innocuous … until he confronts those who rile him with glowing green, catlike eyes that paralyze the target of his glare with terror. The two part, but the old man soon becomes an uninvited fixture in Price’s life, appearing without warning anywhere Price might be. While leaving the scene, he strikes up a conversation about the murder with a “little old man,” during which the man asserts he is the killer. The book opens with Price stumbling upon a sidewalk shooting. The incongruity between the novel’s deadpan, tough-guy prose and its wildly surreal content makes Fully Dressed and in His Right Mind a haunting novel that’s impossible to put down. But what elevates Fully Dressed into a class all its own is how Fessier incorporates fantastical characters and events that are alien to noir. ![]() An average Joe, John Price, happens upon a murder in the street he then becomes unwillingly entangled in the perpetrator’s subsequent killings and finally, he must prove his innocence when the police try to railroad Price for the other’s crimes. At first glance, the San Francisco–set tale is classic noir, narrated in the steely patter of Depression-era hard-boiled crime fiction. ![]() THERE IS NO other novel quite like Michael Fessier’s 1935 genre-bending Fully Dressed and in His Right Mind.
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