One of the authors who was passing through sort of semi-promised me the chance to write a brief essay on DOROTHY HUGHES for an anthology of female hard boiled writing she’s involved in. Like most of my literary prospects it will probably come to nothing, but it was a good excuse to read some books by HUGHES I hadn’t read before. I ordered one I hadn’t even heard of called DREAD JOURNEY (from 1945), her Hollywood book (presumably inspired by the experience of having two of her books made into movies), and not only was it excellent, but it featured a victim with my surname who was killed so a megalomaniacal producer could cast another woman as CLAVIDA CHAUCHAT in his dream production of THOMAS MANN’s THE MAGIC MOUNTAIN, that character and book being, as the faithful reader knows, among my preoccupations recently. Weird world.

Anyway, here’s a few choice selections from DREAD JOURNEY, by DOROTHY HUGHES, who started her literary career as a poet:

The publicity department must have had an extra reefer to nightmare that one.

He was under her skin where he wanted to be.

Once he hadn’t believed in hell. Once he hadn’t believed in a personal demonic deity. But he’d seem men possessed. He knew powers of evil flogged the earth and powers of good weren’t strong enough to exorcize them. The powers of good, what happened to them? Where was heaven?

She carried her head like a lady and her body like a snake.

She was the one thing alive under the weight of the afternoon. Alive but not real, she was a thing, glittering, empty.

Gratia’s eyes were made of glass, dark glass. You could see through them to the bottomless depth of her, but it was too dark to know what you saw there.

Les said, "He’s as sane as you or I." He took a small breath. "With one small exception. He thinks he’s almighty God."

Dreaming isn’t enough; you have to fight.