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kitpower's review
4.0
The Monsters are Due in Madison Square Garden (TMDMSG) is Johnstone’s debut novella. At its core is a noir occult thriller, taking in the classic Universal monster movies, the rise and fall of American Nazis in the ’30s, racism and antisemitism, Jewish gangsters fighting back, and, as you might expect, a beautiful woman. The tale is framed by two men, Dan and Herb, sitting in a bar swapping life stories, but the narrative itself twists through time, hopping between the ’30s, the ’50s, and the time the story is being discussed. As the two men tell their stories, it becomes apparent that their life experiences are connected, and that each has knowledge that impacts upon the other.
As structures go, it’s an interesting hybrid approach. On the one hand, starting at the end (or in this case, after it) and working backwards is a classic noir structure (and, I would argue, classic for good reason). In this novella, however, the approach is complicated by two factors; one is the aforementioned dual narrative, with both men having distinct tales and histories (which appear, to start with, to merely be thematically related), and the second is that the storytelling is nested, with narrative threads sparking reminiscences that lead to some significant time hopping. For example, we start with Herb recounting an interview he did with Lugosi, late in the actors life, and that memory prompts a discussion of Herb’s attempt to infiltrate a rally by the American Nazi party being held in ‘35 at Madison Square Gardens. This, in turn, prompts Dan to remember fleeing Nazi Germany in the ’30s, and how his wife’s inability to join him in that journey had disastrous consequences for them both.
It’s a really ambitious structure, in that by mirroring the organic way conversational storytelling works, the reader is constantly taken from time period to time period, and perspective to perspective, with threads often left open. It’s an approach that could easily be confusing, but Johnstone is sure-footed, using the device to build suspense, creating a series of narrative cliff hangers that kept me invested in the story and eager to see how events developed.
As you might expect, given the themes, the story does enter some heavy emotional territory. Both Herb and Dan have experienced racial prejudice and threats of violence - Dan as a Jewish man, Herb as a black man - and those experience are vital, both in terms of defining their lives and motivations and also in story terms. The moment when Herb, in custody, catches sight of a swastika tattoo on the forearm of the officer that’s interrogating him is a genuinely shocking one, both for its implications for Herb personally at that moment, and for the wider commentary, it provides about the world in which he must live. Similarly, a sequence from his childhood in the South provides a terrifying child's eye view of explosive racial violence, as well as drawing clear (though implicit) parallels with the pogroms that Dan was fleeing at the same time.
What I most enjoyed about the book was the way it drew attention to these parallels without any editorialising, allowing the power of the stories to speak for themselves, and the juxtaposition of the narratives to evoke in the reader the shock of recognition. It’s a mature and brave approach to storytelling, and one I found both compelling and commendable.
I don’t want to editorialise too much, but reading this in 2019, the parallels with our current political and global circumstances were deeply uncomfortable, and gave reading the book another uneasy undercurrent. For all that, though, the story also holds its own as a compelling tale of crime and rough justice (and even, in keeping with the tradition it’s based in, a few neat twists on the way through, especially in the back third), that eschews easy answers and pat moralising in favour of just telling the story, and letting the reader sit with the results. A fine effort, and I look forward or reading more from the author.
As structures go, it’s an interesting hybrid approach. On the one hand, starting at the end (or in this case, after it) and working backwards is a classic noir structure (and, I would argue, classic for good reason). In this novella, however, the approach is complicated by two factors; one is the aforementioned dual narrative, with both men having distinct tales and histories (which appear, to start with, to merely be thematically related), and the second is that the storytelling is nested, with narrative threads sparking reminiscences that lead to some significant time hopping. For example, we start with Herb recounting an interview he did with Lugosi, late in the actors life, and that memory prompts a discussion of Herb’s attempt to infiltrate a rally by the American Nazi party being held in ‘35 at Madison Square Gardens. This, in turn, prompts Dan to remember fleeing Nazi Germany in the ’30s, and how his wife’s inability to join him in that journey had disastrous consequences for them both.
It’s a really ambitious structure, in that by mirroring the organic way conversational storytelling works, the reader is constantly taken from time period to time period, and perspective to perspective, with threads often left open. It’s an approach that could easily be confusing, but Johnstone is sure-footed, using the device to build suspense, creating a series of narrative cliff hangers that kept me invested in the story and eager to see how events developed.
As you might expect, given the themes, the story does enter some heavy emotional territory. Both Herb and Dan have experienced racial prejudice and threats of violence - Dan as a Jewish man, Herb as a black man - and those experience are vital, both in terms of defining their lives and motivations and also in story terms. The moment when Herb, in custody, catches sight of a swastika tattoo on the forearm of the officer that’s interrogating him is a genuinely shocking one, both for its implications for Herb personally at that moment, and for the wider commentary, it provides about the world in which he must live. Similarly, a sequence from his childhood in the South provides a terrifying child's eye view of explosive racial violence, as well as drawing clear (though implicit) parallels with the pogroms that Dan was fleeing at the same time.
What I most enjoyed about the book was the way it drew attention to these parallels without any editorialising, allowing the power of the stories to speak for themselves, and the juxtaposition of the narratives to evoke in the reader the shock of recognition. It’s a mature and brave approach to storytelling, and one I found both compelling and commendable.
I don’t want to editorialise too much, but reading this in 2019, the parallels with our current political and global circumstances were deeply uncomfortable, and gave reading the book another uneasy undercurrent. For all that, though, the story also holds its own as a compelling tale of crime and rough justice (and even, in keeping with the tradition it’s based in, a few neat twists on the way through, especially in the back third), that eschews easy answers and pat moralising in favour of just telling the story, and letting the reader sit with the results. A fine effort, and I look forward or reading more from the author.
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