Mystery Review: The Wounded and the Slain is ambitious, a novel that wants to fit into that lurid nether world between crime and straight fiction, like a low-calorie version of The Bonfire of the Vanities. David Goodis (1917-67) examines what happens when the unthinkable intrudes on everyday life, when that everyday life consists of an alcoholic husband and a traumatized wife. The Wounded and the Slain is an odd sort of walk on the wild side, a venture into the unknown, only here the unknown is Jamaica where a married couple go to save their almost crumbled, wholly uncommunicative nine-year marriage. The story is alternately told by the wife and husband. He a straying and committed and eager drunk, rapidly losing touch with any logic in the world -- "To do anything logically was too much of an effort ... it was nothing more than a blindfold that covered the inner eye." She guilt-ridden, haunted by repressed childhood memories (which Goodis also touched on in Of Tender Sin (1952)). They both find alternatives and options in Kingston, one in the swanky, walled resort, the other in the violent slums. Eventually both risk their lives trying to do what they think is right. Not a mystery (though a death occurs), more a seamy slice of life Nelson Algren-style. When readers cite hard-boiled novels as angsty and existential, The Wounded and the Slain is what they're talking about. Just enough thoughtful moments to let the reader think: "In prison the art of wrongdoing has many professors." A taste of what might happen when one gives up on everything. The ending is just hard-edged enough to comfortably fit with the rest of the book. [3½★]
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