A spoooooky tale for Halloween, in the cosmic horror genre. I have a fondness for cosmic horror - who doesn't like being told that they and their species are an insignificant non-entity in an unfathomably vast, ancient, and hostile universe, whose true nature will drive us to madness if we begin to comprehend it, falsifying the beliefs of both religion and science. Right? This one came republished from NYRB Classics along with the only other novel Sloane ever wrote, and I may read that one tonight, or may not.

"To Walk the Night" features a couple of mathematics geniuses working on a theory that if true would fundamentally upend an Einsteinian understanding of the universe, and it's made clear at the start that both of them are now dead - one mysteriously set aflame as he worked at his desk, the other by suicide (Max Born may have felt uneasy here in the unlikely event he ever read this story). After the first man's death his friend and protégé Jerry discovered to his shock that his mentor was recently married, to a very unusual woman (with the suggestive name of Selena). Jerry then fell in love with her and married her himself, and despite her urging him to leave it alone, continued the theoretical work that no one else in the scientific/mathematical community believes can be true. After suddenly reaching a new understanding of Selena while they're together in the presence of his best friend Barkley, he immediately shot himself in the head.

The story is told in the format of Barkley trying to explain to Jerry's father, a highly rational and scientific man, events in their lives that suggest and explain his indeterminate fear of Selena, despite his fear that if he ever solves the mystery of her and these deaths, his own death will somehow immediately follow. This frame is effective as a method of slowly ratcheting up the tension and horror, despite the reader knowing Jerry's fate from the start, as we fear for Barkley's own safety. When he inevitably has his Eureka moment near the end of the story, the description is a pretty good description of a panic attack:

The panic fear that swept over me as I realized that I might have discovered the answer was indescribable. I felt no sense of triumph at having found out the secret of Selena and her life with Jerry and the rest of us. Instead, I was sinking into icy, black water, being suffocated by its pressure, drowning in arctic night and winter. Layer after layer of cold and blackness was piling up above me and the fright of death itself was pounding in my pulse. Fear like that, real fear, is an invasion. A physical thing full of ice and death that enters into every fiber of the body and possesses the mind. The worst of it was that there was no tangible thing with which I could deal. There was nothing to run away from and nothing to confront. This terror sprang from a nebulous idea.

The writing in general is only somewhat accomplished; it does sometimes read like a clunky debut novel written by a white dude in the 1930s. But it also has surprising accomplishments like moments of real humor, which certainly puts him up on Lovecraft! An interesting story especially in the context of the development of cosmic horror. ( )

Intriguing tale of a mystery woman whom men suddenly fall for, marry and shortly afterwards they wind up dead in mysterious circumstances ( )

Una nueva interpretacion del mito de la Diosa de las Tinieblas a traves de Selena, una moderna Artemisa-Hecate, una nueva Persefona de los mundos inferiores. El protagonista narra la historia en el curso de una noche, que parece repetir otras noches del libro, mientras intenta resolver un misterio inexplicable. La solucion no es menos fantastica ni rigurosa que el problema y se impone al lector con la evidencia de una verdad arquetipica, una nueva y posible interpretacion del tiempo y la vida humana.

I picked this up because it's been kind of poking the corner of my eye for about a year now. To be quite honest, what held me back was the fact that it was written almost 90 years ago, so I haven't really been ready to dive into that thicker, dense narrative style of back then.

Yeah, well, as I've said many times, I'm an idiot.

This was a wonderful, brisk read, which is interesting, considering much of the subject matter. Once again, I won't get into the plot simply because, in my opinion, the less you know going in, the more the book rewards you. Jerry and Bark's relationship is fun and realistic, and I absolutely love how often they say either "Swell!" or "Nuts!" I have to work at incorporating both those terms into my everyday vocabulary.

So, while Jerry and Bark are great, it's Selena who steals the show here, and Sloane accomplishes much to build her up as a character, while maintaining the mystery. Only a very masterful writer could pull this off, and he did.

Excellent book. And now I'm quite excited to read Sloane's only other novel. ( )

The build is slow, but this is ultimately a chilling and rewarding science fiction-horror hybrid. It’s like an elegant black-and-white film chiller, think Val Lewton in print. Could this have been a Lewton influence? Worth a look if you like quiet horror. ( )