 Hmm. Should I be mostly impossible me today, or should I go with completely intolerable me? 
In real life everyone has secrets, and they're almost always pointless and tawdry. Not true in mid-century literature, where the secrets are always deadly. In 1950's False Face, a biographer decides to write about a society woman who died in a car crash, and discovers her past to be a labyrinthine trail leading from her oversexed teenage years, to her time as a Chicago gang moll, to her stripping career, and eventually to her to final, respectable incarnation. All her past iterations were under different identities to hide the truth, and now as the writer puts the final pieces together, he comes to have questions about her death—questions it seems some mysterious person is out to prevent him asking. The book was written by Leslie Edgley, who had a small bibliography along with some television credits before fading from the literary scene. He also wrote as Robert Bloomfield and Brook Hastings, the latter in partnership with his wife Mary Edgley. This edition of False Face is from Handi Books and the cover art is by unknown.
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The headlines that mattered yesteryear.
1985—Theodore Sturgeon Dies
American science fiction and pulp writer Theodore Sturgeon, who pioneered a technique known as rhythmic prose, in which his text would drop into a standard poetic meter, dies from lung fibrosis, which may have been caused by his smoking, but also might have been caused by his exposure to asbestos during his years as a Merchant Marine. 1945—World War II Ends
At Reims, France, German General Alfred Jodl signs unconditional surrender terms, thus ending Germany's participation in World War II. Jodl is then arrested and transferred to the German POW camp Flensburg, and later he is made to stand before the International Military Tribunal at the Nuremberg Trials. At the conclusion of the trial, Jodl is sentenced to death and hanged as a war criminal. 1954—French Are Defeated at Dien Bien Phu
In Vietnam, the Battle of Dien Bien Phu, which had begun two months earlier, ends in a French defeat. The United States, as per the Mutual Defense Assistance Act, gave material aid to the French, but were only minimally involved in the actual battle. By 1961, however, American troops would begin arriving in droves, and within several years the U.S. would be fully embroiled in war. 1937—The Hindenburg Explodes
In the U.S, at Lakehurst, New Jersey, the German zeppelin LZ 129 Hindenburg catches fire and is incinerated within a minute while attempting to dock in windy conditions after a trans-Atlantic crossing. The disaster, which kills thirty-six people, becomes the subject of spectacular newsreel coverage, photographs, and most famously, Herbert Morrison's recorded radio eyewitness report from the landing field. But for all the witnesses and speculation, the actual cause of the fire remains unknown. |
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