Continuing my fitful John D. MacDonald reading, I just finished ‘Cry Hard, Cry Fast’ (1955). It’s about a highway auto accident. In each of the first five chapters, we’re introduced to people in cars who’ll be involved in the accident. MacDonald sketches in their lives, and what led them to be on the road on this day. It’s a tricky narrative challenge, to keep starting with a character, stopping, and going on to someone new, but MacDonald does it so deftly that you keep everyone in your mind. The middle of the book has a discussion of the physics of auto crashes and how insurance companies calculate the results: great, precise stuff. ‘Cry Hard’ isn’t even a thriller, really—just one car contains people who’ve committed a crime, but no crime is committed in the course of the novel. I loved it. I have some other stuff to read now, but my next MacDonald will be, I think, ‘A Bullet for Cinderella.’
-- Ken Tucker
