Fully Dressed and in His Right Mind by Michael Fessier (first published n 1935, and based on the short story "The Man in the Black Hat [Esquire, February1934]. which was later reprinted in Philip Stong's noted anthology The Other Worlds, 1941; paperback edition [Lion Books #214], with a cover featuring a fully dressed Trelia in the lake, published in 1954; paperback edition published by Staccato Crime in 2022, including an additional three short stories)
A brief note by Anthony Boucher in his Recommended Reading column in the November 1954 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction noted the Lipon paperback reprint: "a captivating 1935 fantasy long out of print and overdue for revival." It has been sixty-eight years since that reprint but now the good folks at Staccato Crime -- an imprint from Stark House Press specializing in "Jazz Age Noir Classics," both fiction and nonfiction -- have brought this strange, wondrous, and quirky novel back to life.
Two things should be noted. First, I truly do not know what to make of this book. Second, it is fitting that this was published by Staccato because that describes the pacing of the novel. As David Rachels explains in his introduction, "Michael Fessier launches Fully Dressed and in His Right Mind like a hardboiled rocket with 12 sentences totaling 269 words and only lone comma while the word and appears 25 times so the prose flies and flies with an occasional period allowing a quick breath but real rest not coming until clipped dialogue begins with sentence 13." You are not sure if you are reading something from a drug-addled junkie or from an overly excited eight-year-old explaining something tremendously exciting that happened to him. No matter. What you know is that you are in for a wild ride.
Johnny Price is a man with little ambition. He has enough family money so the he does not have to work and spends his days reading, drinking and roaming San Francisco. While standing in front of the Herald building he hears a shot and was one of a crowd who saw publisher Albert E. Bagley shot and killed. As he makes his way away from the crowd he is joined by an innocuous little old man who informs him the he -- the old man -- is the one who killed Bagley. No reason is given. johnny feels the old man is a looney and heads home. When he gets there, the old man is in his apartment with no explanation of how he entered through the locked door. The old man is cryptic but seemingly friendly, although non-talkative. Over the coming days, the man keeps appearing without warning or explanation. There is something very disturbing about him. At times he seems to have some sort of mental control over Johnny; his eyes mysteriusly turn green and begin flashing.
The old man begins to appear with some of Johnny's friends: Dorgan, a painter who destroys what he paints, George, a bartender who feels threatened simply because the old man looks at him, and Pete, the superintendent at Johnny's apartment building; when one of Pete's children becomes deathly sick, the old man enters the boy's room and simply stares at the boy until he passes away. Whoever -- whatever -- the old man is, there is not question that he is evil.
One evening Johnny wanders into Golden Gate Park where there is a small lake. He hears splashing and sees a naked woman swimming in the lake. She is beautiful and unabashed. He keeps returning to the lake and often sees her. Her name is Trelia and she appears to ne a nymph, but, of course, that is not possible. Eventually she comes closer and they talk. When he reaches out to touch her she swims away under the water and is not seen again. Johnny does not want to frighten her and slowly realizes that he is in love with her. He admires her beauty but somehow her nakedness does not excite him. Eventually she returns to him. He asks her for a kiss, and it is a chaste, dispassionate kiss. Johnny realizes that under the womanly beauty is just an innocent child. He still loves her but cannot desire her. H also learns that recently the strange old man has been coming to the lake and watching Trelia and occasionally talking with her; in her innocence she believes he is harmless.
The old man is in Johnny's apartment etching Pete wash windows, hanging on the pane from the outside. Johnny and Dorgan are in the kitchen getting a drink when Pete falls to his death. The old man was on the opposite side of the room but both are convinced that he was responsible for the fall.
Dorgan wants to paint Trelia's portrait and Johnny convinces her to come to his apartment. She arrives wearing a soft green dress -- the first time he had seen her clothed. Over several days, Dorgan tries to capture on canvas but fails miserably. He also has an unreasoning need to paint the old man's portrait, which comes out much better -- it captures the old man's innocent physical appearance, but, underneath, there appears to be an essence of pure evil.
Johnny confesses his love to Trelia, something she is unable to reciprocate. she like him but does not love him; her love is limited to the lake and the natural world of the park. Johnny and Brogan decided to leave town to escape the old man, but Johnny changes his mind. Just then, two cops come in with a warrant for Johnny for the murder of George the bartender, who had been shot in the back. the old man has made a reliable claim that he saw Johnny shoot George; he also said that Johnny had told George that he had shot Bagley, the publisher. Johnny is beaten, arrested, and thrown in jail, and the entire city and the press are crucifying him. Considering the police and civic corruption of the time, it appears to be a given that Johnny will be convicted and hung. The old man -- still unnamed -- visited Johnny in his cell and indicates that Trelia will be his next victim.
Also visiting Johnny in his cell is a very excited Dorgan. Trelia had come to the apartment worried about Johnny, but this was a very different Trelia, a Trelia who realized that she was in love with Johnny. Suddenly Trelia was no longer a child in a woman's body, but was a complete woman in love. She is determined to save Johnny, but is it too late? And how?
A wild and surrealistic ride. A short novel, with 43 rapid-fire chapters crammed into 120 pages of text. i am not the only one who did not know what to make of this book. Reviewers at the time were at a loss to describe or to categorize it. So let's just leave it by saying that it is sui generis, a thoroughly enjoyable and thoroughly unpredicable literary masterpiece.
One other thing that should be mentioned, and one that I would not have noticed had not Rachels pointed it out in his introduction. the use of the color green in the novel dates back to the Middle Ages, where green had two opposing natures: vert gai and vert perdu, one positive (the color of Trelia's dress that seemed to reflect the water of her lake) and one negative (the flashing green of the old man's eyes when he was irritated or angry) -- both of which add a bit of a mythic quality to the tale'
Fully Dressed and in His Right Mind had been on my "Want to Read If I Ever Came Across a Copy " list for over fifty years. I'm glad I finally got a chance. The Staccato Crime edition adds the three short stories Fessier wrote that were published in 1953 in the crime magazine Manhunt, and which I refuse at present to read because I am afraid it would lessen the impact of the novel. I'll get to them later.
Michael Fessier (1905-1988) was a film and television writer who also churned out some remarkable stories between assignments. Among his films were You'll Never Get Rich, You Were Never Lovelier, Wings Over the Navy, and several Fred Astaire/Rita Hayworth musicals; his television credits included Have Gun Will Travel, Bonanza, and Alfred Hitchcock Presents. He published one other novel, Clovis (1948), about a highly educated and highly opinionated parrot; I'd be interested in reading that one, as well.
