William O'Farrell (1904–1962)

This is a good book, but I can’t imagine most people enjoying it.

Barney Page wakes up in a flop house one morning after having killed his mistress the night before. He has essentially given up on life after his wife’s affair & suicide, his own love affairs, and, now, murder. He has destroyed his life, but where did he go wrong? His friend, John Friday, appears on the scene and gives Barney a series of instructions to follow in an effort to save Barney from the consequences of his crime. Before he knows it, Barney is thrust back in time exactly one year before the murder. Has he himself descended into madness, or is this a blessed second chance to correct all of the mistakes he made?

Barney optimistically believes this is his opportunity to fix his life. He quits drinking. He goes out of his way to prevent his wife and her paramour from ever meeting, thereby preventing her eventual suicide. He tries to stop his poet friend, William and Mary, from getting embroiled with the man who will have William committed to an insane asylum. He refuses to succumb to an affair with his best friend’s harlot wife. He turns down a movie deal and refuses to travel to California in an effort to avoid meeting his future mistress and murder victim. He is steadfastly determined to make the right decisions and avoid any dangerous pitfalls this time around.

But fate and the people around him refuse to cooperate. Sheila—Barney’s manipulative, alcoholic, and severely deranged wife—is particularly effective at intentionally foiling all of Barney’s good intentions. Little by little, Barney begins to realize that he has virtually no free agency in determining the course of his life; and, no matter which route he travels, the destination will inevitably be the same.

Repeat Performance is certainly a well-crafted, well-written story, but its dark and depressing tone will probably not appeal to a lot of readers. It is way too bleak to be called a pleasurable reading experience.

The Black Gat edition has typographical errors that are distracting.… (més)

Doctor returns to America, only to become the target of his cousin, a lawyer who must wear a leg brace due to a childhood accident the doctor played a part in. There isn't enough story here to hang 192 pages of text around, but due to the author's very competent style and engaging tone, some good individual scenes, and a fine characterization of the bad guy who the doctor spends most of a very long night with, the book holds your interest until the end. O'Farrell appears to have been a pretty prolific author and even won an Edgar Allan Poe award for a story that was later made into an Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode. But he isn't well-represented on LibraryThing. I might try another of his works if I come across one someday.… (més)