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Ride the Pink Horse
Trouble from out of town explodes in a small desert village in New Mexico when three strangers arrive for the fiesta, each bearing a grudge and an interest in hunting down the others. Reprint.
248 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1946
About the author
Dorothy B. Hughes
55 books255 followersDorothy B. Hughes (1904–1993) was a mystery author and literary critic. Born in Kansas City, she studied at Columbia University, and won an award from the Yale Series of Younger Poets for her first book, the poetry collection Dark Certainty (1931). After writing several unsuccessful manuscripts, she published The So Blue Marble in 1940. A New York–based mystery, it won praise for its hardboiled prose, which was due, in part, to Hughes’s editor, who demanded she cut 25,000 words from the book.
Hughes published thirteen more novels, the best known of which are In a Lonely Place (1947) and Ride the Pink Horse (1946). Both were made into successful films. In the early fifties, Hughes largely stopped writing fiction, preferring to focus on criticism, for which she would go on to win an Edgar Award. In 1978, the Mystery Writers of America presented Hughes with the Grand Master Award for literary achievement.
Hughes published thirteen more novels, the best known of which are In a Lonely Place (1947) and Ride the Pink Horse (1946). Both were made into successful films. In the early fifties, Hughes largely stopped writing fiction, preferring to focus on criticism, for which she would go on to win an Edgar Award. In 1978, the Mystery Writers of America presented Hughes with the Grand Master Award for literary achievement.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 194 reviews
May 14, 2024
This is Hughes’ ninth novel, published in 1946, and her first masterpiece (two more would follow: In a Lonely Place and The Expendable Man).
It is great for at least four reasons: 1) it is quintessential noir, featuring a flawed hero just trying to make a dishonest buck in a world more damaged than he is, 2) it is redolent with atmosphere—not the big city sleaze you might expect, but the festive atmosphere of the New Mexico city of Santa Fe during the weekend of Fiesta, 3) the portraits of Mexican and Indian people are etched with compassion and dignity, and 4) the man at the center of the plot—Sailor, an Irish slum-kid risen to private secretary for the “Sen,” a corrupt Chicago politic figure—is a man engaged in a genuine, and moving moral struggle. Will he win the five thousand dollars he believes he has coming? Or will he back his soul instead?
The favorite part of the book for me—a former altar boy—was watching Sailor as he experienced the Catholic rituals at the core of the pagan Fiesta, how they evoked memories of his Catholic childhood, his devoted mother and abusive father. They made Sailor a real human being in my eyes, and involved me in his spiritual struggle.
Highly recommended.
August 23, 2017
He hadn't wanted to come here. He'd wanted it less and less as the bus traveled further across the wasteland: miles of nothing, just land, empty land. Land that didn't get anywhere except into more land, and always against the sky the unmoving barrier of mountains. It was like moving into a trap, a trap you couldn't ever get out of. Because no matter how you tried, no matter how far you traveled, you'd always be stopped by the rigid mountains. He didn't like it at all when they moved into this town, his destination. Because this was the center of the trap; it was a long way back to civilization in any direction. The only thing to do was get out quick.
Meet Sailor, a city slicker from Chicago, well versed in the hard life of the big city, coming to a nowhere town in New Mexico to track down his former boss, a state Senator, and shake him for big money – Sailor's ticket out of the States and out of a murder rap that the Sen tries to pin on him. Only problem is, the small town is full of revelers – from the jet set socialites to the local peasants, a mix of Indians and Mexicans – there to celebrate Fiesta. All the hostels are full, everybody wants only to get drunk and to party and doesn't care that the clock is ticking for Sailor – the proverbial stranger in a strange land.
'What's Zozobra?' Sailor asked.
'You do not know what is Zozobra?' The brigand wasn't patronizing, he was surprised. He hitched up the dirty string. 'It is Old Man Gloom.' He chuckled deep in his fat belly. 'We must burn Zozobra, Old Man Gloom, before the Fiesta commence. When Old Man Gloom he is dead, we have no more troubles. We laugh and dance and make merry. Then there is La Fiesta.'
—«»—«»—«»—
I must have read at least a thousand crime novels of all types – cosy mysteries, pulps, hard-boiled, noir, police procedurals, thrillers, etc. I am seriously wondering if my tastes have not become more than a little jaded when I start a new one, yet Sailor's existential angst hit me out of the left field, with the same impact I remember from when I first read a Chandler or a James M Cain, a much stronger impression than the previous novel by Dorothy B Hughes I tried ("In A Lonely Place"). There are certain similarities in style – mainly the amount of time we spent inside the mind of a main character of dubious morality, but here the tale is right from the start gaining a mythical, timeless frame – straight from the ancient Greek tragedies where a fallible human runs afoul of the gods and struggles ineffectually against an implacable Fate. The title itself is a powerful metaphor of life as a joyride on a merry-go-round – a battered, run-down contraption winded up by hand by an old Mexican-Indian half-blood, named aptly "Tio Vivo" (I translate and Old Man Life" in my hearsay Spanish). You are up in the saddle enjoying yourself for the three minutes of the ride, or for the three days of Fiesta, but then you have to get back to your worries and troubles and hard life.
This was Fiesta. The last moments of the beautiful and the gay and the good when evil, the destroyer, has been itself destroyed by flame. This was the richness of life for those who could destroy evil; who could for three days create a world without hatred and greed and prejudice, without malice and cruelty and rain to spoil the fun. It was not three days in which to remember that evil would after three days rise again; for the days of the Fiesta there was no evil in this Fiesta world.
Sailor is trying to hold on to his plan of escape that brought him all the way from Chicago to this forsaken place, but everything seems to conspire against him. All the roads he takes, all his actions ultimately lead back to the central Plaza of the town and to "Tio Vivo" . Memories of his past, of his hard knocks childhood in a brutal, poor family, of his criminal career as one of the Senator henchmen, are mixed with fresh nightmares from this foreign world he has landed in. Alienation is the name of the game, and it extends well beyond the borders of the Plaza, into the very reasons of Sailor's existence.
He'd known fear, real fear, for the first time in his life as he'd stood there. He'd thought he'd known it before. Fear of the old man's drunken strap, fear of the old woman's whining complaints, fear of the cop and the clap and the red eyes of the rats that came out of the wall at night. Fear of death and hell. Those were real fears but nothing like the naked fear that paralyzed him before the stone woman. Because with the other things he was himself, he could fight back, he had identity. Before her, his identity was lost, lost in the formless terrors older than time.
For the first time Sailor is out of the comfort zone of his big concrete jungle whose rules he knows and whose actors are familiar. Sailor is now forced to confront more than the Senator's treachery – he is suddenly aware of space and time and of people who look upon him with black, enigmatic, merciless eyes out of sun browned, hardship lined faces.
One thousand years. Two thousand. In time. Maybe it was the way to do things, not to worry about the now, to wait for time to take care of things. What if the measure of time was one thousand, two thousand years? In time everything was all right. If you were an Indian.
It's not as if Sailor doesn't know how to get out of the trap: the friendly owner of the merry-go-round offers him friendship, shelter and tequila; a young local girl named Pila shows him a glimpse of innocence and selflessness ( ' She was there. She existed. He was the one without existence, the dream figure wandering in this dreadful nightmare...' ) ; a sunny waitress at one of the rich cantinas gives him a smile; a Chicago cop named McIntyre urges him to mend his ways:
'The world doesn't care much what happens to us. Least that's the way I've always figured. Like this table.' He flattened his hand on the painted metal. 'It doesn't care if you bang your shin on it. It doesn't even know you're around. That's the world. The way I see it.' He lifted his hand and looked at the palm as if the paint had smeared it. He had a broad hand but his fingers were thin. 'It's up to you what you are. Good or bad. You get the choice. You can do anything you want with yourself. You can use the world' – again he touched the table – 'or you can break your toes on it. The world doesn't care. It's up to you.'
But Sailor's nightmare is one of his own making and in true noir/existentialist fashion the labyrinth only leads back to the center, to the fateful Plaza and not back to the real world.
The only thing the round trip availed him was, for a brief spell, to get him out of the stench of Fiesta. But he returned to it. With a hopeless kind of fatality, because there was no place else to go, because all directions led to the Plaza.
... again and again, like the chorus in one of those Greek plays I mentioned earlier:
Returning here now was the fearsomeness of a bad dream, a dream of wandering in a labyrinth, of being unable to escape from the murky maze, of returning over and again to this unknown yet terrifyingly known place. Pancho's big hand was on the closed wall. He said, 'Come. This way, my friend.'
—«»—«»—«»—
I haven't seen the film version of the book yet, but I was struck right from the first chapter about how well the narration style of Hughes would adapt to the silver screen. The visual elements and symbolism are particularly strong, reflecting every step of the way the inner turmoil of the main character. In my mind I see Spencer Tracy in the main role (think "Bad Day at Black Rock") and Orson Welles at the helm (think "Touch of Evil") . Welles in particular I think would have done justice to the dark mood of the story and to the nightmarish chases through the streets filled with grotesque revelers.
I'm putting this down as one of the best noirs I've read in a long while and recommend it to most of my friends.
December 19, 2023
This 1946 novel tells a hardboiled Chicago tough guy story of murder, betrayal, and corruption. But Hughes does something really interesting with the story. She takes this tough Chicago characters, particularly the lead character, "Sailor," and puts them in Santa Fe, New Mexico during Fiesta week. It thus becomes a tale of a stranger in a strange land with most of the story, written in beautiful prose, about how this tough guy from corrupt mobbed-up Chicago is completely out of his element in this new region. He is completely uncomfortable, not at ease, among the Chicanos and the Indians of the southwest, but despite his unease finds friendship in this strange community. Some may find his language referring to them as derogatory but this is just how a tough guy would talk, how he would think.
It's a story about running from your past, trying to escape the ghosts of your past and that one night when all hell broke loose and all well-laid plans fell apart.
Be forewarned that through much of the book the Chicago story takes a backseat to the sights and sounds of the great festival and this plodding tough guy dressed in his Chicago suit and carrying his Chicago grudges never quite fits in.
It's a story about running from your past, trying to escape the ghosts of your past and that one night when all hell broke loose and all well-laid plans fell apart.
Be forewarned that through much of the book the Chicago story takes a backseat to the sights and sounds of the great festival and this plodding tough guy dressed in his Chicago suit and carrying his Chicago grudges never quite fits in.
January 29, 2021
A noir mystery currently free for Audible-Plus members.
WOW—really, really good! Grab it immediately and read it soon. Don’t put it off to later.
An atmospheric, psychological crime novel is what you get.
Each word I have thought about and chosen carefully.
An atmospheric start, a central portion where the plot is unwound and an in-depth character portrayal is drawn, followed by an ending that is both realistic and surprising, with an unexpected twist, keep a reader’s attention all the way through. There is a message delivered too. This is by no means only a simple mystery.
Three from Chicago meet up in a small western hick town--most likely in New Mexico. It is the week of the annual fiesta. The burning of Zozobra, a giant marionette effigy representing evil and doom or the hardships and travails of the past year, kicks off the festivities. With Zozobra burnt, the fun and partying can begin-- firecrackers, costumes, song and dance, a twirling carousel and partying galore. The ambiance of dry, dusty and grimy, western hick towns, of carnivals and fiestas, of the exuberant casting off of previous years’ troubles are palpably drawn.
Are past problems so easily discarded? Do they dissolve into mere smoke with the burning of Zozobra? What is it that needs to be burned up in the flames at this year’s fiesta?
The three men that meet-- a retired Illinois senator, his personal secretary and a Chicago homicide detective--have issues to be resolved, and in this backwater of a place, there is a strict class structure with Native Americans on the lowest rung of the ladder, above them Spanish Americans and at the top are the white, wealthy gringos. The burning of Zozobra can scarcely solve such problems!
The themes are several. First there is a mystery to be solved—who has done what and why and how should it be resolved? Class inequalities and how to surmount and change them is a second theme. A third is the difficulty of escaping from / rising above a childhood of poverty, abuse and alcoholism. A fourth—cannot a “bad” person have good qualities and isn’t it possible to like such a person anyhow, despite their shortcomings?
Stefan Rudnicki narrates the audiobook. His intonations for the different characters are excellent. I heard every word. The speed is perfect. No overdramatization. So, five stars from me.
I will definitely be trying more by this author and noir mysteries will now be a genre for me to explore. I like the realism. I like the straightforward language. I like that there are good attributes given to bad people. I like that the unwinding of the plot is not difficult to understand. Not usually a fan of mysteries, this book turned out to be a great surprise!
*****************
*Ride the Pink Horse 4 stars
*The So Blue Marble TBR
*The Expendable Man TBR
*In a Lonely Place TBR
*The Fallen Sparrow TBR
*Dread Journey TBR
WOW—really, really good! Grab it immediately and read it soon. Don’t put it off to later.
An atmospheric, psychological crime novel is what you get.
Each word I have thought about and chosen carefully.
An atmospheric start, a central portion where the plot is unwound and an in-depth character portrayal is drawn, followed by an ending that is both realistic and surprising, with an unexpected twist, keep a reader’s attention all the way through. There is a message delivered too. This is by no means only a simple mystery.
Three from Chicago meet up in a small western hick town--most likely in New Mexico. It is the week of the annual fiesta. The burning of Zozobra, a giant marionette effigy representing evil and doom or the hardships and travails of the past year, kicks off the festivities. With Zozobra burnt, the fun and partying can begin-- firecrackers, costumes, song and dance, a twirling carousel and partying galore. The ambiance of dry, dusty and grimy, western hick towns, of carnivals and fiestas, of the exuberant casting off of previous years’ troubles are palpably drawn.
Are past problems so easily discarded? Do they dissolve into mere smoke with the burning of Zozobra? What is it that needs to be burned up in the flames at this year’s fiesta?
The three men that meet-- a retired Illinois senator, his personal secretary and a Chicago homicide detective--have issues to be resolved, and in this backwater of a place, there is a strict class structure with Native Americans on the lowest rung of the ladder, above them Spanish Americans and at the top are the white, wealthy gringos. The burning of Zozobra can scarcely solve such problems!
The themes are several. First there is a mystery to be solved—who has done what and why and how should it be resolved? Class inequalities and how to surmount and change them is a second theme. A third is the difficulty of escaping from / rising above a childhood of poverty, abuse and alcoholism. A fourth—cannot a “bad” person have good qualities and isn’t it possible to like such a person anyhow, despite their shortcomings?
Stefan Rudnicki narrates the audiobook. His intonations for the different characters are excellent. I heard every word. The speed is perfect. No overdramatization. So, five stars from me.
I will definitely be trying more by this author and noir mysteries will now be a genre for me to explore. I like the realism. I like the straightforward language. I like that there are good attributes given to bad people. I like that the unwinding of the plot is not difficult to understand. Not usually a fan of mysteries, this book turned out to be a great surprise!
*****************
*Ride the Pink Horse 4 stars
*The So Blue Marble TBR
*The Expendable Man TBR
*In a Lonely Place TBR
*The Fallen Sparrow TBR
*Dread Journey TBR
March 5, 2012
Decades before Cormac McCarthy, Dorothy Hughes seems to have created and mastered a style that is six parts craggy, hard-boiled prose, three parts dense, lyrical inner narrative and one part numinous magic. And she deploys this style more effectively, in the service of a more taut, gripping story than I am certain McCarthy can (my experience with him being confined to admiring some of his stylistic quirks while failing to complete any of his novels).
This novel is a noir and crime classic, and deservedly so. It's a lean, haunting tale of a gangster at the end of his tether, trailing his erstwhile master for one big payoff before he makes a break for a new life. Only, we slowly learn that it isn't that simple; you can't build a new life on the ill-gotten gains of the old and retribution comes a-knocking in the form of a determined homicide cop, hot on the heels of Sailor, slum kid turned slick hoodlum and the Sen(ator), his former boss.
They're in a town near the Mexican border, a place where the annual fiesta is taking place. Hughes uses this exotic background and the confluence of Indians, Hispanics and gringos to add an exotic touch to the narrative, underscoring major beats in the plot with scenes of great mythic and visceral resonance drawn from the festivities in this town or from Sailor's encounters with the locals: a man who runs a ramshackle merry-go-round and emerges as a sort of tentative father figure and good angel, a little Indian girl in town for the fiesta who evokes Sailor's own lost innocence and a meeting with the Fates in the form of three Spanish slum women who administer herbal medicine to Sailor. And then there's the policeman, Mac, who emerges both as a good twin and rejected mentor to Sailor, long ago thrown over in favour of the seductive, sly and treacherous Senator.
There are reveries on religion, morality and the choices we make and their consequences, there are pivotal points when Sailor can still take a turn that leads him back to a good life; but perhaps it is a false hope, and there are some decisions that we can never turn back from.
There seems to be some amount of racial stereotyping here, with the Indians portrayed as a stony, dark-eyed race of monoliths who have watched the ages pass and will survive their momentary conquerers; the Spaniards are failed conquerers gone native and so forth. I'm not sure it amounts to racism - Sailor uses racist language, but what else do you expect from a Chicago gangster? I think Hughes is using the possibilities of her exotic setting to highlight different ways of thought and bring in a broader cultural set of perspectives to Sailor's life and choices. To acknowledge and make use of the fact that your characters are of different races isn't necessarily the same as being racist, even if some of the treatment does venture into stereotypical territory.
In short I liked this book a lot; Hughes is going to be up there with Hammett, Chandler and Thompson in my pantheon of noir writers if her remaining novels are of this calibre.
This novel is a noir and crime classic, and deservedly so. It's a lean, haunting tale of a gangster at the end of his tether, trailing his erstwhile master for one big payoff before he makes a break for a new life. Only, we slowly learn that it isn't that simple; you can't build a new life on the ill-gotten gains of the old and retribution comes a-knocking in the form of a determined homicide cop, hot on the heels of Sailor, slum kid turned slick hoodlum and the Sen(ator), his former boss.
They're in a town near the Mexican border, a place where the annual fiesta is taking place. Hughes uses this exotic background and the confluence of Indians, Hispanics and gringos to add an exotic touch to the narrative, underscoring major beats in the plot with scenes of great mythic and visceral resonance drawn from the festivities in this town or from Sailor's encounters with the locals: a man who runs a ramshackle merry-go-round and emerges as a sort of tentative father figure and good angel, a little Indian girl in town for the fiesta who evokes Sailor's own lost innocence and a meeting with the Fates in the form of three Spanish slum women who administer herbal medicine to Sailor. And then there's the policeman, Mac, who emerges both as a good twin and rejected mentor to Sailor, long ago thrown over in favour of the seductive, sly and treacherous Senator.
There are reveries on religion, morality and the choices we make and their consequences, there are pivotal points when Sailor can still take a turn that leads him back to a good life; but perhaps it is a false hope, and there are some decisions that we can never turn back from.
There seems to be some amount of racial stereotyping here, with the Indians portrayed as a stony, dark-eyed race of monoliths who have watched the ages pass and will survive their momentary conquerers; the Spaniards are failed conquerers gone native and so forth. I'm not sure it amounts to racism - Sailor uses racist language, but what else do you expect from a Chicago gangster? I think Hughes is using the possibilities of her exotic setting to highlight different ways of thought and bring in a broader cultural set of perspectives to Sailor's life and choices. To acknowledge and make use of the fact that your characters are of different races isn't necessarily the same as being racist, even if some of the treatment does venture into stereotypical territory.
In short I liked this book a lot; Hughes is going to be up there with Hammett, Chandler and Thompson in my pantheon of noir writers if her remaining novels are of this calibre.
December 18, 2023
12/2015
A classic noir, in which a scoundrel named Sailor and a police chief separately follow a corrupt senator to a border town celebrating its fiesta. This background is incredible, with the symbolic effigy burning and many good details about race and class. The title refers to carousel horses. From 1946. The only real female in the story is Pila, the young Indian girl who befriends Sailor.
A classic noir, in which a scoundrel named Sailor and a police chief separately follow a corrupt senator to a border town celebrating its fiesta. This background is incredible, with the symbolic effigy burning and many good details about race and class. The title refers to carousel horses. From 1946. The only real female in the story is Pila, the young Indian girl who befriends Sailor.
December 11, 2020
This is a classic noir novel from the 1940s, written from the point of view of Sailor, a troubled protagonist whose life slowly goes from bad to much worse as he tries to pull off a poorly-considered blackmail scheme. His target is a slippery ex-Senator, and a dogged police detective is on the trail of both Sailor and the Senator. The book is notable for the flashbacks to Sailor’s childhood. Another noteworthy feature is the book’s treatment of the Mexican-Americans whose kindness affects Sailor. I had never hear of this author but I would like to read more by her.
May 24, 2017
Ride the Pink Horse is one of the most intense books I've read recently, and while the plot is very simple, the book as a whole is definitely not. Like Patricia Highsmith would do a few years later in her first book, Hughes manages to get us inside the head of her main character and keep us there for the duration. No matter how much we may want out, it ain't happenin' until the last page is turned. It's a claustrophobic read, in a good, noir way.
I've given a brief plot summary at my reading journal; if you don't want to know, then just skip ahead to my thoughts here, but just as a heads-up, this is definitely NOT a book where plot takes center stage. It is not a full on action-packed thriller, and it moves a bit slowly because Hughes invests her time in her people rather than just focusing on crime -- just my kind of book. There are a lot of racial slurs in this book, so beware -- it's very ugly, but then again, I just sort of accept that writers of the 1940s didn't write with our modern sensibilities in mind.
Hughes is an excellent writer, and in my opinion, she holds her own against any male author of the time, making it a complete shame that she is not more widely read or appreciated. For readers of vintage fiction written by women, it is an absolute must; I also recommend it for readers of classic noir. I loved this book.
I've given a brief plot summary at my reading journal; if you don't want to know, then just skip ahead to my thoughts here, but just as a heads-up, this is definitely NOT a book where plot takes center stage. It is not a full on action-packed thriller, and it moves a bit slowly because Hughes invests her time in her people rather than just focusing on crime -- just my kind of book. There are a lot of racial slurs in this book, so beware -- it's very ugly, but then again, I just sort of accept that writers of the 1940s didn't write with our modern sensibilities in mind.
Hughes is an excellent writer, and in my opinion, she holds her own against any male author of the time, making it a complete shame that she is not more widely read or appreciated. For readers of vintage fiction written by women, it is an absolute must; I also recommend it for readers of classic noir. I loved this book.
August 15, 2022
Two other novels by Dorothy Hughes that I've read - In a Lonely Place and The Expendable Man (both nyrb-classics) - exceeded my expectations, transcending a mere noir-ish form. This one didn't. It was monotonous, dated, and banal. Most of it is the protagonist unable to finding a room and needing to take a bath. As thrilling as dreams I have occasionally where I can't find where I parked my car.
I suppose she meant to expose some ethnic prejudice, and she does, but not in any gripping way. I highlighted one passage, for what it's worth:
He walked on fast. Kids weren't hypocrites. When the copper showed up they were like statues, hostile-eyed, withheld breaths. The older folks cranked up smiles or words, but not the kids. The Old folks pretended that Fiesta made all a oneness in the land, Indian, Mexican, Gringo. The kids didn't hide their knowledge of the enemy among them. They were too smart.
I suppose she meant to expose some ethnic prejudice, and she does, but not in any gripping way. I highlighted one passage, for what it's worth:
He walked on fast. Kids weren't hypocrites. When the copper showed up they were like statues, hostile-eyed, withheld breaths. The older folks cranked up smiles or words, but not the kids. The Old folks pretended that Fiesta made all a oneness in the land, Indian, Mexican, Gringo. The kids didn't hide their knowledge of the enemy among them. They were too smart.
January 15, 2021
“It’s good to be good”--Pancho
I’ve never read anything by Dorothy Hughes, but I was interested read one of the great noir writers that I hadn’t read, and more than that, a woman writing in the time that the field of mystery/detective novels were thoroughly dominated by men. How would noir novels be different? During this time, would a predominantly male audience believe that a woman could write with the same expected tough (and often macho) realism? Did they buy her books? What kind of “female” dimensions to the work might I find? A feminist strain? A kind of lyricism, maybe? I know, I know, gender or sexuality may not be necessarily predictive factors at all. Still, I was curious.
Two things that stand out before you even read one page in this edition I listened to, is the kind of cover you’d expect, featuring a sultry woman, femme fatale, maybe? and then the possibly corresponding title with hints of--am I imagining it?--sexual behavior? Ride the Pink Pony?!! So I am wondering if this cover and title were intended to rope men in, hoping they will think this is a steamy sex noir. Did she have anything to do with it? But, without revealing too much, while sex plays a small part in the novel this cover and title do not lead you in the direction you (okay, I, with my mind in the [male] gutter?) think it will be.
Hughes was born in Kansas City, became a journalist, with an eye to the lives of the down and out; became a poet whose first book of poetry won the Yale Younger Poets Prize, wrote award-winning literary criticism (including a book about Erle Stanley Gardner), and fourteen novels, most of them of the “hardboiled” variety, focused on that sort of dark lyricism and moral passion you’d expect from the genre.
Ride the Pink Pony was published in 1946, just after the war ended. We’re in Santa Fe, New Mexico, for the Fiesta, where Sailor, a kind of henchman, travels by bus four days to get money owed him by ‘The Sen” or Senator Douglas, who has had his wife murdered. For a long while, Sailor hangs around the (then) small town, but can’t find a bed in any motel. This search for good sleep happens for days. He also talks a lot about wanting a beer, which also goes on and on for a long time, with his not getting one. He finds three teen prostitutes and befriends one on particular, but what one might expect. . . well, there are surprises. There may be something feminist being explored here.
Themes? Well, I guess one you’d see above is delayed satisfaction, with steady pacing as the atmosphere gets carnivalesque. I was reminded a bit of Malcolm Lowry’s Under the Volcano; we’re on the (white man’s) edge of civilization, maybe. Sailor once was sort of raised by The Sen, sent to college by him but also introduced to the world of crime by the corrupt senator. He is followed from Chicago by a sort of doppelganger character who also grew up “without advantages,” the detective, Mac (McIntyre). The question posed from the beginning is whether he might choose good or evil, a kind of noir theme.
The plot initially moves slowly in the hot dusty town, taking its sweet time. Each year, the Fiesta is preceded by the locals burning an effigy of Zozobra, the god of bad luck, so that their troubles may also symbolically burn in effigy. But even after that it’s still pretty gloomy there, in noir fashion. Strange garish costumes, painted women. The loneliness and alienation and off-centeredness of Sailor is key. There’s a merry-go-round run by good guy Pancho, who notices that Sailor is nice to the three girls and gives them (pink) soft drinks and let’s them “ride the pink horse” instead of taking advantage of them, which reveals some of the Good Sailor tendencies. Hughes’ interest in color throughout helps us see the struggle, too. And as in most noir, the issue of alcohol as the lubricant of evil comes up as a motif.
Initially Sailor is sort of racist about the poor folks of Santa Fe, the Mexicans and Indians, but over time he develops sympathetic relationships with the locals. Along the way, Hughes drops references to brutal southwestern history, the conquering of indigenous populations by the Spanish, and the Westward Ho whites who have no real connection with the land or its people. Pancho talks about good people, and encourages Sailor to move in this direction. But what will he finally do with Sen?
In short, I thought it was great, a real surprise, with a great ending, too. And some really good writing, the work of a poet. I’ll read more of her now. This book has some moral and political commentary in a way that another grim realistic book I just read, Fat City, by Leonard Gardner, does not have, but it's not heavy-handed, and Sailor is a really interestingly complicated character. I don't know about what she contributes to hard-boiled writing, finally, "as a woman;" but what I do know is that she is the real deal. Glad to have found her.
I’ve never read anything by Dorothy Hughes, but I was interested read one of the great noir writers that I hadn’t read, and more than that, a woman writing in the time that the field of mystery/detective novels were thoroughly dominated by men. How would noir novels be different? During this time, would a predominantly male audience believe that a woman could write with the same expected tough (and often macho) realism? Did they buy her books? What kind of “female” dimensions to the work might I find? A feminist strain? A kind of lyricism, maybe? I know, I know, gender or sexuality may not be necessarily predictive factors at all. Still, I was curious.
Two things that stand out before you even read one page in this edition I listened to, is the kind of cover you’d expect, featuring a sultry woman, femme fatale, maybe? and then the possibly corresponding title with hints of--am I imagining it?--sexual behavior? Ride the Pink Pony?!! So I am wondering if this cover and title were intended to rope men in, hoping they will think this is a steamy sex noir. Did she have anything to do with it? But, without revealing too much, while sex plays a small part in the novel this cover and title do not lead you in the direction you (okay, I, with my mind in the [male] gutter?) think it will be.
Hughes was born in Kansas City, became a journalist, with an eye to the lives of the down and out; became a poet whose first book of poetry won the Yale Younger Poets Prize, wrote award-winning literary criticism (including a book about Erle Stanley Gardner), and fourteen novels, most of them of the “hardboiled” variety, focused on that sort of dark lyricism and moral passion you’d expect from the genre.
Ride the Pink Pony was published in 1946, just after the war ended. We’re in Santa Fe, New Mexico, for the Fiesta, where Sailor, a kind of henchman, travels by bus four days to get money owed him by ‘The Sen” or Senator Douglas, who has had his wife murdered. For a long while, Sailor hangs around the (then) small town, but can’t find a bed in any motel. This search for good sleep happens for days. He also talks a lot about wanting a beer, which also goes on and on for a long time, with his not getting one. He finds three teen prostitutes and befriends one on particular, but what one might expect. . . well, there are surprises. There may be something feminist being explored here.
Themes? Well, I guess one you’d see above is delayed satisfaction, with steady pacing as the atmosphere gets carnivalesque. I was reminded a bit of Malcolm Lowry’s Under the Volcano; we’re on the (white man’s) edge of civilization, maybe. Sailor once was sort of raised by The Sen, sent to college by him but also introduced to the world of crime by the corrupt senator. He is followed from Chicago by a sort of doppelganger character who also grew up “without advantages,” the detective, Mac (McIntyre). The question posed from the beginning is whether he might choose good or evil, a kind of noir theme.
The plot initially moves slowly in the hot dusty town, taking its sweet time. Each year, the Fiesta is preceded by the locals burning an effigy of Zozobra, the god of bad luck, so that their troubles may also symbolically burn in effigy. But even after that it’s still pretty gloomy there, in noir fashion. Strange garish costumes, painted women. The loneliness and alienation and off-centeredness of Sailor is key. There’s a merry-go-round run by good guy Pancho, who notices that Sailor is nice to the three girls and gives them (pink) soft drinks and let’s them “ride the pink horse” instead of taking advantage of them, which reveals some of the Good Sailor tendencies. Hughes’ interest in color throughout helps us see the struggle, too. And as in most noir, the issue of alcohol as the lubricant of evil comes up as a motif.
Initially Sailor is sort of racist about the poor folks of Santa Fe, the Mexicans and Indians, but over time he develops sympathetic relationships with the locals. Along the way, Hughes drops references to brutal southwestern history, the conquering of indigenous populations by the Spanish, and the Westward Ho whites who have no real connection with the land or its people. Pancho talks about good people, and encourages Sailor to move in this direction. But what will he finally do with Sen?
In short, I thought it was great, a real surprise, with a great ending, too. And some really good writing, the work of a poet. I’ll read more of her now. This book has some moral and political commentary in a way that another grim realistic book I just read, Fat City, by Leonard Gardner, does not have, but it's not heavy-handed, and Sailor is a really interestingly complicated character. I don't know about what she contributes to hard-boiled writing, finally, "as a woman;" but what I do know is that she is the real deal. Glad to have found her.
Want to read
November 19, 2018That's a strangely sexy title you're wearing, book.
April 16, 2022
Sailor is a tough mug from Chicago. He followed the Sen to Santa Fe to get the dough that was due him. What happened in Chicago? Why are they in Santa Fe? Dorothy doesn't lay it out for you up front. It takes half the book for the particulars to seep out.
Sailor is repeatedly foiled. At first it seems like another instance of the Lew Wallace adage: All calculations based on experience elsewhere, fail in New Mexico.
Sailor is repeatedly foiled. At first it seems like another instance of the Lew Wallace adage: All calculations based on experience elsewhere, fail in New Mexico.
Sailor said, ... "I’m thankful I don’t have to live here. Give me Chicago, USA."But watching Sailor's screwups makes me think that maybe he is just a chump. The abrupt ending settles the matter.
He began to eat. Mac said, "This is the USA."
"This wouldn’t be the USA in a million years. No matter what flag they fly."
May 29, 2017
This is my second read from Dorothy Hughes (the other one I read was In a Lonely Place), and from what I gather, she has an uncanny ability to project an aura of isolation, alienation and elements of a brutal world that has darkness and corruptibility. And there is quite a brutal and unforgiving aspect to Ride the Pink Horse. Its main character, Sailor, is about as unforgiving of protagonist as you will come across in noir. Yet, Sailor is the vehicle by which and the lens through which we see all that is imperfect: reflections back his troubled, poverty-ridden childhood and his abusive, alcoholic father to his days in the pool hall and his meeting up with Sen to the key moments in the present of a key and brutal crime that fuels the fire for the story.
One of the characters, the “Sen”, represents a key cog in Sailor’s skepticism of the world. The Sen is a powerful man who took Sailor under his wing, only to become later a “weasel” and a corrupt figure later on.
The novel begins with Sailor in Santa Fe tracking and trailing the Sen. It seems the Sen owes him one, owes him something real good, real big, maybe even, say, a load of dough. See the Sen might be through with Sailor, but Sailor isn’t through with the Sen. Sailor wants to have a talk with the Sen, being that the Sen just happens to be getting over his wife’s death real good. And Sailor, he knows something, knows something that the Sen might not like.
Amid Sailor’s search for the Sen, there is also a third character thrown into the mix, a street wise cop named MacIntyre, who,(of all things) just happens to be in Santa Fe too. Sailor is unsure if Mac is tracking him, the Sen, or both, but with the three in a major chess game of hide and seek, it makes for quite a compelling read.
Added to the ambience of suspense and darkness is the backdrop, Santa Fe’s Zozobra festival, which Hughes depicts in apt noir prose: “But under the celebration was evil; the feast was rooted in blood…It was a memory of death and destruction….A memory of peace but before peace death and destruction.”
And, with Hughes, with us mostly following from Sailor’s point of view and his sometimes isolated, fractured and alienated frame of mind, there is under the surface of suspense a very intricate character study of a very flawed character. Sailor is one who feels often trapped by circumstances, yet certainly has moments to choose his own fate.
While there are some repetitive moments within the plot, and the subsequent revealing of events amid Sailor’s chase for the Sen, Ride the Pink Horse, over all, is a very fine noir. I’m looking forward to finding more books from Hughes.
One of the characters, the “Sen”, represents a key cog in Sailor’s skepticism of the world. The Sen is a powerful man who took Sailor under his wing, only to become later a “weasel” and a corrupt figure later on.
The novel begins with Sailor in Santa Fe tracking and trailing the Sen. It seems the Sen owes him one, owes him something real good, real big, maybe even, say, a load of dough. See the Sen might be through with Sailor, but Sailor isn’t through with the Sen. Sailor wants to have a talk with the Sen, being that the Sen just happens to be getting over his wife’s death real good. And Sailor, he knows something, knows something that the Sen might not like.
Amid Sailor’s search for the Sen, there is also a third character thrown into the mix, a street wise cop named MacIntyre, who,(of all things) just happens to be in Santa Fe too. Sailor is unsure if Mac is tracking him, the Sen, or both, but with the three in a major chess game of hide and seek, it makes for quite a compelling read.
Added to the ambience of suspense and darkness is the backdrop, Santa Fe’s Zozobra festival, which Hughes depicts in apt noir prose: “But under the celebration was evil; the feast was rooted in blood…It was a memory of death and destruction….A memory of peace but before peace death and destruction.”
And, with Hughes, with us mostly following from Sailor’s point of view and his sometimes isolated, fractured and alienated frame of mind, there is under the surface of suspense a very intricate character study of a very flawed character. Sailor is one who feels often trapped by circumstances, yet certainly has moments to choose his own fate.
While there are some repetitive moments within the plot, and the subsequent revealing of events amid Sailor’s chase for the Sen, Ride the Pink Horse, over all, is a very fine noir. I’m looking forward to finding more books from Hughes.
August 16, 2020
This is the opening paragraph and so ominous.
In addition to the very good characterization of Sailor, the setting is spot on. It is an unnamed town, very probably southeastern New Mexico. Adobe is the dominant construction of buildings. This was published in 1946, but I almost felt the streets were not paved, though they probably were. Reading about it just felt dusty to me. The population is mixed Gringo, Mexican/Spanish, Indian. The weekend is one of Fiesta. I was there with every turn of the page.
Hughes is in the same very good noir category or psychological fiction as Patricia Highsmith, Celia Fremlin and Georges Simenon. Having just read Vera Caspary, I'm on a roll with these women. This, too, is 5-stars.
He came in on the five o’clock bus. He was well to the back and he didn’t hurry. He remained seated there, his eyes alone moving while the other passengers churned front. His eyes moving and without seeming to move, through the windows on the right where he was seated, across the aisle through the left-hand windows. He saw no one he knew, no one who even looked as if he came from the city.Sailor has arrived in a small desert southwest town for what reason we do not know. We shall learn, however, and it isn't for a nice sunny vacation. No, Sailor does not come to town wearing a white hat. The story is told in third person limited so that we only know what Sailor sees and hears. Although never in the first person, we also know what Sailor is thinking. In this way we are given an almost complete characterization of a man who . Hughes has a way of eliciting our sympathy even when we don't want to give it.
In addition to the very good characterization of Sailor, the setting is spot on. It is an unnamed town, very probably southeastern New Mexico. Adobe is the dominant construction of buildings. This was published in 1946, but I almost felt the streets were not paved, though they probably were. Reading about it just felt dusty to me. The population is mixed Gringo, Mexican/Spanish, Indian. The weekend is one of Fiesta. I was there with every turn of the page.
Hughes is in the same very good noir category or psychological fiction as Patricia Highsmith, Celia Fremlin and Georges Simenon. Having just read Vera Caspary, I'm on a roll with these women. This, too, is 5-stars.
November 11, 2022
There might be other noir novels about as good as Ride the Pink Horse, but I don't think there are any better. Mostly this is because of the mesmerizing prose of this novel, right up there with stylistic classics like Barnes's Nightwood, Lowry's Under the Volcano, or the early Hemingway classics. This expose of the postwar U.S.A. gives us a voice transplanted out of the slums and then Mafia-run upper escutcheons of political thievery of Chicago into a New Mexico border town during a Fiesta weekend; and this is the perfect surreal setting for this chameleon would-be gunman character already moved from slum to capitol to begin to experience the vastness and history of the U.S. west, the layers of native, Latino, and now American history, social classes, racism, exploitation, the law, politics, revenge, etc. etc. It all swirls around his American-dream plan to get rich through a kind of just blackmail within the absurd and disconcerting Topsy-turvy world of a weekend dedicated to making our normally hard life of hierarchical servitude and order bearable through a weekend of pure drunken ecstasy. The juxtapositions of class, race, moral values, institutional translations of moral values, all driven by the U.S.A.'s get rich quick mentality, come together here to lead to the tragedy that our forefathers have built for us like a trap we cannot escape. This is the manifest destiny of noir writing.
September 22, 2021
While I am not a fan of hard-boiled novels, it is difficult to deny how well-crafted this story is. The reader is transported to the Santa Fe Fiesta--the lights, the music, the stifling crowds, the strong smell of garlic and chiles. The sweat practically runs down your brow as you follow Sailor on his chase of Sen. A small, narrow-minded man, whose goals are so narrowly focused, he essentially becomes blind to everything else around him. He develops strangely poignant relationships with Don Jose (aka Pancho), the operator of the Fiesta's merry-go-round, and Pila, a young Indian girl. Pancho shows him a degree of friendship and loyalty he has not earned and does not understand, and Pila, who somehow represents youth and innocence as well as the wisdom of old age in her deep and dark eyes, brings out some paternal feelings in Sailor, if only displayed in a clumsy way. There is also Mac, the cop who is tailing both Sailor and Sen, who tries to serve as Sailor's conscience. Coming from the same mean streets of Chicago, he went good where Sailor had gone bad. Is it too late for Sailor to turn his life around; to walk away from the underworld that he grew up in?
October 16, 2021
Very atmospheric, and so bleak. (I suppose that's why it's classed as noir). There were snatched of brilliance in the writing, but overall, I just didn't connect with the charcters. I will try more of her novels though.
June 18, 2013
Dorothy B. Hughes was one of the female writers who found themselves drawn towards writing for the 1940's crime noir genre, and whose work also made its way onto the big screen. My own introduction to her was seeing the film version of In a Lonely Place, starring Humphrey Bogart and Gloria Grahame. Ride The Pink Horse was also turned into a film featuring Robert Montgomery, and after reading the original I shall certainly look out for the film.
The novel revolves around the key figure of Sailor, who appears in a small town on the border of Mexico, he has travelled from Chicago in search of his boss the Sen. However, on arrival he finds he has hit town just as the Fiesta is taking place, and the Sen is trying to romance the heiress Iris Towers. The Senator is at first unaware that his former secretary has arrived in town and we also see that he is also been watched by a detective from Chicago called McIntyre.
As with all great crime noir, this is not just a novel about crime, crooks and coppers. It deals with the changes which were occurring in America at the time. In a post war America, people realised that there were hidden threats to their idealised version what it was to be an American. Many Americans felt threatened by other nationalities who were flocking to the 'land of the free', hoping to create a prosperous life for themselves and their families. Hughes manages to show this through Sailor's attitude to the Mexicans and the Mexicans attitude to the Native Americans who are visiting their town. Through Sailor's relationship with both the Sen and Mac we can see a man struggling with his lot but desperate for change, or that's what he believes. It is the relationship between Sailor and the other characters within this novel which makes it such a fascinating and multifaceted read.
The novel revolves around the key figure of Sailor, who appears in a small town on the border of Mexico, he has travelled from Chicago in search of his boss the Sen. However, on arrival he finds he has hit town just as the Fiesta is taking place, and the Sen is trying to romance the heiress Iris Towers. The Senator is at first unaware that his former secretary has arrived in town and we also see that he is also been watched by a detective from Chicago called McIntyre.
As with all great crime noir, this is not just a novel about crime, crooks and coppers. It deals with the changes which were occurring in America at the time. In a post war America, people realised that there were hidden threats to their idealised version what it was to be an American. Many Americans felt threatened by other nationalities who were flocking to the 'land of the free', hoping to create a prosperous life for themselves and their families. Hughes manages to show this through Sailor's attitude to the Mexicans and the Mexicans attitude to the Native Americans who are visiting their town. Through Sailor's relationship with both the Sen and Mac we can see a man struggling with his lot but desperate for change, or that's what he believes. It is the relationship between Sailor and the other characters within this novel which makes it such a fascinating and multifaceted read.
February 26, 2015
Dull, boring, repetitive, this book lacks all tension or excitement. It drones on and on repeating itself over and over. It's a 20 page short story that was told 10 times to make a 200 page book. Awful. Don't bother to read it. Waste of time.
January 7, 2021
Willis Douglass, a former Illinois Senator, was once a noble enough man to take in a Chicago street punk named Sailor, put the kid through some schooling at a city university, and later employ him as his confidential secretary. But with time, Douglass has become corrupt, so much that by the time he left Washington, he was more like a mob boss than an elected politician. Now an ex-Senator living back in Chicago, Douglass decides life would be more convenient if his wife were dead, and Sailor, now one of his henchmen, is very much a part of the plot he hatches. Plans go wrong, and Sailor needs to find his former boss, so he tracks him to Santa Fe, where the Sen is vacationing at the town's Fiesta, a week long celebration. The setting could not be more perfect for the showdown of Sailor, the Sen, and MacIntyre, the head of the Chicago homicide bureau.
With the focus strongly on Sailor, the tension is cranked up from the outset, and the tautness maintained throughout.
This is unadulterated noir; frequently nasty, spare and often callous, and with cutting and incisive wit.
Enthusiasts may plump for In a Lonely Place , but I can assure you, this is where its at...I urge you, mount up, and ride this horse...
Here's a couple of clips..
(about Sailor's childhood)
and, on arriving at the Fiesta in Santa Fe..
With the focus strongly on Sailor, the tension is cranked up from the outset, and the tautness maintained throughout.
This is unadulterated noir; frequently nasty, spare and often callous, and with cutting and incisive wit.
Enthusiasts may plump for In a Lonely Place , but I can assure you, this is where its at...I urge you, mount up, and ride this horse...
Here's a couple of clips..
(about Sailor's childhood)
The church was only round the corner and they made it as the last bell was an echo, marching down the aisle together, the old man and the old lady and the kids, the eight kids. Eight kids and not enough bread for one. Kneeling together, praying together, marching out again into the cold gloomy Chicago Sunday. The hot sweating Chicago Sunday.
“It’s a fine family you have there, Mr...”
The old man puffing himself up and accepting the compliments on the church steps and the old lady smirking timidly and fingering her worn black gloves. She blacked them with shoe blacking on Saturday nights. The kids standing like clodhoppers with their welts itching under their sawtoothed winter underwear, under their sweaty summer floursacks.
The priest in his stained cassock looking like a pale, pious, nearsighted Saint. Saints didn’t belong in a slum church; there ought to have been a fighting priest like an avenging angel with a fiery sword. To whack the old man down. To strike the old man and his sanctimonious Sunday smile dead on the church steps.
and, on arriving at the Fiesta in Santa Fe..
Black rage shook him. He hadn’t had a place to sleep, he hadn’t had food, he couldn’t even get a beer in this goddamn stinking lousy town. He was ready to turn and walk out when he saw wedged at a table against a wall, McIntyre. In the same silly hat, the red sash. Mac hadn’t seen him yet. Mac was watching the dance floor. Sailor knew then that the Sen was here. The Sen and Iris Towers. He took his stance in the room.
July 1, 2014
Hughes is wonderful at creating a world within a world that you can't help but become a part of, even though she paints them dark, pits them against her people. She seems to specialize in purposeful alienation, to create characters that you don't like but whom you begin to root for, almost against your will. Characters that pit themselves against the world they live in and those that people it, but for base rather than noble reasons. People you wish death and failure on but whom you also secretly cheer and mourn, for no redeeming characteristic at all.
The characters in this book, like the setting, have no great and noble reason to loom larger than life. But they do. And this should be nothing but a good piece of noir, but instead I keep thinking about hard-headed ancient explorers hurling themselves into the dangerous, alien unknown for the promise of Cibola, of the mythological figures of conqueror and conquered throughout history, of Zozobra, and a land that fights its own battles. This story is just a story, but like all good stories, it is also timeless, the repetition of an echo in the world.
The characters in this book, like the setting, have no great and noble reason to loom larger than life. But they do. And this should be nothing but a good piece of noir, but instead I keep thinking about hard-headed ancient explorers hurling themselves into the dangerous, alien unknown for the promise of Cibola, of the mythological figures of conqueror and conquered throughout history, of Zozobra, and a land that fights its own battles. This story is just a story, but like all good stories, it is also timeless, the repetition of an echo in the world.
November 12, 2018
Hard-boiled noir by a woman author, published in 1946! I figured this would be interesting as a historical document, at least. But alas, the historic interest wasn’t enough to keep me engaged. The book is all atmosphere with almost no plot, certainly not a mystery, nor even a Highsmith-style howtheydunit. The protagonist just runs in circles for three days, dragging the reader along. I suppose there’s a term paper to be written about the protagonist’s casual racism that grudgingly turns into gratitude to the locals who show him kindness, a redemption which at this remove just looks like a kinder, more patronizing form of othering. But I was hoping for a page-turner, and sadly this was a slog.
September 18, 2020
Fascinating and riveting noir featuring an increasingly paranoid and unhinged narrator. The book uses racist language, neither unexpected because of its narrator nor unfamiliar for its publication date. The New Mexico setting is a welcome bonus.
April 6, 2015
I do not understand that Mysterious Press cover. Is it some weird attempt to sell the book as ‘chick lit’? Because too many ‘modern’ men are going to be terrified of a book with ‘pink’ in the title already. This is a gritty and atmospheric novel that showcases Hughes skill at rendering lost men struggling to find their way without the traditional cultural handholds. As usual, she’s brilliant as she allows the downward spiral to snake all the way down. But you knew that, right? Chandler told you.
Sailor is a hood from Chicago, thrust into the wild frontier of New Mexico, looking for his boss, the Senator, who betrayed him while setting up the murder of the Sen’s wife. He discovers that he’s not the only one following the boss: Mac, a cop from the Windy City, has made his way to this desert town, too. But is he after Sen — or Sailor?
The desert and its people confuse Sailor, but his habits of thought give way to new discoveries — and new alliances — without understanding why. The fiesta with its ritual observances casts an almost uncanny shadow over the town for this Catholic boy. His confusion about what’s right and wrong — and who is really a friend — demonstrate his confusion and anger. He has chances to avoid his noirish fate; he almost takes some of them.
Like all Hughes novels, there’s a boatload of awesome quotes. Here’s a few:
In destroying evil, even puppet evil, these merrymakers were turned evil…Fire-shadowed, their eyes glittered with the appetite to destroy.
He didn’t know why giving her a ride had been important…whether it was placating an old and nameless terror. Pila wasn’t stone now; she was a little girl, her stiff dark hair blowing behind her like the mane of the pink wooden horse.
And standing there the unease came upon him again. The unease of an alien land, of darkness and silence, of strange tongues and a stranger people, of unfamiliar smells, even the cool-of-night smell unfamiliar…The panic of loneness; of himself the stranger although he was himself unchanged, the creeping loss of identity.
‘Only the Indians are proud peoples…Because they do not care for nothing. Only this their country. They do not care about the Gringos or even the poor Mexicanos. These people do not belong to their country. They do not care because they know these peoples will go away. Sometime.’
And the rage was eating him again.
The Sen said something to Iris Towers and she slanted her eyes up at him and the smile on her mouth was the way you wanted a woman to smile at you. The way you didn’t want a woman to smile at a murderer.
The whole town was a trap. He’d been trapped from the moment he stepped off the bus at the dirty station. Trapped by the unknown, by a foreign town and foreign tongues and the ways of alien men. Trapped by the evil these people had burned and the ash that had entered their flesh.
Another dance. A warrior dance, the dancers lunging at each other, without warning letting out startling whoops. It made him jumpy. Then it was over, the dancers jingling away on soft feet, the drum beating away into silence. The crowd broke, speaking silly things to exorcise the spell.
And I could have gone on and on. Hughes is a great stylist who captures an unsettling sense of tension and dread incredibly well. Not enough people read her. They’re missing out.
Sailor is a hood from Chicago, thrust into the wild frontier of New Mexico, looking for his boss, the Senator, who betrayed him while setting up the murder of the Sen’s wife. He discovers that he’s not the only one following the boss: Mac, a cop from the Windy City, has made his way to this desert town, too. But is he after Sen — or Sailor?
The desert and its people confuse Sailor, but his habits of thought give way to new discoveries — and new alliances — without understanding why. The fiesta with its ritual observances casts an almost uncanny shadow over the town for this Catholic boy. His confusion about what’s right and wrong — and who is really a friend — demonstrate his confusion and anger. He has chances to avoid his noirish fate; he almost takes some of them.
Like all Hughes novels, there’s a boatload of awesome quotes. Here’s a few:
In destroying evil, even puppet evil, these merrymakers were turned evil…Fire-shadowed, their eyes glittered with the appetite to destroy.
He didn’t know why giving her a ride had been important…whether it was placating an old and nameless terror. Pila wasn’t stone now; she was a little girl, her stiff dark hair blowing behind her like the mane of the pink wooden horse.
And standing there the unease came upon him again. The unease of an alien land, of darkness and silence, of strange tongues and a stranger people, of unfamiliar smells, even the cool-of-night smell unfamiliar…The panic of loneness; of himself the stranger although he was himself unchanged, the creeping loss of identity.
‘Only the Indians are proud peoples…Because they do not care for nothing. Only this their country. They do not care about the Gringos or even the poor Mexicanos. These people do not belong to their country. They do not care because they know these peoples will go away. Sometime.’
And the rage was eating him again.
The Sen said something to Iris Towers and she slanted her eyes up at him and the smile on her mouth was the way you wanted a woman to smile at you. The way you didn’t want a woman to smile at a murderer.
The whole town was a trap. He’d been trapped from the moment he stepped off the bus at the dirty station. Trapped by the unknown, by a foreign town and foreign tongues and the ways of alien men. Trapped by the evil these people had burned and the ash that had entered their flesh.
Another dance. A warrior dance, the dancers lunging at each other, without warning letting out startling whoops. It made him jumpy. Then it was over, the dancers jingling away on soft feet, the drum beating away into silence. The crowd broke, speaking silly things to exorcise the spell.
And I could have gone on and on. Hughes is a great stylist who captures an unsettling sense of tension and dread incredibly well. Not enough people read her. They’re missing out.
May 20, 2021
Enjoyable noir thriller, told from the perspective of the criminal, rather than the detective who is chasing him. The protagonist, a man known only as “Sailor”—though this is neither his name nor his occupation—arrives in Santa Fe on the heels of his erstwhile boss, “the Sen,” a shady senator from Chicago. Sailor is looking to collect on a job he did for the Sen—well, more to shake him down, as the job didn’t go off quite as planned, and left the Sen with dirtier hands than he might have liked. A Chicago police detective, McIntyre, is in town as well, and Sailor isn’t sure whether McIntyre is on the Sen’s trail, or on Sailor's.
Rolled up in that story are some themes of revenge, of class mobility, of masculinity; it’s sufficiently rich to sustain, but what really makes this book stand out is the vibrancy of its setting, and the depth of character with which Hughes paints Sailor. As to setting, Santa Fe in the 40s was a one-horse town, but even then its annual Fiesta drew a lot of visitors. Hughes drops Sailor down in the midst of the celebration, among the colors and the chaos, and it provides an exciting backdrop for a noir mood, with its vaguely frenetic atmosphere that to Sailor is wholly alien; this, combined with his inability to secure a hotel room (everything is booked for Fiesta), leaves him disjoint and floating, heightening the tension as he moves among festive venues.
And then there is Sailor himself. His anti-Latino, anti-Indian racism and his misogyny are tiresome, but they are true to the character, and it’s not lost on Sailor that the people he makes the most intimate connections with in this alien setting, the people who drive his character arc, are the kind Latino man who runs the carousel from which the book takes its name, and a young Indian girl, Pila, who simply inspires Sailor to his own acts of kindness. McIntyre tries to reach Sailor too, but ultimately judges him unsaveable, a judgment which proves self-fulfilling. But Sailor’s yearning for kindness and human connection, the way he reaches in his darkness for the carousel man (whom he calls “Poncho Villa” rather than learning his lengthy, aristocratic, Conquistador name), for Pila, and even for McIntyre, keep him sympathetic, despite his roughness and criminality.
Rolled up in that story are some themes of revenge, of class mobility, of masculinity; it’s sufficiently rich to sustain, but what really makes this book stand out is the vibrancy of its setting, and the depth of character with which Hughes paints Sailor. As to setting, Santa Fe in the 40s was a one-horse town, but even then its annual Fiesta drew a lot of visitors. Hughes drops Sailor down in the midst of the celebration, among the colors and the chaos, and it provides an exciting backdrop for a noir mood, with its vaguely frenetic atmosphere that to Sailor is wholly alien; this, combined with his inability to secure a hotel room (everything is booked for Fiesta), leaves him disjoint and floating, heightening the tension as he moves among festive venues.
And then there is Sailor himself. His anti-Latino, anti-Indian racism and his misogyny are tiresome, but they are true to the character, and it’s not lost on Sailor that the people he makes the most intimate connections with in this alien setting, the people who drive his character arc, are the kind Latino man who runs the carousel from which the book takes its name, and a young Indian girl, Pila, who simply inspires Sailor to his own acts of kindness. McIntyre tries to reach Sailor too, but ultimately judges him unsaveable, a judgment which proves self-fulfilling. But Sailor’s yearning for kindness and human connection, the way he reaches in his darkness for the carousel man (whom he calls “Poncho Villa” rather than learning his lengthy, aristocratic, Conquistador name), for Pila, and even for McIntyre, keep him sympathetic, despite his roughness and criminality.
March 14, 2021
A young gangster comes to Santa Fe, New Mexico in pursuit of his future, trailed by his past.
Mystery Review: Ride the Pink Horse fits as a mystery, a noir, even a hard-boiled detective story, but with a distinct difference. Dorothy B. Hughes doesn't focus on plot, action, or suspense. Instead she spends much of the novel recreating the setting, the ambiance and feel of the Fiestas de Santa Fe. She also describes the growth and evolution of a young, bigoted, and damaged criminal from Chicago. He's a stranger in a strange land, a fish out of water, and he's reluctantly absorbed into the people, history, and landscape of the region. Hughes slowly establishes the complex interplay of the four main characters, slowly builds suspense and tension. She's patiently working with myths and archetypes. The story is much different than readers have come to expect from Hughes in other excellent novels such as Dread Journey (1945), In a Lonely Place (1947), or The Expendable Man (1963). Those books were written with a subtle awareness of race and class in America, but that awareness is given center stage in Ride the Pink Horse and compassion is the main player. "It's good, for us to see how other people live. We get awfully narrow in our own little lives. We get thinking we're so all-fired important that nobody else counts. We forget that everyone counts, that everybody on this earth counts just as much as we do." Not what was on offer in Hammett, Cain, and Chandler. In Ride the Pink Horse thoughts and emotions, human interactions, are as important as guns and fists. There is a reasonable amount of drink, however. A well-written but surprising and thoughtful ride. [4★]
Mystery Review: Ride the Pink Horse fits as a mystery, a noir, even a hard-boiled detective story, but with a distinct difference. Dorothy B. Hughes doesn't focus on plot, action, or suspense. Instead she spends much of the novel recreating the setting, the ambiance and feel of the Fiestas de Santa Fe. She also describes the growth and evolution of a young, bigoted, and damaged criminal from Chicago. He's a stranger in a strange land, a fish out of water, and he's reluctantly absorbed into the people, history, and landscape of the region. Hughes slowly establishes the complex interplay of the four main characters, slowly builds suspense and tension. She's patiently working with myths and archetypes. The story is much different than readers have come to expect from Hughes in other excellent novels such as Dread Journey (1945), In a Lonely Place (1947), or The Expendable Man (1963). Those books were written with a subtle awareness of race and class in America, but that awareness is given center stage in Ride the Pink Horse and compassion is the main player. "It's good, for us to see how other people live. We get awfully narrow in our own little lives. We get thinking we're so all-fired important that nobody else counts. We forget that everyone counts, that everybody on this earth counts just as much as we do." Not what was on offer in Hammett, Cain, and Chandler. In Ride the Pink Horse thoughts and emotions, human interactions, are as important as guns and fists. There is a reasonable amount of drink, however. A well-written but surprising and thoughtful ride. [4★]
June 22, 2023
This might have made a good hard-boiled/noir story of 40-50 pages. As a novel it is turgid, flabby, lacks pace and is, frankly, boring. Fusing the tough guy noir-style with a morality tale and a worthy description of deep American south poverty and deprivation does not make for a readable novel. Not the first clunker from the Otto Penzler American Mystery Classics series. I cannot recommend this.
October 11, 2019
Nervy, tense, dreamlike noir -- works very well, stands out from the genre. The film is great, too.
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July 30, 2023One day I’ll actually finish this 😭😭 ofc I will literally have moved three times before that’s even a possibility. All I want to know is what the pink horse is… what is this book about lol
May 8, 2021
Another classic by Dorothy Hughes...having said that, of her big three, In a Lonely Place, The Expendable Man and Ride the Pink Horse, I'd put Pink Horse in 3rd...Why? Well written, a solid plot, prose is very interesting...but...the action to suspense ratio is low...too much wandering around town thinking about the past & future while dealing with the now, which is the Fiesta crowds, extorting cash, and dealing with a calm but pesky Detective...together you keep expecting something to happen but you end up with more suspense...The ending pays-off though...-I've noticed Hughes defines settings...time & place...so exact...and then repeats them...that the settings become a character of it's own...that would the dark foggy streets of San Francisco in the hours of 7:00 pm to midnight with occasional city buses gliding byefor In A Lonely Place, the daytime intense sun & blue sky of AZ in The Expendable Man and the loud, hot, dusty New Mexico border town in Ride the Pink Horse...-I liked Pink Horse but marked it down a little because I can't recommend to the casual reader due to the constant suspense but very little pay-off...except for the last couple of pages...3.5 outta 5.0...
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