The story of a quirky inventor

I’m mentioning my friend Andrew Simpson again but not his blog this time, I’m thinking about a photograph he shared on Facebook. It’s a photograph he took in the precinct in Stockport, Greater Manchester, of a shop window. Standing blank-faced (literally) are four manikins, randomly and not very interestingly displayed, positioned in the window. It triggered a memory of a library book I’d read when I was probably a young teenager where there was a similar display which came alive at night. As i thought about it I remembered that the characters weren’t manikins but statues in a museum. I thought some more and recalled that the author was called Thorne Smith which had intrigued me, because even at that age I was fascinated by unusual names.

To cut my waffle short, I chased the memory and found it was called ‘The Night Life of the Gods‘ published in 1931 and was later made into a film (which I may have seen on TV in black and white) The story is about an inventor who as in many books and movies designs something which doesn’t quite work as he expects:

“The Night Life of the Gods (1931) narrates the story of a quirky inventor Hunter Hawk who strikes gold when he invents a device that enables him to turn living matter into stone, and to reverse the process at will.“

The idea of crazy inventors and their even crazier inventions has a long history in film and before that in literature, because of course Mary Shelley’s ‘Frankenstein’ written in 1818, was exactly that. In Smith’s book, Hunter Hawke is an inventor who discovers how to petrify things, and also turn them back to their original form. Of course when he tries it in a museum at night it all goes chaotically wrong and the ensuing muddle is what makes the story. I’ve bought the book so I’ll come back and share my thoughts when I’ve finished it.

James Thorne Smith was born in Annapolis, Maryland in 1892 – the same year as my grandma! He enlisted in the US Navy in 1917 so served during the first World War but before that he had worked in advertising and had already made connections with other writers including Dorothy Parker. After the war, he was back in New York and in the 1920’s he had a circle of writing associates including Sinclair Lewis. He wrote a number of novels, many comical and almost surreal, but sadly he died at the comparatively young age of only forty-two. I realise, looking down his bibliography, that I’ve read several other books by him, including “Topper”, “Skin and Bones”, “The Glorious Pool” and the fabulously titled “The Bishop’s Jaegers”! Jaegers are underpants – and I think I may well have to investigate and write about them at some point!

Here (I hope, but who know with WordPress these days?!) is a link to Andrew’s photo:

https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=10164095249969921&set=a.10150195538749921