Review by C.J. Bunce

Written with the title Memory and published first in 2010, The Actor is a new re-issue of an unpublished 1963 novel by Edgar Award winner Donald E. Westlake penned in his twenties, one of those found books selected for publication by editor Charles Ardai for his Hard Case Crime imprint.  The last published book by Westlake, The Actor is also the title of a forthcoming movie adaptation to star André Holland and Gemma Chan along with Toby Jones and Tracey Ullman.  But not unlike Hard Case Crime’s Fast Charlie, first published by the imprint (reviewed here) and adapted into a movie starring Pierce Brosnan (reviewed here), the movie is going to have some significant changes from the novel.  That’s mainly because Westlake’s novel doesn’t have a payoff.

When you invest in 400 pages, as a reader you have certain expectations of the author.  The target for the novel should be diehard Westlake enthusiasts, because it showcases his writing early on.  It’s written like a hardboiled crime thriller, and it’s teased as much in the opening scene, which finds protagonist Paul Cole getting knocked unconscious when he is discovered in bed with another man’s wife.  In 1963 when the book was written, adultery was a crime in many more states than it is today (so will they update that for the movie?).  The story builds slowly and expertly as Paul tries to learn something about his past life and how he ended up with amnesia, only for another 50 pages to go by, then another 50, and another… then it plateaus until the end when nothing at all happens.  No satisfying ending, no payoff.  This violates more than one writing rule, but the biggest is the protagonist does not change between the first and the last page.

At the most this is a thoughtful drama, an examination of the life of any pandhandler on everycorner of Everytown, America, a man who through disease or torment or violence no longer knows who he is.  Scribed in the hardboiled style of the 1950 noir movie D.O.A. and Memoirs of an Invisible Man, the drama of The Incredible Shrinking Man, and with the literary style of Philip K. Dick sans science fiction (see We Can Build That for You Wholesale aka Total Recall and Paycheck), we meet a man with some form of amnesia, who for months is not helped by anyone but doctors who promptly released him onto the streets of some unknown Midwest town, only for him to try to find his way back to his home in New York City where he is even more of a lost soul.  His so-called friends and business associates offer only minimal support.  You’re left to ask: Could this be set in any time period in America?  Is this happening everywhere today?

So without an unreliable narrator, and without a genre hook (no fantasy or supernatural elements, no outer space setting, no mystery, no police procedural characters, etc.), the story has no place to go.  That’s right–despite some reviews to the contrary, Paul is a reliable narrator–everything he shares with the reader is true.  But the way it’s written a reader can’t help but hope Paul has some secrets.  This feels much like Michael Crichton’s first eight novels he wrote beginning in his graduate school years under the pen name John Lange.  A reader can see some quality elements that will shine in his later, best works, but the spark isn’t quite there yet.

But the writing is.  You can imagine Paul as a latter-year version of the protagonist in Westlake’s Lemons Never Lie.  You get the feeling Paul is only steps away from being that bad decisionmaking sap in Help I Am Being Held Prisoner.  You wonder if Paul is ever going to arrive anywhere like the cabbie in Call Me a Cab, all as you experience someone with the familiarity of living in New York City like the characters in Brothers Keepers.

So if you begin to read The Actor you might just make it through those 400 pages in a single weekend.  Westlake knew how to keep a reader’s attention.  Unfortunately this is exactly the kind of story that needed an editor to sweep in and modify his ending.  And hopefully that’s what will happen for the movie.  As a reader you will ask as you anticipate the end:  What great whopper does Westlake have in store for us a la The Sixth Sense?  And there is none.

The re-issue of Westlake’s 1963 novel Memory as The Actor is available now here at Amazon (unfortunately without one of those trademark Hard Case Crime painted noir covers!).  Look for the movie in theaters March 14, 2025.  Don’t miss my prior reviews at borg from Westlake’s extensive library: Forever and a Death, Castle in the Air, Help I Am Being Held Prisoner, Brothers Keepers, Double Feature, Call Me a Cab, and Lemons Never Lie.