The Longest Death by Kevin Jagernauth

As a Neo-noir Neo-pulp (to coin a term), The Longest Death impressed and entertained me. It perplexed me too. Deeply cinematic, moody, and artful, the assured novel riffs on the gritty heist films of the ‘50s (The Asphalt Jungle, Violent Saturday, The Killing, and Odds Against Tomorrow, for instance) while also appearing to nod to a genre with exponential growth about a decade later: gay pulp fiction. 

The result is extraordinary: the codes and tropes of Montreal-based Kevin Jagernauth’s debut novel evoke a past that is, today, largely ‘known’ via fiction—stylized black-and-white films shot in the 1950s; at the same time, it slyly alters the terms of historical filmic convention by moving Richard and Marlon, star-crossed lovers, to the centre of the story. All together, The Longest Death initially registers as a smart, sharp genre revival. And yet it refers to a genre that never actually existed because Hollywood’s notorious Hayes code prohibited “any inference of sex perversion,” chiefly homosexuality. It’s a neat trick. 

Setting up the heist’s clockwork pieces, Jagernauth showcases a knack for types, starting with Riverton, “a parched town in the middle of nowhere” with picket fences, upright citizens, abundant goodwill … and an undercurrent of dissatisfaction beneath all the propriety. 

To open, there’s Frank Todd, once “a flatfoot with a badge, now a private dick,” who seeks redemption (but often finds only booze): “So now Todd laundered Riverton’s secrets and made them come out clean. He’d earned a reputation for working fast and cheap and keeping his trap shut. As far as Todd was concerned, if he could keep his mouthwash stocked and his gat loaded, that was enough.” 

And when Richard Cobson—small town nobody, petty thief, and up-and-coming clerk at Eddy & Dowd Safe Deposit Company, the town’s leading white collar business—catches an eyeful of “mannered, eloquent” Marlon Montgomery, his steady metronome of a heart races from largo to allegro. Off in the corner, meanwhile, Gloria Lamarne, a beauty with a past who’s terminally bored of local “lounge louses” and itching for the big time, watches, spying opportunity. All va-va-voom “chassis” and tough talk, Gloria dreams of being “somewhere that had some real life in it” and a “chance to be more than just a pair of gams.”

More than a fish-out-of-water sophisticate, Marlon’s a swindler to the bone, “a clip-artist.” He’d “tried a few stints as Johnny Citizen” and they hadn’t stuck. A “sharp playing it straight,” his “lunchpail gig” at Eddy & Dowd is short-lived. He likes the look of Richard and, eventually, pries out Richard’s robbery scheme. And while Marlon admires Gloria’s “grit” he’s not sure (initially) if a woman has any role in the new scam. Richard, in search of “the scent of lavender,” wants love, not constant peril, and thinks he’s secured it in Marlon. 

All the while, Richard, Marlon, and Gloria’s boss, Dowd, a Midas sensing that someone’s after the gold in his “temple of commerce,” hires Frank to follow his hunches. 

Nothing, of course, occurs without a hitch or three. 

And Jagernauth, an apparent savant at plot and character and atmosphere, relates it all with a winking relish.

With two, three, four, or six wheels of plots in motion, Jagernauth inserts a small scene. Richard has driven to nearby Fairfield to purchase a “heater” and a “box of pills” at Conny’s Gunsmith. Tensions rise, with the men posturing over manly weapons. “So long, you ******,” Conny barks as Richard leaves. “Faggot,” the word Jagernauth replaces with asterisks, is disallowed in the world of The Longest Death. Richard’s feral retaliation, however, is not. It’s yet another terrific, provocative moment, in a novel that teems with them. 

Brett Josef Grubisic

Brett Josef Grubisic resides on Salt Spring Island, BC, where he's currently at war with his sixth novel. Previous novels include The Age of Cities and My Two-Faced Luck.