KING COFFIN

by Conrad Alken ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 20, 1935

Morbidly fascinating, this relentless stream of consciousness building toward the perfect crime on the part of a youth who dramatizes and synthesizes his every gesture toward life. The atmosphere created recalls an English play which had some measure of success here -- Rope -- and the Loeb -- Leopold murder case...Step by step, a young aesthete, a poseur, stages his breaks with friends, acquaintances, enthusiasms; he plots his crime, he chooses and stalks his victim, and at the end, cheated of the sustaining impersonality of his relation toward his victim, he goes home and turns on the gas. Grim -- relentless -- in mental rather than emotional range, it yet lays hold of ones sense of mounting horror. Poe -- rather than Francis Iles. A completely new departure for Conrad Aiken, and a book that might -- with certain breaks -- become a headliner. Extensive advertising campaign planned -- striking jacket. Watch it.

Pub Date: Sept. 20, 1935

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Scribner

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1935

Categories: FICTION