Curley
A younger friend who spent a night in Central Park listening to a wanted murderer, and gave Val the material for a story he then published as his own.
The book
At a glance
- A younger friend of Val's, from long before the marriage
- One long evening late in the book, and as a source of rent money
- The killer's story, which Val wrote up as his own
Who they are in the book
Spoiler-freeCurley is a character in Plexus, the 1953 novel by the American writer Henry Miller. Plexus is the middle book of a three-part autobiographical novel called The Rosy Crucifixion, narrated by Miller under the name Val and set in New York in the middle 1920s. Curley is a younger friend of long standing, and in this volume the book uses him for one long evening near the end.
That evening is the source of a story Val wrote about a killer, presented as though he had known the man himself. Every fact in it came from Curley. Miller renamed the people in his books; this profile describes the character as Plexus draws him, from the Grove Weidenfeld printing, read in the Internet Archive's scan.
How the book draws them
- One of the two people they can borrow fromThe rent gets found somehow, month after month. Val names the two who came to the rescue: Dr Kronski and Curley. When neither could help, the couple walked an hour to Val's parents' house and stayed until they had eaten.
- The night in Central ParkCurley spent a night in Central Park in the company of a man the whole country was hunting, a killer he calls Butch, who told him his life story and let slip details of the job he was then planning. He described how the man had shut himself in a room for weeks, lying on the bed with a bandage over his eyes, rehearsing every move in detail, and would not act until the plan was perfect. Curley refused to say what the coming job was, and told them to watch the papers.
- "His eyes!"He was still shaking when he told it — frightened, thrilled and half-hypnotised, and unable to talk about anything else. What he kept returning to was the man's eyes. He said he felt as if he were turning to stone.
- The answer that astonished ValAsked whether he would recognise the man again, Curley hesitated and said he did not think so: the personality was so strong it erased its own features. He then reached for an analogy — if Saint Francis appeared in this room tonight and spoke to you, would you remember his face tomorrow, or would the presence blot it out? Val says plainly that he was astounded, and that Curley had made strides.
- What he says he would still doThe argument turns to whether he would live as a criminal if he could get away with it. Curley follows the reasoning about crime and literature perfectly well and then dismisses it: he does not care about the subtleties, that is literature, and he still hates one particular man enough to kill him like a dog and would do it without compunction if he could. Told that a character in a book differs from a criminal because he does not care whether he escapes, Curley says that only proves he will never make a hero.