The Last Ball

The Last Ball, by Charles Rigdon
June, 1973 Pocket Books

For some reason this novel (first published in hardcover in 1972 by Trident Press) was promoted as Charles Rigdon's "first," despite the fact that Night Games was published in 1969. But given that sleaze purveyors Award Books were behind that one, I'm guessing Rigdon and his publishers figured "don't ask, don't tell." At any rate The Last Ball is mostly superior to that previous novel; it's a big trashy tale that comes recommended by none other than my man Burt Hirschfeld, who must've been so impressed that he provided both front and back cover blurbs.

The Last Ball is actually very similar to the work of Hirschfeld; Rigdon has the same talent for the long-simmer tale, putting a bunch of rich characters together in glamorous settings. Like some of Hirschfeld's work, it's also a bit too long for its own good, filled with uneccessary scene-setting and padding. Two things set Rigdon's work apart from Hirschfeld, however: first, he tends to be a bit more literary. There's a fair bit of "word painting" in The Last Ball, particularly in the descriptions of the countryside and the weather, some of which is so florid and verbose that it would shame a 19th century travelogue writer. The other difference between Rigdon and Hirschfeld is that Rigdon, when he wants to be, is a whole hell of a lot trashier.

The "last ball" in question is an annual converging of the entitled elite at a charity ball in New York City; traditionally it has been helmed by Jessica Eldridge, daughter of a president and royalty in all but name. Jessica though is quite advanced in years and won't be able to handle events this year. Meanwhile a group of jet-setters squabble amongst one another, anticipating the ball.

The odd man out in the group is John Hartman, "the lion of wall street," a tough-talking bastard who has made his millions but has never been accepted as part of the rich set. He's only married into it; his wife, Leah, is a drunk who enjoys giving herself away to other men while John can only stand by and seethe. Leah's father is one of the richest of the rich, so it only adds to John's frustration that he isn't even accepted as part of the group by his own in-laws. So, John plans his vengeance by determining to become the master of the ball this year; in this way he will be the leader of this elite pack, and get their goat in the biggest possible way.

A lurid cast provides the framework for the story. There's an over-the-hill socialite married to a wealthy but gay member of royalty; a sly coutier who harbors homosexual tendencies of his own; a vicious gossip columnist obviously modeled on Rona Barrett; a political hopeful who must cater to the wealthy to support his platform; The Baron, a sordid and corpulent fellow who serves as a sort of hustler and supplier for the jet set; and finally Crista, a jet-setting playgirl with a lurid past who eventually falls in love with John Hartman.

The novel starts off uber-trashy. We have John and Leah spatting because Leah has just slept with another man; Rigdon provides the incredibly lurid detail of Leah relishing the aftertaste of the man's shall we say "effluvience" as she fights with her husband. After that, we have a bit where our bisexual courtier throws a ribald party in which a mannequin is offered forth as an effigy of the faux-Rona Barrett columnist, and everyone rips it apart in a bacchic frenzy. Then we have an out-of-left-field bit (which is never mentioned again in the novel) where Crista, high and drunk, hops in her sports car, speeds through NYC in the twilight hours, ends up in Central Park, finds a pair of homosexual lovers who are in the midst of getting busy, and thrusts herself into their coupling.

This obviously sets reader expectation very high for a lurid extravaganza. Sadly though the novel gradually becomes solely focused on John Hartman's bid to become the chairman of the ball, as well as his burgeoning romance with Crista. Eventually the novel is merely an overblown romance, with all of the lurid stuff forgotten, as John and Crista fall in love and etc, etc. The other characters disappear for the majority of the novel as John and Crista go to Jamaica (an unecessary scene which nevertheless has a nice Hirschfeld-esque moment where the couple swim with a pair of dolphins), then return to NYC where they shack up in Crista's secluded lovenest. This section goes into the yawn-stratosphere with endless descriptions of the verdant countryside outside her window and etc.

It's only in the latter third that the lurid stuff returns, but it's merely a pale reflection of what came before. The Baron tries to take ownership of the ball from John, spreading malicious gossip about John's "untoward interest" in one of the boys there. (Another saccharine sequence, where John and his bombshell of a secretary take one of the orphans on weekly trips to the beach.) The vengeful courtier steals Crista away from John via a ruse with disastrous results, setting the scene for a maudlin and melancholy finale which the reader could see coming a few hundred pages earlier.

So it's overblown and tepid at times, but the lurid stuff saves it a bit. However it is a bit frustrating that the ball itself is given short shrift; after all the build-up in the novel, Rigdon sort of rushes through it in the end. Despite all of which I still enjoyed his writing; like Hirschfeld he has a way of getting you inside the hearts and minds of his characters, so that you feel enveloped in the tale. I just wish Rigdon had kept up with the trashy pace of the opening section. If he had, The Last Ball would be a trash fiction classic.

Night Games

Night Games, by Charles Rigdon
1969, Award Books

Thanks to my man Martin Boucher for telling me about this novel. Charles Rigdon is a forgotten master of the trash fiction genre, and this, his first novel, is a forgotten peek into the decay of the jet-set. The cover proclaims this as "an adult novel," which makes one expect the typical Award sleaze, but Night Games isn't graphic at all. Sure, there's a lot of bizarre sexual stuff afoot, but it isn't very explicit. In fact it's more of a "literary" novel.

It's a slim novel, too, coming in at 156 pages. But given the tiny print it's more likely around 200 or so pages. At any rate Charles Rigdon packs in a lot of story, with a strong cast of characters. Dana Tower is our hero, former "screen goddess" now gone to the bottle, still gorgeous but on a self-propelled spiral to hell. Married and divorced many times over, she's fabulously wealthy but dead inside -- the same old story. We meet Dana as she comes out of another of her alcohol-induced stupors, having slept with yet another man in a series of forgotten one-night stands. (Dana later states that she "stopped counting after a hundred.")

Dana's "friends" are just as screwed up. Foremost there's Kelley, depraved scion of a wealthy clan who runs endless parties in his secluded mansion in the countryside beyond New York City. Kelley is a true perverter of the innocent and keeps a circle of attractive young men with him at all times; once Kelley is finished with one he spurns him and finds an instant replacement. This is a cause of tension between Dana and Kelley as one of the circle is Barry, Dana's former fiance -- Kelley stole the man away from Dana before they could get married. In exchange for their favors Kelley gives the men money and promises to include them in his will (which he's constantly changing).

There's an entire decadent world within Kelley's mansion; Dana goes there for her fortieth birthday party and this section is the novel's most entertaining. We meet a few of Kelley's circle, one of them a Steve Reeves type, a bodybuilder known for "playing Greek gods" in trashy Italian movies. There's also Crystal, officially Kelley's "fiance" but instead a bimbo who keeps him happy with a revolving circle of men. As the party's in progress more decadence is afoot with a pair of twin youths, male and female, who try to rape a young Marine they've abducted. It all culminates with Dana trying to talk sense into Barry, getting stone drunk yet again, and then awaking from her stupor late at night to find an s&m orgy going on in one of the mansion's many rooms.

After all of this decadence the novel takes on more of a soap opera nature. Dana runs into the man she slept with just before the novel began; seeing him, she remembers him instantly. This is Sky, the doorman at Dana's posh apartment building. Sky has developed feelings for Dana and is certain she plans to kill herself. He's right. Spying on her from the street, Sky races up the twenty floors just in time to stop Dana from jumping to her death. Sky tries to save Dana, even though we know it's hopeless. They move to California, staying in one of Dana's many houses. But the domesticity is ruined as Dana continues to plunge back to her true nature, escaping from Sky's controlling behavior.

A disastrous trip to Mexico ends with Dana leaving Sky and visiting a friend in the French Riviera. Here we have some prime late '60s jet-set stuff as Dana becomes "acquainted" with a studly European guy named Boron who drives around the Riviera in his brand new Alfa-Romeo. Meanwhile Rigdon develops gripping subplots, in particular the revenge Barry and Crystal try to enact upon their corruptor Kelley.

But the reader will know from page one that Night Games is not bound for a happy ending. As Dana comes further to realize the waste she has made of her life, the lives of those around her also spiral out of control. It's as if Rigdon is telling us that the glamor of the jet-set life is a lie, that it leads to nothing but ruin and the jet-setters themselves are nothing but soul-sucking vampires.

This is not a fun novel, but it is an enjoyable one, especially given that Rigdon's prose is both economical and vibrant. I'm floored when a writer is able to bring to life an entire world and its people in so few pages. Rigdon definitely has a way with word painting, and I look forward to reading more of his work.