High Priest of California - Charles Willeford

Charles Willeford's first short novel High Priest of California (1953) has some common characteristics, themes and characters that are developed further in The Woman Chaser (1960). Russell Haxby here even has the same initials as Richard Hudson the narrator of the latter book and he is also a used car salesman with a fairly high opinion of himself. The title High Priest is a term that the novel sees applied to car salesmen in a land that worships the car, and like Hudson's view of 'feebs', Haxby sees himself as above ordinary people. He certainly thinks he's better than a rather naïve young woman he meets at a Dance Parlour, Alyce Vitale. 

Alyce is attractive enough, not normally his style and he's not too keen on her complicated home situation, but she intrigues him enough to take her up on another date. Alyce may be enthusiastic in response to Haxby's interest, but less so when it come to romance and sex, freezing up whenever Haxby tries anything on. It keeps him interested, but also frustrated, and he ends up taking his anger out on anyone who annoys him who he thinks is beneath him. He regards Alyce as "simple-minded, loyal and kind", but it's clear that there is something else about her that he can't figure her out. Something is keeping him from getting what he wants and when he finds out, you suspect that he might turn to violence as an answer to the problem. "Love will find a way", he tells her. 

As with The Woman Chaser Haxby's self-superiority is evident again, looking down on little people, believing he is the person who can show them the error of their ways. Russell Haxby doesn't go as far as making a movie like Richard Hudson as a way to educate the masses about the error of their ways, but here he is working on a common language translation project of James Joyce's Ulysses in English as a way of "bringing a great book to a simple-minded audience". He's going to do Finnegan's Wake next.

High Priest of California is a shorter work than The Woman Chaser and less melodramatic, but it's clearly an earlier exploration of similar themes, characters and ideas, and as a narrator Russell Haxby is clearly a hateful son of a bitch who makes little appeal to the reader's sympathies. The suggested complexities are hinted at but not developed as thoroughly as they are in the fuller, later novel, but in High Priest of California it makes nonetheless for a short, sharp and compellingly nasty little tale.

Reading notes: High Priest of California by Charles Willeford is published Phocion Publishing in eBook Kindle format.