Topper - Thorne Smith

There is a scene in Topper of such beauty that it has stayed with me in the weeks since I finished reading it. Cosmo Topper is an upper-middle class banker with a mundane life of routine. In an attempt to break free from his life of regularity (some might call this a mid-life crisis) he buys a sports car. The car was previously owned by a young couple with a reputation for hard partying and fast living. That lifestyle caught up with them, and they both died after wrecking the car. The car is lovingly restored and Topper begins driving it despite its reputation. The car, of course, is haunted by the ghosts of the young couple, George and Marion Kerby, and after getting over his initial shock at being haunted, Topper strikes up a friendship with the pair. In my favorite scene, Topper and George have found a case of whiskey and gotten good and thoroughly drunk, and Topper has finally started to loosen up.

  "This Scotch is delicious. Do you feel like dancing?"
  Kerby quickly looked up from his drink. Mr. Topper appeared to be perfectly normal. He was sitting solidly on his box and gazing into the fireplace.
  "Do I feel like what?" Kerby demanded.
  "Dancing, George," replied Mr. Topper in a reasonable voice. "Dancing or singing."
  "Certainly not," said Kerby, shortly.
  "That's odd," replied Mr. Topper. "I seem to."
  "Well, don't do it," Kerby commanded. "You'll spoil everything."
...
  "Listen, George," [Topper] asked humbly, "if I just sit quietly here by the fire and feel like dancing it will be all right, won't it?"

I found something beautiful, funny, and sad about a man so meted out, so worn down by his routine, that he had to ask permission to feel like dancing.

Eventually Topper and Marion (who no longer considers herself married to Kerby since death did them part) run off together for an affair which is anything but physical. The book is mostly a sequence of delightfully written set pieces of slapstick humor. Particularly outrageous are the Kerbys haunting Topper's trial for public intoxication and disturbing the peace, as well as a restaurant scene involving a partially materialized ghost dog. (I'll let you figure out which half of the dog was visible.)

Topper was written in the 1920s, and is full of references to prohibition. The Kerby's continual inebriation must have been shocking to contemporary readers, but even to a modern reader they drink to excess. There is something different in the way a modern reader interprets how the Kerbys died while driving under the influence, compared to a contemporary reader, for whom sports cars must have seemed a novelty or impractical luxury. The story also includes a few scenes of ribaldry which are tame by today's standard. Instead of seeming quaint, they lend a kind of timeless charm to the whole affair. The idea of an invisible naked woman sharing a room with a married man is enough to delight without being overly explicit.

There is a movie version of Topper, which is generally inferior to the book. It is perhaps most famous for being one of Cary Grant's early movies, and one of his very few supporting roles. The movie version adapts most of the book's best scenes and captures a lot of the slapstick comedy in the book. Roland Young is magnificent as Topper, but other than his nuanced performance, very little of the movie evokes the rich poignancy that runs throughout the story in Thorne Smith's book. If I just sit here and remember this book and laugh quietly to myself, it will be all right, won't it?