Robert Switzer, Esquire

A follow-up to last week's review of I Was Going Anyway by Robert Switzer.

Robert Switzer's I Was Going Anyway as published as a Cock Robin Mystery, a series Macmillan published from 1955 to 1970. Poul Anderson, Lawrence Block, John Creasey, Michael Moorcock, Josephine Tey, and Donald Westlake were amongst the other Cock Robin authors.

But I Was Going Anyway is not a mystery, something remarked upon in contemporary reviews.The only real mystery is Robert Switzer. Not since ne'er do well novelist Kenneth Orvis have I encountered so elusive and intriguing a figure.

There are contradictions, beginning with the 1931 Canadian census. Robert Switzer appears on line number 15 of page number 14 in sub-district number 43 of sub-district Saskatoon (City) in district number 205 of district Saskatoon. That's a lot to take in, so I'm providing this link. If you prefer, this screenshot captures the most pertinent information (click to enlarge):

The 1931 census would have been the first since his birth. But when was that birth? The census taker records Robert's age as eight, but his year of birth as 1925. 

Elsewhere on the same page, Robert and older siblings Helen and Franklin are recorded as students. The family owned a radio, and lived in a rented stucco house that still stands at 1026 Aird Street, Saskatoon.

Robert Switzer's first known published short story, 'No End to Anything,' appeared in the July 1946 issue of Esquire. You'll find his name on the cover under the FICTION heading.

The same issue provides a brief contributor profile of the author:

'No End to Anything' was the first of nineteen Robert Switzer stories published by Esquire between July 1946 and April 1957. During that span, the magazine published two further profiles, the one from the August 1947 issue being my favourite:

'The Big Bout' was the first of two Switzer boxing stories published in Esquire. The second, 'Death of a Prize Fighter' is the one to read. The June 1949 issue in which it appears also features Switzer's third and final contributor profile:

Though Switzer continued to publish in Esquire – eleven stories in the eight years that followed – there were no further profiles. That said, we do have a brief biography published on the back cover of The Tent of the Wicked (New York: Signet, 1956), the author's first novel: 

All this leads back to the dust jacket for his last known work,  the novel I Was Going Anyway (New York: Macmillan, 1961), which is where my hunt for biographical information began: 

It is also where it ends.

Before I close the file – for now, at least – a couple of conclusions and an observation:

Given that Switzer is described as being eight in in 1931, twenty-three in 1946, and twenty-six in 1949, I think it safe to say that the 1931 census taker was incorrect in recording Switzer's year of birth as 1925. As if further evidence was required, we have this from "A Check-list of Contributions of Literary Import to Esquire 1933- 1958" included in The Armchair Esquire (New York: Putnam, 1958):

The matter of Switzer's place of birth is less clear, but my money is on Portland, Oregon, if only because the 1931 Canadian census records an American birth and Esquire reports the same. How explain "born in Canada" and "Canadian-born"? My guess is that those who worked with the author knew him to be Canadian and so made an assumption. If alive today, he would be in his eleventh decade.

Robert Switzer's career as a writer was both short and productive; nineteen Esquire short stories and three novels in fifteen years. Its abrupt end at age thirty-eight leads one to suspect the worst, but I like to think he gave into wanderlust and lived to a grand old age touring Latin America.

Really, I like to think he's traveling still.

Trivia: The Cock Robin name will be familiar to Ian Fleming collectors. The first American edition of Live and Let Die (New York: Macmillan, 1955) was published as a "Cock Robin Thriller." As far as I know, it is the only book that bears this device.

My thanks to Phil Stephensen-Payne, editor of the The FictionMags Index, who joined me in the hunt for Robert Switzer. I've long relied on the Index for information and recommend it highly. 

Related post:

Bringing It All Back Home

Bringing It All Back Home

 

I Was Going Anyway
Robert Switzer
New York: Macmillan, 1961
121 pages

Robert Switzer flew under my radar for decades, it was only last month that I first read his name. I shelled out a bit extra for a copy of I Was Going Anyway with a dust jacket and am glad I did. The rear flap features some very interesting information about the man:

I expect there is some exaggeration in the description of the author's vagabond upbringing. The 1931 Canadian census finds Robert, age eight, living in Saskatoon with his two older siblings and their parents Franklin K. Switzer ("Dentist") and Edna Irene Switzer ("Home Maker"). While it is true that his 1949 Esquire story 'Death of a Prize Fighter' had been widely anthologized, most notably in Prize Stories of 1950: The O. Henry Awards (New York: Doubleday, 1950), it was not his Esquire debut. 

 The first appeared in the magazine three years earlier when Switzer was twenty-three:

'No End to Anything' was followed by eighteen more stories, 'Death of a Prize Fighter' included, all published in Esquire. I've yet to find a single Robert Switzer story to appear in another magazine. The run ends in April 1957 with 'A Terrible Tomorrow,' a story about the desperate search for a young missing girl and the unstable teenager accused with her abduction.

I mention these things of a reason. 

I Was Going Anyway centres on Will, a syndicated sports columnist based in Toronto, and his relationship with a woman named Dorothy, the daughter of a celebrated surgeon, They meet at a party in early winter, enjoy a bit of light flirtation, and then part. Nothing more to see here until Will sends her a Christmas gift. Dorothy responds. Next thing you know, the two have a date for New Year's Eve. When the clock strikes twelve, they have their first kiss.

Will and Dorothy take things slow at the beginning, then speed up the pace considerably, consummating their relationship during a ski weekend in the Laurentians. They return to Toronto engaged. Dorothy's widower father disapproves, but says nothing. And so, arrangements for the happy day commence. Dorothy flies off to Ottawa to consult a college girlfriend, leaving Will behind. What the bride-to-be doesn't know is that there is a woman staying in her fiancé's house.

Erie Clark had arrived a day earlier. It sort of makes sense that Will said nothing about her to Dorothy. Erie and he had never been girlfriend and boyfriend, but they used to sleep with each other. This was fifteen years ago in Montreal, when both were in their late teens. Will was struggling to find his footing in one of the dailies and Erie performed onstage at one of the city's legendary burlesque clubs. They had aspirations, but only Will's was realized. Erie, who'd planned on becoming a Hollywood star married to a wealthy man, instead ended up homeless on Will's doorstep.

He let her in.

What exactly does Erie want from Will? I don't think she herself knows. If pressed, I'd say the answer is shelter from the storm. A second guess, related to the first, would be that she just wanted the company of someone whom she'd known to be kind. Those fifteen years had been rough. Like me, critic Ron Gobin was struck by this passage, quoting it in his review for the Honolulu Star-Bulletin (23 April 1961):

This is how Erie is introduced:

These passages are gems. To my knowledge, I Was Going Anyway is the first and only time they ever appeared in print. The same can be said for most every other – but not every other. I Was Going Anyway includes dozens of sentences lifted from the author's Esquire stories. It also includes the better part of 'Death of a Prize Fighter,' reworked to include sportswriter Will as witness.

I had no reason to suspect this when reading the novel. I Was Going Anyway is seamless, so smooth, so polished that it reads as if it was written in one feverish go, beginning with the first word and ending with the last. I didn't catch on until I began reading Switzer's short stories.

A case self-plagiarism? I suppose, but I'll give him a pass. 

The June 1949 edition of Esquire reports that the short story writer had turned down repeated offers from publishers wanting a novel. Switzer would eventually write two for Signet before I Was Going Anyway. The first, The Tent of the Wicked (1956), was a paperback original. The following year he was hired to provide a novelization of Albert Lewin's screenplay for The Living Idol. 

I wonder whether any publisher approached Switzer about a short story collection? I'm guessing not. I'm also guessing that he saw I Was Going Anyway as an opportunity to rescue the best bits of his Esquire stories from the landfill.

This is pure speculation on my part, of course.

With few exceptions, reviews of I Was Going Anyway were very positive – "dulled by lapses into offensive language," sniffed the Buffalo Courier Express (30 April 1961) – but there was no second printing. There has never been a paperback edition. The worst part of Robert Switzer's story as a writer is that it ends here, a mere fifteen years after 'No End to Everything.' With its publication, perhaps before, he went silent and vanished.

I Was Going Anyway is both his last book and his best work. It stands with The Long November, Hot Freeze, The Crime on Cote des Neiges, and The Damned and the Destroyed as the very best of post-war Canadian noir.

Trivia: The Buffalo Courier Express is extremely sensitive regarding language. Granted, I was born after I Was Going Anyway was published, but my twentieth-century eyes see only one word that might offend. In a late chapter, a Montreal Morality Squad cop named Maisonneuve fills a Toronto police detective in on the burlesque club run by Erie's old boss Piggy Latourelle:

This is the earliest use of the word I've encountered in a Canadian novel.

About the author: I've uncovered more about Robert Switzer, but this is already running long. I'll post more next Monday. Stay tuned, the jacket's author bio contains one whopping error of fact!

Object and Access: Such an odd-looking book. I bought it not knowing the page count, so was surprised when it arrived. I Was Going Anyway is a very slim hardcover, slimmer than many mass market paperbacks I have from the time, despite it's olive green boards. What's more, the yellowing pages aren't much better than newsprint.

As I write, five copies are listed for sale online, all from American booksellers. The cheapest is a library discard with "musty odor Due [sic] to age and/or environmental conditions, the pages of this book have darkened." Best to take a pass.

After that we have four copies. At US$3.99, the least expensive lacks a dust jacket. And don't you want that jacket? After that we have three, and only three, that do have the dust jacket, ranging in price from US$20.00 to US$34.00. As might be expected, the most dear is in the best condition.

Do not expect to find I Was Going Anyway in your local library. A WorldCat search suggests that the only copies held by Canadian libraries are found at Queen's University, Library and Archives Canada, and the University of Toronto's Thomas Fischer Rare Book Library.

Saskatoon Public Library take note.  

I Was Going Anyway was read for the 1961 Club hosted by Simon and  Karen. In doing so, I broke my New Year's resolution to read and review only women authors in 2026. Before you shame, it was also read for work. It was just too good not to share.

Other 1961 books I've reviewed over the years:

Bottoms Up - Jock Carroll

A Dum-Dum for the President - Martin Brett [Douglas Sanderson]

Return to Today - Margerie Scott

And for fun, here's one from 1861:

Edith Percival - May Agnes Fleming

Related post:

Robert Switzer, Esquire