With a title such as this, in the year that it was published, it is hard not to wonder if the moon landing which occurred in same year, influenced Armstrong’s writing. Did she want to try and tap into the topical news of the space race? Or did the idea come from her publishers to shoehorn a moon element into her next book? Shoehorn is the operative word, as space travel is not a major part of the plot. This is not a mystery involving murder on a spaceship or on the moon itself.
Nevertheless, Armstrong’s novel received positive reviews at the time. The St Louis Post Dispatch said: ‘Once again Charlotte Armstrong spins her magic web of the bland and the bizarre.’ They further describe the book as ‘a superb suspense chiller filled with quiet terror and the mind-twisting surprises that have become the hallmarks of every Armstrong masterpiece…’ The Cleveland Press leaned into the “space” theme of the title when they said that the story ‘is a voyage worth taking, especially because the blast-off is from the pad of Charlotte Armstrong.’ Finally, The Saturday Review of Literature summed this one up as ‘a corking good story’. But is it?
As an Armstrong fan, I fear I may have spoilt myself having arguably read Armstrong’s strongest work first. Although done accidentally, I do worry that I have read all of her really good stuff, an anxiety increased by the fact that my last two reads were okay, but not great. I do wonder if my expectations are too high now, but hopefully there are still some good Armstrong books left out there for me to read.
Synopsis
‘California businessman J. Middleton Little is on company assignment in Chicago when he’s caught eavesdropping on a top-secret confab between high-level government officials. J. knows he isn’t just hearing things; they actually referred to the coming Armageddon. To ensure his silence, J.’s been offered the chance of a lifetime: seven seats on an “ark” scheduled to carry the last vestiges of the human race from Earth before the apocalypse. In a matter of minutes, J. has gone from a self-described “middle-class, middle-income, middlebrow man-of-the-street” to one of the most privileged men in the universe. The only stipulation: He can’t tell a single soul until the proper time. For now, it’s back to life in Burbank with his dutiful, intuitive wife; an underhanded and scheming son; his impossibly spoiled daughter; his unhinged father; and a mother-in-law whose religious fanaticism is making J. think twice about his role as savior – especially when he finds himself shadowed by an insidious pack of secret agents, counterspies, and a lone madman on a terrifying mission. Soon enough, J.’s once-ordinary world will be ripped apart by threats, deceit, cover-ups, secrets, and shifting family loyalties. It will also leave J. wondering what he really does know, what he doesn’t, what he’s been led to believe, and above all, why. J. Middleton Little has a lot to learn before the end.’
This blurb gives a coherent summary of the novel, but I feel like it doesn’t quite place its emphasis in the right place, in terms of the narrative’s priorities. However, I will go into that more below.
Overall Thoughts
The story begins well with the not-too overused genre trope of the accidental eavesdropper. When I say ‘not-too overused’ I don’t mean when an amateur sleuth is in the middle of a case and overhears some suspects talking. I am referring to the occasions where the act of eavesdropping is the catalyst for the main mystery plot. Two other examples which come to mind are The Listening Eye (1955) by Patricia Wentworth and The Whispering Wall (1969) by Patricia Carlon. The Carlon novel is an excellent read and demonstrates well the high tension which can be created through deploying this trope. Alas Armstrong does not manage this so successfully.
What J. Middleton Little overhears is interesting in that it is not obvious what dangerous information he has been given. Moreover, it soon becomes clear that interested parties are not sure how much Little heard or understood and identifying what he knows is at the crux of the novel. Nevertheless, I think what Little eavesdropped was a bit too cryptic, as what really baffled me is that despite what Little overheard being fairly innocuous, the man he eavesdropped on (a fellow patient in his hospital room) then decides to fill him in and give him even more information. This seems like an odd thing to do, even if not all of this information is true. To me it felt like lighting a match near an area you suspected was doused in petrol. It would have been better to have left things alone – however that would have rather prevented there being a story!
The hospital patient tells Little about the possibility of a future Armageddon and the plan afoot for some select few to escape on a spaceship to the moon. He also suggests there are those out there keen to thwart this plan. This part of the plot gives this story a late political Christie thriller (think Destination Unknown (1954)) feel to the book, which is not necessarily a good thing…
‘… a group of people who know that, and live with it, but who do not intend to be present on the occasion of the extinction of the species […] The moment it becomes apparent to them that such desolation is upon us, they intend to remove themselves and a few well-chosen thousands to the moon. And shelter there. when this earth is clean, in time, they will return and be the seed. And so the species can try again.’
To be honest I think I prefer the way WALL-E (2008) explored this type of storyline!
In fairness I don’t think the reader is meant to buy into “moon rescue mission” and Little does not fully do so either. Nevertheless, we see it gnaw away at him, as he tries to decide out of his family who would get the seven spaces on the rocket. And this is where the emphasis shifts to considering how keeping this secret affects Little and his relationships with his family members. Moreover, a considerable amount of page space is devoted to resolving the particular problems his children, parents, in-laws etc. are dealing with. His family tend to see him as the magic bank which resolves all their differing financial issues and interestingly the stress of keeping the secret exposes the existing fault lines in the family. I would say that the family members also, in different ways and degrees, re-evaluate their actions/priorities in light of Little’s changing behaviour or “out-of-action” status for solving their problems.
Seven Seats to the Moon is the epitome of a slow burning novel and mid-way through I questioned whether it would be worth it in the end and I am not sure that it is. The way different agents and spies try to pester Little to find out what he learnt from the man in the hospital gets repetitive and boring and consequently there is little progression or development in this area. Furthermore, since we are privy to scenes where the agents and counteragents talk about the ongoing situation, the reader knows far more about what is really going on. We are perhaps not sufficiently kept in the dark. Suspense is sometimes created by the reader fearing what an impending event will do to a given character. On other occasions suspense is created by the reader not knowing what will happen next. I don’t think Armstrong comfortably achieves either version. Moreover, I don’t feel like this book properly fits into the category of mystery suspense fiction. David Bordell in 2013 posted an article called ‘Murder Culture: Adventures in 1940s Suspense’ and in this piece he writes:
‘The framework of the suspense story is the continual struggle of the frightened protagonist to fight back and save himself in spite of his pervading anxiety, and in this respect he is truly heroic. The action of the story does not consist in mere activity, but in the hero’s change of mood in response to changing circumstances.’
Looking at Armstrong’s book in light of this description, her novel almost becomes an anti-suspense story, as Little does not really meet the ‘heroic” requirements mentioned above. He is largely a passive lead character who is stressed, but mainly keeps saying “no” or “I don’t know” to all the questions he is asked, whilst getting frustrated at the inconvenience he is being caused e.g. an attractive female agent coming to his house and upsetting his daughter or agents visiting him at work. I don’t think the reader ever feels particularly frightened or concerned for Little.
The denouement is also unexpected as it is quite disturbing and violent, given how lacking the conspiracy/espionage element is in the rest of the book. It was a darkness I did not see coming and I am unsure how well it fits with the plot. All in all, I would say this is a very hard book to rate, as it is a poor crime novel and should not be read for that purpose, but arguably as a novel, which explores a typical American family under pressure in the late 1960s, it works much better.
Rating: 3.25/5
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