--- product_id: 23578175 title: "The Big Clock" price: "€ 40.45" currency: EUR in_stock: true reviews_count: 10 url: https://www.desertcart.at/products/23578175-the-big-clock store_origin: AT region: Austria --- # The Big Clock **Price:** € 40.45 **Availability:** ✅ In Stock ## Quick Answers - **What is this?** The Big Clock - **How much does it cost?** € 40.45 with free shipping - **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship - **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.at](https://www.desertcart.at/products/23578175-the-big-clock) ## Best For - Customers looking for quality international products ## Why This Product - Free international shipping included - Worldwide delivery with tracking - 15-day hassle-free returns ## Description A classic of American noir, part murder mystery and part black comedy, set in dark corners of corporate New York City. George Stroud is a hard-drinking, tough-talking, none-too-scrupulous writer for a New York media conglomerate that bears a striking resemblance to Time, Inc. in the heyday of Henry Luce. One day, before heading home to his wife in the suburbs, Stroud has a drink with Pauline, the beautiful girlfriend of his boss, Earl Janoth. Things happen. The next day Stroud escorts Pauline home, leaving her off at the corner just as Janoth returns from a trip. The day after that, Pauline is found murdered in her apartment. Janoth knows there was one witness to his entry into Pauline’s apartment on the night of the murder; he knows that man must have been the man Pauline was with before he got back; but he doesn’t know who he was. Janoth badly wants to get his hands on that man, and he picks one of his most trusted employees to track him down: George Stroud, who else? How does a man escape from himself? No book has ever dramatized that question to more perfect effect than The Big Clock , a masterpiece of American noir. Review: Kenneth Fearing hears The Big Clock's mechanical heartbeat - Oh, yes, how the clock still goes on humming. Kenneth Fearing heard its mechanical heartbeat, saw its two giant claws scrapping around and around the numerals – twelve on top, six on bottom, nine on the right and three on the left, back in the 1940s as he wrote his novel, The Big Clock – a story about the work-a-day world filled with people willing to conform, no matter what the price: high blood pressure, cerebral hemorrhages, ulcers eating out the lining of their stomach and moral decay eating out their soul. As Fearing’s main character says about the clock: “It would be easier and simpler to get squashed, stripping its gears than to be crushed helping it along.” The Big Clock is Kenneth Fearing’s classic noir/thriller novel published in 1946 and is not only a caustic commentary on American business but a story holding the reader in suspense with a keen desire to keep turning the pages to find out what happens next. More specifically, the novel features the following: Multiple narrator/rotating first-person – Not only is the story told from the point of view of George Stroud, a sharp-looking, nimble-minded publishing executive/husband/father, but from the point of view of six other men and women – and with each rotation of first-person narrator the story picks up serious momentum and drives toward the conclusion. Considering how effective multiple narrators can be in the hands of an accomplished writer, it’s surprising this literary technique isn’t used more frequently. Femme fatale – What’s classic hardboiled noir without a femme fatale? There’s Vivian Sternwood in Chandler’s The Big Sleep, Brigid O'Shaughnessy in Hammett’s Maltese Falcon, Phyllis Dietrichson in Cain’s Double Indemnity -- and, yes, of course, Pauline Delos in The Big Clock. Here’s George Stroud’s first impressions when meeting Pauline at a posh uptown Manhattan party: “She was tall, ice-blonde, and splendid. The eye saw nothing but innocence, to the instincts she was undiluted sex, the brain said here was a perfect hell.” Incidentally, here are the first impressions of a similar sharp-looking, nimble-minded married man on meeting femme fatale Caroline Crowley at a similar posh uptown Manhattan party in Colin Harrison’s 1996 novel, Manhattan Nocturne,: “She may well have been the most beautiful woman in the room. . . . her face was no less beautiful as it approached, but I could see a certain determination in her features. ”. Goodness, some things never change. The power of myth – Robert Bly speaks of a major character from ancient Norse mythology: the giant: the giant is a being we can not only view as huge, cannibalistic, mean, violent and heavy-footed, but also as psychic energy from our shadow side that can, when we become enraged, take possession of us. Perhaps, on some level, the author was aware of this mythology when writing how business tycoon Earl Janoth reacts with extreme violence after Pauline makes accusations about his homosexual relations with Earl’s life-long friend/business colleague: “It wasn’t me, any more. It was some giant a hundred feet tall, moving me around, manipulating my hands and arms and even my voice. He straightened my legs, and I found myself standing.“ A Greenwich Village artist – George Stroud collects the paintings of Louise Patterson. As a point of contrast to the men and women droning their life away in an office, Louise is a complete eccentric who hates anything smelling of the business world. Since events pull her into the story, she interacts with Stroud and his colleagues. Here is a snatch of dialogue where she lambasts one of the mousy white-collar types, “What the hell do you mean by giving my own picture some fancy title I never thought of at all? How do you dare, you horrible little worm, how do you dare to throw your idiocy all over my work?” The author gives Louise Patterson a turn as one of the first-person narrators -- a real treat for readers. The art of the novel – Kenneth Fearing was a poet as well as a novelist. Although The Big Clock is a caustic commentary on the business world, it is also a work of literature: all of the characters are complex and developed. There are no easy answers given; rather, Fearing’s poetic vision prompts us to reflect deeply on the challenges we face living in a modern urbanized, highly standardized and clock-driven world. Review: A classic American crime novel - Although THE BIG CLOCK was written in 1946, Fearing's noir thriller holds up remarkably well. The twists and turns of the plot are as exciting and surprising as they were when the book was first published. The essence of the story is an innocent corporate employee caught in a web of murder and betrayal and charged with finding the killer, who more and more appears to be him. Fearing throws in some great jabs at the values of the corporate world, which feel like they were written yesterday. The poetic image of all of us being little more than wheels in The Big Clock is especially powerful. George, the main character, is far from heroic, but he has an everyman quality that makes the reader root for him until the very end of the novel. The scene where the authorities close in on George is anti-climactic when compared with the same scene in the movie "No Way Out," which is based on Fearing's novel but this in no way detracts from the effectiveness of the book. In his day, the author was more known as a poet than a novelist and THE BIG CLOCK contains some seriously good writing for a crime novel. All in all this book is a good, fun read for any fan of mystery and suspense fiction. ## Technical Specifications | Specification | Value | |---------------|-------| | Best Sellers Rank | #518,504 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books ) #3,388 in Science Fiction Crime & Mystery #12,364 in Suspense Thrillers #25,957 in American Literature (Books) | | Customer Reviews | 4.2 out of 5 stars 229 Reviews | ## Images ![The Big Clock - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/713fy+l3aLL.jpg) ## Customer Reviews ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Kenneth Fearing hears The Big Clock's mechanical heartbeat *by G***L on December 2, 2013* Oh, yes, how the clock still goes on humming. Kenneth Fearing heard its mechanical heartbeat, saw its two giant claws scrapping around and around the numerals – twelve on top, six on bottom, nine on the right and three on the left, back in the 1940s as he wrote his novel, The Big Clock – a story about the work-a-day world filled with people willing to conform, no matter what the price: high blood pressure, cerebral hemorrhages, ulcers eating out the lining of their stomach and moral decay eating out their soul. As Fearing’s main character says about the clock: “It would be easier and simpler to get squashed, stripping its gears than to be crushed helping it along.” The Big Clock is Kenneth Fearing’s classic noir/thriller novel published in 1946 and is not only a caustic commentary on American business but a story holding the reader in suspense with a keen desire to keep turning the pages to find out what happens next. More specifically, the novel features the following: Multiple narrator/rotating first-person – Not only is the story told from the point of view of George Stroud, a sharp-looking, nimble-minded publishing executive/husband/father, but from the point of view of six other men and women – and with each rotation of first-person narrator the story picks up serious momentum and drives toward the conclusion. Considering how effective multiple narrators can be in the hands of an accomplished writer, it’s surprising this literary technique isn’t used more frequently. Femme fatale – What’s classic hardboiled noir without a femme fatale? There’s Vivian Sternwood in Chandler’s The Big Sleep, Brigid O'Shaughnessy in Hammett’s Maltese Falcon, Phyllis Dietrichson in Cain’s Double Indemnity -- and, yes, of course, Pauline Delos in The Big Clock. Here’s George Stroud’s first impressions when meeting Pauline at a posh uptown Manhattan party: “She was tall, ice-blonde, and splendid. The eye saw nothing but innocence, to the instincts she was undiluted sex, the brain said here was a perfect hell.” Incidentally, here are the first impressions of a similar sharp-looking, nimble-minded married man on meeting femme fatale Caroline Crowley at a similar posh uptown Manhattan party in Colin Harrison’s 1996 novel, Manhattan Nocturne,: “She may well have been the most beautiful woman in the room. . . . her face was no less beautiful as it approached, but I could see a certain determination in her features. ”. Goodness, some things never change. The power of myth – Robert Bly speaks of a major character from ancient Norse mythology: the giant: the giant is a being we can not only view as huge, cannibalistic, mean, violent and heavy-footed, but also as psychic energy from our shadow side that can, when we become enraged, take possession of us. Perhaps, on some level, the author was aware of this mythology when writing how business tycoon Earl Janoth reacts with extreme violence after Pauline makes accusations about his homosexual relations with Earl’s life-long friend/business colleague: “It wasn’t me, any more. It was some giant a hundred feet tall, moving me around, manipulating my hands and arms and even my voice. He straightened my legs, and I found myself standing.“ A Greenwich Village artist – George Stroud collects the paintings of Louise Patterson. As a point of contrast to the men and women droning their life away in an office, Louise is a complete eccentric who hates anything smelling of the business world. Since events pull her into the story, she interacts with Stroud and his colleagues. Here is a snatch of dialogue where she lambasts one of the mousy white-collar types, “What the hell do you mean by giving my own picture some fancy title I never thought of at all? How do you dare, you horrible little worm, how do you dare to throw your idiocy all over my work?” The author gives Louise Patterson a turn as one of the first-person narrators -- a real treat for readers. The art of the novel – Kenneth Fearing was a poet as well as a novelist. Although The Big Clock is a caustic commentary on the business world, it is also a work of literature: all of the characters are complex and developed. There are no easy answers given; rather, Fearing’s poetic vision prompts us to reflect deeply on the challenges we face living in a modern urbanized, highly standardized and clock-driven world. ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ A classic American crime novel *by J***R on October 24, 2012* Although THE BIG CLOCK was written in 1946, Fearing's noir thriller holds up remarkably well. The twists and turns of the plot are as exciting and surprising as they were when the book was first published. The essence of the story is an innocent corporate employee caught in a web of murder and betrayal and charged with finding the killer, who more and more appears to be him. Fearing throws in some great jabs at the values of the corporate world, which feel like they were written yesterday. The poetic image of all of us being little more than wheels in The Big Clock is especially powerful. George, the main character, is far from heroic, but he has an everyman quality that makes the reader root for him until the very end of the novel. The scene where the authorities close in on George is anti-climactic when compared with the same scene in the movie "No Way Out," which is based on Fearing's novel but this in no way detracts from the effectiveness of the book. In his day, the author was more known as a poet than a novelist and THE BIG CLOCK contains some seriously good writing for a crime novel. All in all this book is a good, fun read for any fan of mystery and suspense fiction. ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Not missing anything; a great read *by R***R on September 13, 2020* I just thought this was the most fun little book. The last line was not missing. I'm not sure what that reviewer was talking about. The book was suspenseful but also light and funny. The book has a happy ending, but I wouldn't say it was pat. The protagonist is both clever and lucky. I suppose the book was somewhat predictable, but if you read it you'll see that isn't really a bad thing in this case. In fact it would be rather strange if it weren't predictable, given the circumstances. I guess some people wish the protagonist had to pay for his crimes, but this is noir, the gray world. --- ## Why Shop on Desertcart? - 🛒 **Trusted by 1.3+ Million Shoppers** — Serving international shoppers since 2016 - 🌍 **Shop Globally** — Access 737+ million products across 21 categories - 💰 **No Hidden Fees** — All customs, duties, and taxes included in the price - 🔄 **15-Day Free Returns** — Hassle-free returns (30 days for PRO members) - 🔒 **Secure Payments** — Trusted payment options with buyer protection - ⭐ **TrustPilot Rated 4.5/5** — Based on 8,000+ happy customer reviews **Shop now:** [https://www.desertcart.at/products/23578175-the-big-clock](https://www.desertcart.at/products/23578175-the-big-clock) --- *Product available on Desertcart Austria* *Store origin: AT* *Last updated: 2026-06-03*