Ghost In Your Arms
Topper (Topper, volume 1)
By Thorne Smith

15 Apr, 2018
Because My Tears Are Delicious To You
Thorne Smith’s 1926 supernatural farce Topper is the first (and best) of two Topper novels.
Many would say that middle-aged Cosmo Topper has a perfect life. Marriage, job, life in the suburbs, pet cat: Cosmo has it all. If he were not far too repressed to be honest, Cosmo would explain that he feels crushed under the weighty bricks of conformity. Even the simple pleasures he might otherwise enjoy are robbed of their joy by the context in which he experiences them.
Cosmo does what so many middle-aged men have done in his position: he buys a flashy car. The car used to belong to George and Marion Kerby, who lived the scandalous life Cosmo might have lived had he not feared the disapproval of society and his long-suffering wife. Cosmo can at least have their car, rebuilt after the wreck that ended the Kerbys’ lives.
To Cosmo’s tremendous surprises, he gets the Kerbys as well. Or at least their ghosts.