By JACK LONDON (Valley of the Sun Publishing; 1915/83)
This was the second-to-last novel published by Jack London in his lifetime, and unquestionably one of his most unique works. The “Great Reincarnation Novel,” THE STAR ROVER (a.k.a. THE JACKET), is driven by a passionate belief in reincarnation, and, in the 1983 edition under review, comes complete with a lengthy epilogue by the hypnotherapist Dick Sutphen (more on this in a bit).
The book was inspired by the prison experiences of Ed Morrell, an outlaw who claims to have utilized astral projection while he was incarcerated. London’s protagonist is the California based Darrell Standing, imprisoned on a sketchily described murder charge and, after being falsely implicated in a scheme involving nonexistent explosives, forced to endure the horrors of the jacket, a contraption that is wrapped around his torso by sadistic prison guards and makes breathing difficult if not impossible. Standing learns to leave his physical body and roam among the stars, although he ultimately spends the majority of his time reliving past lives.
London’s descriptions of prison life are suitably gritty and immediate, suggesting an early twentieth century take on IN THE BELLY OF THE BEAST. London served two terms in prison during his life, and these pages ring of direct experience. Again, though, that claim refers only to the descriptions of prison life, and not the reincarnation passages. The latter, which include a sojourn alongside Pontius Pilate during the sentencing of Jesus Christ and another set in the Wild West (apparently part of a standalone novel London never managed to complete), tend toward the uneven and unresolved.
It certainly doesn’t help matters that London attempts to shoehorn an apparently Earth-shattering romance into the final pages that feels abrupt and out of place in an otherwise male-centric sausage fest. Final thought: this odd and imaginative phantasmagoria works quite well as an eccentric prison novel, but it’s not entirely satisfying otherwise.
Getting back to the “nonfiction” Dick Sutphen epilogue, it outlines the life of Ed Morrell and Sutphen’s own apparent connection to the saga. Sutphen makes the claim that he was alerted to the existence of THE STAR ROVER by “Kandy,” a.k.a. the spirit of Wassily Kandinsky, who spoke to him through an Indian shaman. Sutphen also claims that he was possessed by Ed Morrell, as apparently “the soul originally inhabiting the body of Dick Sutphen willingly stepped out sometime after Morrell died, allowing Morrell’s soul to take possession with memory banks intact”—hence Sutphen’s interest in Morrell and THE STAR ROVER.