Mortal Leap

Out of print since its initial appearance in 1964, Harris’s absorbing second novel (after Private Demons) adeptly combines intrigue and introspection in a gripping existential odyssey for the ages. Rejecting his straitlaced Mormon upbringing, ex-con and merchant seaman Larry Backus is adrift in every sense when his tramp steamer is caught up in a chaotic battle at sea, unmooring him from his past. Badly burned and feigning amnesia, a cipher, the now nameless narrator acquiesces to Laguna socialite Ary when she claims that he is her husband, Lieutenant Benton Davenant. The hazards of this brash dual imposture, which leads dubious arriviste Ben to feel “like a trained baboon trying to play a cello,” are ample to sustain an ordinary thriller, but here is where Harris (1921–93), the pseudonymous guise of literature professor Donald Heiney, sets himself apart, fully engaging the psychological and philosophical implications of his tale.