Pulp Poem of the Week

pinch-hit

for God

Horace McCoy

They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?

1935

Pulp Poem of the Week

fear was a small

bright-eyed rodent

in my bowels

Gil Brewer

A Taste for Sin

1961

Book Review: Horace McCoy, They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1935)

In reading a novel about a marathon dance contest, is it wrong to want to see the end of the contest and thus find out who wins? Or is the fact that there is no winner—among the dancers and the readers—part of the point? Grade: A-

Book Review: Kate Chopin, The Awakening (1899)

Edna Pontellier: A femme fatale whose victim is herself. Grade: B+

Pulp Poem of the Week

Why is it that we

rejoice at birth and

grieve at a funeral?

It is because

we are not

the person involved.

Mark Twain

Pudd’head Wilson

1894

Book Review: Mark Twain, Pudd'nhead Wilson (1894)

Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is the wellspring of the American vernacular novel; as a result, Twain is sometimes cited as the father of the hardboiled novel—never mind the fact that there’s nothing much hardboiled about Huck Finn, especially by the time that you reach its famously weak ending. Much darker, though less vernacular, is a later Twain work, Pudd’nhead Wilson, whose laughs counterbalance the book’s ultimately noir impulse. Grade: A-

Book Review: Taiyo Matsumoto, Blue Spring (1993)

I have been searching for a manga to pair with with Charlie Huston’s The Shotgun Rule in a juvie noir unit in my Japanese/American noir class, and I think I’ve finally found it. Taiyo Matsumoto’s Blue Spring is a collection of seven interconnected stories from the lives of burned out seniors at Kitano High School. Seasoning gritty realism with the tiniest dash of surrealism, this book, I suspect, will grow in my estimation when I revisit it with a class. Possible pedagogical bonus: There’s a movie, too. Grade: B

Pulp Poem of the Week

A man’s either got to

be young and full of sass

and vinegar and ready

to tackle anything,

or else he’s go to

have a lot of money.

Charles Williams

The Diamond Bikini

1956

Book Review: Otsuichi and Kendi Oiwa, Goth (2003)

This mangafication of the Otsuichi novel of the same name features a pair of death-obsessed teenagers who have a knack for stumbling upon serial killers in their midst. As a result, though horrifying scenes abound, this horror is couched in a world of coincidental whimsy. Perhaps this is a personal failing, but I prefer my serial killers without whimsy. Grade C-