Pulp Poem of the Week

a struggling fly,
already trapped
but still able to move,
trailing over flypaper

     Cornell Woolrich
     “The Light in the Window”

     1946

Pulp Poem of the Week

Human beings must sleep.
Give them time enough,
and they can sleep anywhere,
in any situation.
Even on the floor of Purgatory,
even in the mouth of Hell,
they will sleep.
Night comes and they will sleep.

     Cornell Woolrich
     Savage Bride
     1950

Book Review: Dave Zeltserman, Killer (2010)

The final installment of Dave Zeltserman’s man-out-of-prison trilogy is the most low-key of the three. When mob hitman Leonard March goes free, he has every reason to believe that he will soon be rubbed out himself—he did, after all, get a reduced sentence by ratting out his boss. So he takes a job as a janitor and waits. The dark joy of these novels, however, is that they never quite go where you think they will. Their episodic plots resist formula. Grade: B-

Pulp Poem of the Week

Has anyone supposed it
lucky to be born?
I hasten to inform him or her
it is just as lucky to die,
and I know it.

     Walt Whitman
     “Song of Myself”
     1855

Book Review: Fuminori Nakamura, The Thief (2009)

Publishers Weekly says that The Thief’s antihero is “at once as believably efficient as Donald Westlake’s Parker and as disaffected as a Camus protagonist.” To which I will add, it’s the Parker that makes you want to keep reading, and the Camus that makes you want to stop. Grade: C

Book Review: Jim Thompson, The Golden Gizmo (1954)

Six months from now, I will remember three things about this novel: (1) A female characters gets pistol-whipped in the breasts; (2) the protagonist revives a dying woman with coffee and then immediately has sex with her; and (3) there is a talking dog. Grade: D

Pulp Poem of the Week

I slapped him across the mouth.
I swung my hand back and forth,
slapping him palm and backhand.
The matron pounded on the door
and rushed in. I told her to
beat it. “I’m slapping hell
out of a client,” I said, “and
I don't want to be disturbed.”

     Jim Thompson
     The Criminal
     1953