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

Pulp Poem of the Week

Cash is
the hardest to find
and
the easiest to deal with.

     Richard Stark
     Backflash
     1997

Book Cover: Gil Brewer, Redheads Die Quickly (2012)

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Book Review: Cornell Woolrich, Savage Bride (1950)

Cornell Woolrich puts an everyman and a femme fatale into an H. Rider Haggard blender.  Beware:  These characters don’t spit—they expectorate.  Grade: D

Pulp Poem of the Week

a stream of

pleasant sound

that seemed

to be saying,

Nothing matters.

          David Goodis

          Down There

          1956

Book Review: Jim Thompson, The Criminal (1953)

The title of this low-key masterpiece (low key for Jim Thompson, anyway) is either highly ironic or an oblique reference to almost every character in the book (or, of course, maybe both). In the main, its title refers to Bob Talbert, a teenager accused of killing a girl after she seduces him. As the narrative progresses, however, the fate of our criminal (if criminal he be) becomes increasingly beside the point. The story is told by a series of first-person narrators, each representing less a perspective than an agenda. Thus, the narrators emerge as criminals of a different sort, self-interested and mostly unconcerned with the truth of the affair. Herein lies the title's irony, as The Criminal frustrates the focus that its title promises. Some of Thompson's most famous novels feature the psychological disintegration of their protagonists. In The Criminal, it is the plot itself that disintegrates. Grade: A

Book Review: Richard Stark, Backflash (1997)

This is the sort of Parker novel that I like best: it focuses fairly narrowly on Parker planning and executing a heist and then dealing with the aftermath. So why didn’t I like it more? Why did I actually find it a wee bit tedious? The answer, I think, is that while Starklake ably executes the Parker formula, it feels like a formula this time out. Starklake doesn’t play with his own conventions as he sometimes does—he just marches through them. Of course, this wouldn’t be my reaction if this were my first encounter with Parker, in which case I would probably think this was a great book. More than anything, this all suggests that I ought to take a break from Parker. CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT ALERT: In Backflash, Parker laughs at a joke. Grade: C+

Book Review: David Goodis, Down There [a.k.a. Shoot the Piano Player] (1956)

Why do so many readers rank David Goodis so highly in the pantheon of noir? My theory goes like this: His best books, including Down There, are remarkable primarily for their restraint. Goodis does his best writing when he doesn’t overtax his talent by trying to do too much. Thus, good Goodis gives you no complicated criminal plots, no overwrought sexual hijinks. He’s simple and he’s bleak, and therefore he gets credit for a kind of noir purity and for a corresponding artistic ambition. But in this realm, art happens only when character happens, and Down There’s characters are thin. The most notably thin is protagonist Eddie Lynn, who is more husk than human. In fact, Eddie has cultivated his huskness as a psychic defense against his painful past. His response to most everything that goes on around him is an empty smile. Eventually, of course, Eddie is forced into substantially more action than this, but, as is typically the case with Goodis, as the action accelerates, the artistry deteriorates. One of Goodis’ great strengths, however, is righting himself on the final page and ending on a perfect note. Grade: B+

Pulp Poem of the Week

Just smart
enough
to get
into
trouble.
          
     Richard Stark
     Comeback
     1997

Book Review: Richard Stark, Comeback (1997)

The coolest thing about Parker’s comeback is its lack of fanfare—when it appeared, this was the first Parker novel in 23 years, but that fact is referenced only in the novel’s title. Other than that, it’s a completely ordinary Parker novel (which is to say, a very good Parker novel) that could just as easily have been published in 1967 as 1997, a few cultural references notwithstanding. Comeback drags only in its final act, as Parker novels sometimes do, when it turns into a cat-and-mouse game of who-is-going-to-kill-whom. Grade: B

Pulp Poem of the Week

loving someone
always
requires you to not
love others

Koushun Takami
Battle Royale
1999
(translated by Yuji Oniki)

Pulp Poem of the Week

how has love turned

     to hate?  Worse
how has love
     turned to indifference?

     Steve Finbow
     Nothing Matters
     2012

Pulp Poem of the Week

He doesn’t talk

much at all.

He just makes

you want to

step to one side.

     Richard Stark

     Butcher’s Moon

     1974

Pulp Poem of the Week

they had the Greek
dead enough
to suit them
  
     James M. Cain
     The Postman Always Rings Twice
     1934

Pulp Poem of the Week

there was a surprised look
on his face
and David hit
the surprised look

Ed McBain
“Downpour”
1956

Pulp Poem of the Week

Smelling

a cork

made her

amorous.

Gil Brewer

Love Me—and Die!

1951

Pulp Poem of the Week

My head ached and

I needed a shave and

I was in a dead man’s clothes.

It’s real great, the things that

happen to you.

You don't even have to

look for it hard.

Gil Brewer

The Red Scarf

1958

Book Review: Richard Stark, Butcher's Moon (1974)

  
The Hunter + The Score = Butcher’s Moon. For more than two decades, it seemed that Butcher’s Moon would be the last Parker novel, and I have to admit that some small part of me wishes that it were, as it makes a perfect coda to original series of novels (and is even richer still if you have read the Grofield novels, too). Having said that, however, I will relish reading Comeback, and I will not feel obligated to wait 23 years before I do it.  Grade: A-

Pulp Poem of the Week

All she knew was

Get in bed with me,

I love you.

Kill.

And money.

Gil Brewer

13 French Street

1951

Pulp Poem of the Week

He wanted to go to some bar and get drunk:

stupid,

blind,

maggoty,

stumbling,

rotten,

lurching,

passed-out,

knocked-cold,

egg-eyed,

what’s-my-name?

drunk.

Gil Brewer

Play It Hard

1960

Book Review: Day Keene and Gil Brewer, Love Me--and Die! (1951)

  
A sort of apprentice novel in which Gil Brewer turns a longish Day Keene story (“Marry the Sixth for Murder!,” Detective Tales, May 1948) into something even longer. The original story didn’t make a great deal of sense to begin with, and Brewer stayed true to his source material. He adds a femme fatale and makes his protagonist a bit more hardboiled, but the substance of the plot is the same. If you’re interested, you should stick to the Keene story (which is reprinted in The League of the Grateful Dead: Day Keene in the Detective Pulps, Volume #1) and save your time to read a better novel. Grade: C-

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-

Pulp Poem of the Week

Calm down,

will you?

Have a

tangerine.

Osamu Tezuka

MW

1976-1978

(translated by Camellia Nieh)

Book Review: Osamu Tezuka, MW (1976-1978)

A young boy, Michio Yuki, is accidentally poisoned by MW, a top-secret hyper-powerful chemical weapon, which turns him into a sociopath. As an adult, his life’s ambition becomes to find a hidden stockpile of MW, which he hopes to use to kill pretty much everybody. Michio is a remarkably uninteresting sociopath because of his origins: His soul has literally been poisoned, and that’s that. Nothing else to talk about here. More absurd than uninteresting is his foil, Father Garai, a pedophile turned priest who seduced the young Michio. Priests must do what priests must do, but Father Garai’s insistance that he must try to save the soul of a hardworking serial killer rather than turn him over to the police does not play well. Grade: C

Pulp Poem of the Week

She was a virgin,

and things took

some doing.

Gil Brewer

The Tease

1967

Book Note: Lawrence Block, Afterthoughts (2011)

Afterthoughts collects the many afterwords that Lawrence Block has written mostly for his out-of-print works that have become available as ebooks. Not surprisingly, given Block’s recent popularity, these works skew toward the beginning of his career. Because Block chose not to take the time to turn Afterthoughts into a coherent memoir, he offers it for 99 cents and makes no bones about what it is: an extended advertisment for his backlist. In return for that bargain price, you are not allowed to complain that you hear certain stories over and over again, sometimes verbatim, as they are repeated in the afterwords to different novels from the same time period. Everything is informal and chatty and reads quickly, and you will be consistently entertained (if you can put up with the repetition). On top of that, the book serves Block’s stated purpose well: You will likely finish Afterthoughts with a good idea of which Block ebooks you want to buy.