Pulp Poem of the Week

She said,
“I didn’t ask you
to wait for me.”

“I wasn’t waiting,”
he said.
“I just had
no place to go,
that’s all.”

     David Goodis
     Down There
     1956

Book Review: Seymour Shubin, Anyone's My Name (1953)

Seymour Shubin began his writing career as an associate editor for a true-crime magazine, a background that he exploited in his debut novel, Anyone’s My Name. The novel’s narrator, Paul Weiler, is true-crime writer whose vocation greases his slippery slope into crime. Just as the novel’s title promises, Shubin milks the Everyman theme for every last drop of pathos, but with enough aplomb and cleverness to earn a spot in the canon of 1950s Noir Well Worth Seeking Out. Grade: A-

Pulp Poem of the Week

Never listen
to a stock tip from
a terminal case.

     Donald E. Westlake
     Bank Shot
     1972

Pulp Poem of the Week

He liked every part of it:
the black look of it,
the short snout of it,
the front sight that could
cut a man’s face like
the tip of a beer-can opener,
the heavy trigger guard,
the curving and rigid grip
of the butt.

     James McKimmey
     Cornered
     1960