Pulp Poem of the Week

Fear wasn't a jagged split of light cleaving you;
fear wasn't a cold fist in your entrails;
fear wasn't something you could face
and demolish with your arrogance.
Fear was the fog, creeping about you,
winding its tendrils about you,
seeping into your pores and flesh and bone.
Fear was a girl whispering a word
over and over again,
a small word you refused to hear,
although the whisper was a scream in your ears,
a dreadful scream you could never forget.
You heard it over and again
and the fog was a ripe red veil
you could not tear away from your eyes.

Dorothy B. Hughes

In a Lonely Place
1947

Book Review: Dorothy B. Hughes, In a Lonely Place (1947)

If Mickey Spillane had named one of his heroes "Dix Steele," it would leave me shaking my head and rolling my eyes, but when Dorothy B. Hughes gives the name to a serial rapist and killer, I nod and smile. Hughes can get away with this name because everything else in In a Lonely Place is so restrained. Dix Steele is so scary because he seems so ordinary--which is, of course, why sociopaths are so dangerous: Inwardly they have no conscience, while outwardly they seem the same as you or I. Many of today's writers of psycho noir, who are free to indulge their every excessive impulsive (and often do), would do well to learn a few things from this understated masterpiece. Grade: A

Pulp Poem of the Week

Sometimes

it is good

for a man

to be drunk.

Dorothy B. Hughes

Ride the Pink Horse

1946

Book Reivew: Dorothy B. Hughes, Ride the Pink Horse (1946)

Sailor, a Chicago hood, finds the Sen, an ex-senator and his ex-employer, enjoying fiesta in a southwestern town. The Sen owes Sailor $1000 for a job, and Sailor is intent on collecting. Rich in atmosphere, glacial in pacing. Grade: C+