Ed Gorman's Blog, page 218

True Grit (the book) hot again

[image error]
CHECK OUT OUR NEW TOP SUSPENSE GROUP VIDEO! VERY COOL! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfLJ82...
****************************************************************
[image error]


Ed here: I thought the first version of "True Grit" was pure Hwood hambone. It ruined one of the finest novels of the last century. One reason I'm eager to see the Coen Brothers version of True Grit is because they insist they are filming the book not redoing the movie, which they don't seem to like any more than I do.


From Publisher's Weekly

By Rachel Deahl
Nov 16, 2010

The Coen Brothers' forthcoming adaptation of Charles Portis's True Grit has brought the celebrated, if reclusive, author back into the headlines...and onto readers' bookshelves. Overlook, Portis's publisher, has seen strong sales on its tie-in edition of the book, which it published on November 4. The indie house went to press for 100,000 copies of the edition--it features, as the house's previous edition did, an afterword by Donna Tartt, with updated cover art that references the movie. Jack Lamplough at Overlook predicted that a second printing of the tie-in will happen before Christmas.

The Coens' film, which is scheduled to open wide on December 22, has also ignited an interesest in Portis's other novels. Lamplough said Overlook "rescued" the author's backlist a few years ago and is now seeing a sales spark in Portis titles like The Dog of the South, Gringos, Masters of Atlantis, and Norwood.

While movie adaptations are expected to spark sales for their print source material, Lamplough thinks the Coens' adaptation is a unique example of how a movie can help a book. True Grit, Portis's best known novel, was a major success when it was published in 1968 but, as Lamplough explained, over time "the movie eclipsed the book in the popular consciousness."

for the rest go here:
http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by...

Ross Mc vs. John D

Patti Abbott sure does ask interesting questions. Today she wonders about the sometimes vitriolic comparisons between the two writers. This is the response I wrote. And please remember I'm rarely wrong more than 98.9% of the time.

I think Ross Macdonald was the finest writer ever of private eye fiction. He brought literary integrity and psychological depth to the form that has never been equaled. I think John D. was the great populist storyteller. He once said that he wrote folk tales for men who carried their lunches in buckets. While I don't think he had the depth of Ross Mc I think he had a range and storytelling ability that Ross Mc sometimes lacked. Hell I read them both all the time. Hard to beat either one of them if you like to watch masters at work.

Elizabeth Sanxay Holding

Ed here: Here's my semi-annual pitch for Elizabeth Sanxay Holding. I agree with the critics who claim that Holding wrote the first true novels of psychological suspense. Some modern readers find her style a bit old-fashioned (I don't) but I don't see how they can fail to see the complexity of her people and the almost phantasmagoric atmosphere she maintains in even the sunniest of settings. She should be on every reading list. While Mrs. Duff isn't available through Stark House several of her books, in handsome editions, are.

THE INNOCENT MRS. DUFF

One of the more familiar knocks on mystery fiction is that it rarely treats death seriously. That too often murder is simply the device that propels the story and not much more. I think that's a fair criticism and I certainly include my own work as being guilty of that particular sin. Murder, even literary murder, should HURT.

I'd also add to that criticism the various addictions common to the genre, namely alcoholism and drug addiction. Only Larry Block and a few others have taken us into the real world of recovering alcoholics. For the most part addiction has become just another keystroke common to the world of mystery fiction.

I've read four novels in my life that have described accurately--in my experience as an alcoholic--the horrors of being drunk most of your life. Certainly Under The Volcano by Malcolm Lowry, After the First Death by Larry Block and a novel you've probably never heard of, though alcoholic Raymond Chandler pushed it as one of the finest suspense novels of his time. Oh and one more A Fan's Notes by Frederick Exley with whom I got drunk a few times (no joke.)

For some reason, much as I've pushed her here, I'd never read THE INNOCENT MRS. DUFF by Elizabeth Sanxay Holding. It is remarkable in many ways, not least because the protagonist, Jacob Duff is drunk for virtually the entire novel. And we see 95% of the book through his eyes. Functionally drunk for most of it but also falling-down drunk in places. Holding's genius was to sustain a sense of dread that I don't think even Ruth Rendell has equaled. There are times in her novels when I have to put the book down for a few minutes. They are that claustrophobic in mood and action.

That's the first most remarkable aspect of the book. The second most remarkable is the fact that we see the book through the eyes of one of the most arrogant, self-invoved, cold and self-deluded man I've ever encountered in fiction of any kind. I hated the bastard so much--I'm not enamored of the upper-classes, alas, and Duff embodies everything I loathe about them--I almost gave up after chapter three. I wasn't sure I wanted to learn anything more about this jerk,

But Holding has the voodoo, at least for me. She makes me turn pages faster than any best-seller because what you're rushing to discover is the secrets of her people not just plot turns. All the good folks in this one are women, especially Duff's younger, beautiful and very decent wife. He constantly compares her unfavorably to his first wife, though we soon learn that he didn't care much for his first wife, either. At age forty he's still looking for his dream woman. God have mercy on her soul if he ever finds her.

As always with Holding, as with much of Poe, what we have is not so much a plot (though she's as good as Christie) as a phantasmagoria of despair, distrust and suspicion that consumes the protagonist. Is his wife cheating on him? Is she setting up his death so she'll inherit his estate? Is she turning his young son against him? Has his wealthy aunt, his life-long mentor and mother confessor, taken the side of his young wife? Has his drinking disgraced him in his small town and are all those smirks aimed at him? And finally, is he a murderer? And why does he have to sneak around these days to drink?

If you're curious about Holding, this is a good place to start. Anthony Boucher always said that she was the mother of all psychological suspense novelists. What's intresting is how few, fifty-some years after her death, have come close to equaling her enormous powers.

King of Comedy; Guns

[image error]
*****************************************************************

[image error]

Ed here: I wouldn't go as far as Mark Kermode. I don't think King of Comedy is Martin Scorese's best film but I do think it's a brilliant and misunderstood masterpiece.

Mark Kermode The Guardian U.K. King of Comedy Cast: Jerry Lewis, Robert De Niro, Sandra Bernhardt 1982

When I interviewed Martin Scorsese for this Sunday's Observer New Review, he described Michael Powell's 1960 shocker Peeping Tom as "one of my all-time favourite movies" – a film that brilliantly dramatises the "pathology of cinema" and the "dangers of gazing". Decried by critics and hounded out of cinemas on its initial release, the film became a lost classic, and was only rediscovered after Scorsese helped get it into the New York film festival and co-financed its rerelease two decades later. Peeping Tom is now considered the pinnacle of Powell's career.

As for Scorsese, it seems to me that the director's own greatest film is still one of his least applauded. Ask any casual fan to name their top Scorsese flicks and the chances are they'll come up with titles, such as Taxi Driver and Mean Streets, that came to define the cutting edge of American cinema in the 70s; or Raging Bull, a searing portrait of the life of Jake La Motta, featuring Robert De Niro at his body-changing best. Or what about Goodfellas, which remains so popular that a possible small-screen prequel is in the offing?

for the rest go here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2010/n...

------------------------------------------------Guns

Kevin Burton Smith commented on my post about guns. This demonstrates exactly what I was talking about in an America gone gun crazy. Thanks, Kevin

Kevin Burton Smith said...
The couple that own the local comic shop near here have, on three different cases in the last eight years, hauled out their guns to defend their store from being burglarized in the middle of the night. In each case, they were in the store (in the middle of the night?). They've killed two of them (he got one, she got one) and initiated a high speed chase that ended with them pulling a gun and forcing the guy off the road.

Evidently, they prefer sitting in their store at night and killing people to putting a couple of bars on their windows.

10:46 AM

Shoot D'Jour

Georgia Man Arrested For Shooting Young Man Over Halloween Egging Of His Mercedes
KATE BRUMBACK | 11/19/10 09:15 PM |

ATLANTA — An Atlanta man has been charged with gunning down a young man he thought threw eggs at his Mercedes in a Halloween prank.

Police spokesman Carlos Campos says officers arrested 20-year-old Michael Hunnicutt around 1:35 p.m. Friday and charged him with murder in the death of 18-year-old Tavarus Erving on Oct. 31.

Police say Hunnicutt shot Erving after he confronted him because he believed Erving splattered his Mercedes with eggs. Police say 10 shots were fired.

Hunnicutt was being held Friday in the Fulton County jail. Police said they didn't know if Hunnicutt had an attorney.


Ed here: This is where the extravagance of contemporary hardboiled crime fiction meets the reality of people who shouldn't own guns.

Couple things. I don't own a gun because of my temper. I don't own a gun because at my age my eyesight is bad. I don't own a gun because the thought of that makes people I love nervous.

This isn't to say that there aren't times when I don't wish I owned a gun. A number of things alarm me today than weren't around when I was young and healthy. Most ominous to me are home invasions. I think there should be a law that says if you break into somebody's home when they're there you get seven years tacked on to your sentence whatever other crimes you might commit while inside. Even if you don't harm the people. Even if you don't take anything. Tough shit asshole.

On the other hand the Hunnicutt case reminds me of a local case back in the eighties. A guy who lived in a tony condominium heard somebody in the garage below his unit. He went down there with a gun in his hand and found a black eighteen-year-old about to steal his pricy foreign car. He shot him dead. Point blank. The kid wasn't armed. My memory is that he wasn't charged. I didn't think that was right then and I don't think that was right now. In that circumstance there were a number of alternatives to killing. I'm sure the guy was a hero to some. To me he was a murderer.

I have a friend who spent most of his life in the military. He's also written many, many, many novels in various genres. Him I trust with guns. He did two tours in Nam as a chopper pilot, fought in the Gulf war and did two tours in Iraq. He knows how to handle himself in dangerous situations, He and his very pretty wife bought a nice new home and soon after were awakened one night by burglars on the ground floor. He took his pistol from the nightstand drawer then walked to the head of the stairs and said loudly, "I have a gun. If you're not out of here in sixty seconds I'm coming down and you'll be sorry I did." He always laughs when he talks about all the noise they made scrambling to get out of the house. They knocked over a lot of furniture but they didn't do any damage.

I know there aren't any easy solutions to this. I also know that people get scared (I do) and will do anything to save their lives. That's one thing. But when you're simply pissed off and kill somebody in the guise of protecting yourself, that's something else altogether.

The Berkeley-to-Boston Forty-Brick Lost-Bag Blues

Ed here: Not The Baseball Pitcher has a long and excellent review of The Berkeley-to-Boston Forty-Brick Lost-Bag Blues, a novel I always thought caught the collision of middle class dopers and hard ass street criminals very well. It was a time of grand delusions. I sat in many many rooms filled with young men and women of all stripes where some wasted guy would stand up and say "When we take over this country we're not gunna take this shit any more!" You'll meet a few of those people in this book, too. Anyway, very well done review.

FFB: Dealing or The Berkeley-to-Boston Forty-Brick Lost-Bag Blues – "Michael Douglas"
Posted: Thursday, November 18. 10 by randy Johnson in Books
Tags: "Michael Douglas", Forgotten Books 2


DEALING or THE BERKELEY-TO-BOSTON FORTY-BRICK LOST-BAG BLUES is a novel very much of it's time. Published in 1970, it deals with people of the emerging hippie culture and their war with the "pigs," "clueless" parents, anyone who didn't embrace the world of pot smoking, dropping out. Filled with the language and mores of the time, the malaise of college life, school is more to avoid the draft than to learn anything.

It was made into a film in 1972 and had a number of notable actors in the production, most of them early roles in their careers. John Lithgow, Barbara Hershey, Paul Sorvino (credited as taxi driver), Robert F. Lyons, Charles Durning, and Demond Wilson (pre- Sanford and Son).

Peter Harkness(Lyons), a Boston college student arrives in Berkeley at the instigation of his friend, rich boy John(Lithgow), on the regular run to pick up a load of ten bricks of grass from a man named Musty. He arrives just in time to see the house raided by the police, who are disappointed to find nothing, and he barely escapes when an officious young officer gives him a hard time about hanging around.

for the rest go here:
http://randall120.wordpress.com/

Linda by John D. MacDonald

[image error]
*****************************************************************

Ed here: Over on Steve Scott's most excellent John D. MacDonald website The Trap of Solid Gold he discusses what is to me (and to Steve) one of JDM's finest and most excellent (and neglected) works, the novella "Linda." You can find it cheap on line in the book Border Town Girl. Steve deals with the piece at great and insightful length. Well worth reading.

Steve Scott:


The strength of "Linda" lies not in its clever and original plotting -- which is great even by MacDonald's standards -- but in the voice of the narrator, a lonesome, socially hapless man whose digressions and lack of self-awareness make him almost unique in the MacDonald universe. What begins as a simple reminiscence ("Looking back, I think it was right after the first of the year that Linda...") eventually reveals a solitary figure, a man with only "two or three close friends," a protagonist with social skills so limited that he is unable to see his own wife for what she really is. This, of course, drives the plot of "Linda," for as we gradually are told the protagonist's story, the reader immediately recognizes all of the warning signals missed by the husband. Even the fact that the story is told as flashback does not diminish the power of a lost quality in Paul Cowley. He is a literary creation that borrows much from MacDonald's earliest pulp stories, when the author was still struggling to find his own voice and borrowing heavily from the hopeless fatalism of Cornell Woolrich.


This aspect of the novella's power is easily lost on a lot of readers, at least consciously, because MacDonald devised such an interesting and unique plot, a murder scheme so outrageous as to be almost believable. If you have never read "Linda" before I urge you to stop right now and do so before proceeding with this post, for there is a plot twist in the middle of the tale that drives the rest of the story, and to reveal it beforehand to a new reader would be... well, cruel, but there's no other way to discuss this work. I remember the first time I read "Linda" and I recall how utterly surprised I was, kind of the same feeling I had when watching Psycho for the first time, or reading Ira Levin's A Kiss Before Dying. You know something bad is going to happen -- that's clearly inferred by the first person narrative -- but nothing prepares you for it when it actually does. Then, after a disoriented few paragraphs, the intent all becomes clear and the story takes a turn the reader never expected.

for the rest go here:

ttp://thetrapofsolidgold.blogspot.com/

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_xPm1kJU3TVc......

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_xPm1kJU3TVc...

Forgotten Books: Scandal on The Sand by John Trinian; Top Suspense Group

[image error]
*****************************************************************
Forgotten Books: SCANDAL ON THE SAND by John Trinian

John Trinian was a working name of Zekial Marko. He was a former
convicted criminal who started publishing when he got out of jail
in the early sixties. His first novel was under his real name
(Scratch a Thief, Fawcett Gold Medal 1961, also as Once a Thief),
after which he started using the pseudonym. As Trinian, he
published five or six novels with various paperback houses, such
as Pyramid. Scratch a Thief is an excellent novel, you should try it. That's
the only book I've read by him, sadly, so I can't comment on the
others. -- Juri Nummelin (on Rara-Avis)

Ed here:

Further information on Trinian has him writing for The Rockford Files and other TV shows. While I don't think he was as good as Malcolm Braly, another Gold Medal author who served hard time, I do think his novels had both a lyrical and sexual aspect that we don't find in most of Braly.

I just finished Trinian's SCANDAL ON THE SAND (1964) and I have to say that it offers just about everything I ask for from a novel. A unique story, a strong voice, a definite worldview and several compelling characters, most notably the rich young woman at the book's center, Karen Fornier.

A dying killer whale washes up on a stretch of deserted Southern California beach. Karen, hungover and dismal that she finally gave into the childish wanna-be macho man Hobart, the one her parents would like her to marry...she leaves their beach motel hoping to lose him. Wandering along the beach she finds the whale and for her its appearance is almost religious. The way she bonds with it is moving and is a credit to Trinian's skill.

Hobart insists that the whale is dead and should be cut up for cat food. He finds a sinister, arrogant young cop, Mulford, who agrees with him. Mulford orders a tow truck to come in and drag it away. He then orders Hobart and Karen to leave the area. Hobart sees in the harsh machismo of Mulford everything he's secretly wanted to be, that not even his considerable inheritance could buy him. He sides with Mulford and tries to drag Karen away. But she defies them both and stays. Not even when the whale proves to be alive will Mulford stop the tow truck. He says he'll shoot the whale.

All this is being observed from close-by a hood named Bonniano who is to meet a runner who will give him enough money to escape to Mexico. Bonniano is in the news for being a hit man who last night iced a prominent mob figure. Everybody's looking for him.

These and others play into the story of whale on the beach. The character sketches show the influences of Sherwood Anderson and John O'Hara and the cutaways to life on the beach bring the 1964 era alive. Boys wearing white clam digger pants--girls lying about in pink bikinis with transistor radios stuck to their ears--and just about everybody managing to grab themselves a little marijuana whenever the opportunity comes up...all this being the lull before the flower power storm that was less than two years away.

A cunning little book. Trinian was the real deal.

-------------------------------------Top Suspense Group

Last night I posted information about The Top Suspense Group. Since I'm part of it I can hardly offer a balance opinion but I will say that if you're looking for some really good e books are reasonable price, head to our website. http://www.topsuspense.com/

-------------------------------------Peter Sagal

I always spend Saturdays listening to Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me on NPR. In format it's like old time radio's live audience participation quiz shows with two exceptions--there' a panel of smart ass celebrities (numerous authors, comedians and actors) and all the innuendo would have gotten them thrown off the air back in the thirties and forties.

Peter Sagal is the host and he's quicker, smarter and wittier than all the late night boys combined.

Last Saturday he invited a guy who'd written a history of Wisconsin on the show. (The show often comes from Wisconsin towns.) He naturally wanted the guy to hit some of the highlights that would interest and amuse people. The guy was irritating. Sagal would say how about the story about--and the guy would say "Nah, that's too long" or "Nah, that isn't that interesting." He really knew how to move books.

Finally Sagal cleverly led him into telling the story of a Catholic community/outpost way out in the wilds in the middle eighteen hundreds. Visitors would always remark that while some Catholics were persecuted in other areas these Catholics seemed to be extremely happy. Well, there was a reason for that. Entire families guzzled a drink called Fox River Elixir. They probably drank it while they were erecting some very beautiful churches and creating a very pretty little town. Happy and industrious. Americana.

Sometime in the 1860s (I think this was the date) a scientist decided to analyze Fox River Elixir which had about it a "sanctified" air because some of the imbibers felt it had "holy properties." Well, if holy meant a drink that was fifty percent river water, thirty per cent very heavy wine and twenty per cent cocaine, a bottle of this and you'd be on your way to the pearly gates.

But even that isn't the kicker. Somewhere in the 1870s the people at Fox River Elixir got whatever Pope was wearing that skyscraper hat to endorse the product in a print ad! The ad ran in newspapers. Sagal said "I'm not sure which Pope but it was but it was probably one of those Leos. I never trusted those guys."

Mind boggling. A Pope hawking booze and cocaine. I wonder if he got a cut.

TOP SUSPENSE GROUP ANNOUNCEMENT

[image error]
*****************************************************************

TOP SUSPENSE GROUP
www.topsuspense.com
www.topsuspensegroup.com

Electronic books are soon to be a billion dollar business, yet it's
more difficult than ever to find a good read, especially via digital
download. With more than 700,000 ebooks already on line, with a good
number of them self-published, ebook stores are becoming the
equivalent of publisher's past 'slush piles'. A newly-formed
collaborative site called The Top Suspense Group plans to slash
through all the clutter. www.topsuspensegroup.com will be offering
readers one central site filled with exciting e-books, covering
several genres and all at reasonable prices.

"Readers can count on us," creator and acclaimed author Dave
Zeltserman explains, "Every member of our group has already made his
or her mark on genre fiction, whether it's noir, crime, mystery,
thriller, horror or Westerns, and in some cases, several of these
genres."

Authors aboard include Zeltserman, Max Allan Collins, Bill Crider, Ed
Gorman, Vicki Hendricks, and Harry Shannon.

Zeltserman has spoken before about the difficulty readers have in
searching for sites that offer seasoned professionals. Top Suspense
Group members make some of their finest material available at
affordable prices. Many of the ebooks will contain bonus material,
such as the writer's commentary on the book that has been purchased,
or the addition of a free short story.

"We believe readers will appreciate a reliable inexpensive site that
continuously delivers some of the best in contemporary genre fiction,"
said Top Suspense Group member and multi-award winning author, Max
Allan Collins.


Contact:
Ed Gorman
Ejgorman99@aol.com