Ed Gorman's Blog, page 62

The great Mark Evanier Bill Cosy and Al Capp

for the full piece go here and scroll down www.newsfromme.com/


The creator of Li'l Abner finally got busted in 1971. In the years just before that, I was starting to get to know some of his peers, some of the more prominent syndicated cartoonists. I therefore observed a rather amazing transformation. I watched grown men learn that rape is not a funny, colorful prank that goes just one notch past talking a cute woman into bed. I heard a couple of Capp's peers talk about his antics (to them, they were antics) with amusement and even a hint of admiration. These were men between the ages of, say, 50-70, and they just didn't get it. One even said something like, "The girls today, going around dressing like that, they're practically begging for it." That was before what Capp was doing was reported widely, starting with a scoop in Jack Anderson's newspaper column and a report by one of his aides, Brit Hume. Yes, that Brit Hume. None of those on whom Capp had preyed had pressed charges or insisted on Capp's arrest. They didn't want to get into a "my word against his" battle with a famous man who could afford the best lawyers and most feared a legal system that would in its own way, put them on trial.But the news stories emboldened one recent victim, Capp was charged and while he got off without jail time, he was humiliated and ruined. And a lot of men — not enough but a lot — figured out that rape wasn't like a great practical joke or a good way to get laid without buying her dinner. Some of them even learned that it wasn't about sex so much as about power, violence, and even pathological hatred. I witnessed this enlightenment on the part of several of Capp's friends and colleagues. The next time I was around some of those gents, it was not, "Hey, did you hear how Capp got a college girl to blow him?" It was, "What a sick, horrible man." Correct. Even the "practically begging for it" guy said that.Few (if any) of Cosby's current accusers seem to be doing it because they see fame 'n' fortune. That's one reason, along with their number, that they have so much credibility. Some may be doing it because they still need to not feel that bastard got away with it…but I'll bet you they're all thinking others can learn from this. Men can learn that rape is a serious crime…and by the way, so is slipping a drug in someone's drink even if you don'trape them. Women can learn to beware and that even a famous, seemingly-benevolent person can be not so benevolent.And this kind of thing needs to be reported. Even if you think no one will listen to you, it needs to be reported and those reports need to be investigated, not dismissed because the alleged perpetrator is beloved and/or wealthy. This whole matter with Bill Cosby is so sad and so troubling in so many ways…but if you're searching for some good to come of it, there's this: Some people are learning that it's a crime no less serious than if someone came up behind you with a knife and stabbed you. And somewhere, someone is going to be dissuaded from trying what Cosby did because he'll think, "Geez, even a rich guy like that couldn't get away with it…"

My First Novel: Bill Pronzini

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 MY FIRST NOVEL:                                         Bill Pronzini
            I’m not fond of The Stalker.  It must have some merit, since it was bought by Random House and nominated for a Best First Novel Edgar, but it’s overwritten and loaded with other youthful flaws.  More interesting than the book, I think, are the circumstances surrounding its acceptance and publication.            I wrote it in San Francisco during the latter half of 1969.  At that time I’d been selling short stories for three years and had just co-authored a couple of sex books with Jeff Wallmann.  (How I got into that racket is another story.)  Technically, I suppose, my true first novel was a godawful piece of crap called A Mother’s Love.  Oy.            The sex books “earned” Wallmann and me an invitation for an all expenses paid move to the Mediterranean island of Majorca, where the publisher was based for tax purposes, to join his stable of writers.  We jumped at the chance.  On the advice of Joe Gores I submitted the ms. of The Stalker to Lee Wright at Random House in January 1970, shortly before Wallmann and I left for Europe on a German freighter bound from S.F. down through the Panama Canal, across the Atlantic, and up the English Channel to Amsterdam.  We chose that mode of travel not only for the experience but because it gave us time to do collaborative contract work plus a few solo short stories.  (The trip was supposed to take 21 days, instead took 28, and had more than a few harrowing moments – also another story.)  When we finally arrived in Amsterdam, a letter from Lee was waiting at American Express, saying she would buy the novel if I would make extensive revisions.  Lord, yes, I would!            Wallmann and I bought a car and zigzagged our way down to Spain, then across to Majorca by ferry.  Once we were established there, Lee sent me a long list of revisions, I made them all to her satisfaction, and she accepted the book.  In retrospect I wish she’d suggested more improvements, a lot more.            I was still living on Majorca – I wrote the first Nameless Detective novel, The Snatch, during my 14 months there – when The Stalker was published.  I may not care for the novel itself, but I’ll never forget the thrill of receiving and holding the first copy in my hands on a balmy afternoon in early 1971.  No professional experience has matched it since.           Ed here: I think the Stalker is a solid first novel. I reread it not long ago and it holds up nicely. 

One of the sweetest women in the world Judy Crider Bill's blog

Judy Crider, R. I. P.
















Judy with Mickey Spillane, Bouchercon, 1981.  
She departed his life today at 11:00.  
She'll always live in my heart.

James Reasoner; Max Brand

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 2014

(Need something to read this afternoon when you're too stuffed from Thanksgiving dinner to get out of your chair and aren't interested in what's on TV? Or this weekend when you're staying as far away from the shopping malls as you possibly can? Well, try a good old-fashioned action Western!)

Hell came to Santa Angelina on a beautiful morning, as the Texas settlement was practically wiped out by vicious outlaws led by the bloodthirsty lunatic Henry Pollard. Now Pollard is in jail in Alpine, waiting on his trial and an all but certain date with the hangman. The only real question is whether an outraged lynch mob will string him up first.

Not everyone wants to see Pollard dance at the end of a rope, however. His gang of hired killers would like to set him free, and so would his older brother, a wealthy cattleman who has always protected Pollard from the consequences of his savagery.

Riding into the middle of this three-cornered war is the Outlaw Ranger, G.W. Braddock, who may not have a right anymore to wear the bullet-holed star-in-a-circle badge pinned to his shirt, but whose devotion to the law means he'll risk his life to see that justice is done!

HANGMAN'S KNOT is another fast-action Western novel from New York Times bestselling author James Reasoner. Brand-new and never before published, it continues the violent saga of the Outlaw Ranger.


, 2014
from Tales of The Bagman (I love stories about Max Brand)Max Brand: The Most Famous Meeting of a Pulp Writer and EditorWhen Frederick Faust (Max Brand) met Robert H. Davis, chief executive of the Munsey Publishing empire in 1917. The legend goes like this:

"Davis prided himself on being able to spot a comer (he had purchased some of Joseph Conrad's early work, and is credited with discovering O. Henry; this is dubious, however, as Arthur Grissom, Smart Set's first editor, purchased O. Henry's first four stories, which were reputed to have been rejected by every magazine in the country).

Editor Davis gave Faust the outline of a plot and told him to go down the hall where there was a small room with a typewriter, and build a story from it. Faust cranked out a 7800-word story and returned same to Davis within two hours. Davis, amazed at Faust's speed, asked where he had learned to write.

'Down the hall,' was Faust's reply. The story was published in the March, 1917 All Story Weekly without a change."

--The Pulp Western, by John A. Dinan


Max Brand was to write roughly a novel a month for the next twenty years

Lost Classics of Noir: Whip Hand by W. Franklin Sanders (and/or Charles Willeford) BRIAN GREENE

Lost Classics of Noir: Whip Hand by W. Franklin Sanders (and/or Charles Willeford)  BRIAN GREENEFrom The Criminal Element
In case you’re confused by the author credit in the heading here, let me just say that I join you in your befuddlement. This 1961 noir novel was originally published as a Fawcett Gold Medal paperback original, withW. Franklin Sanders tagged as the writer. But over time it came to be revealed that Charles Willeford wrote some, if not all, of the book. Sanders may have been his co-author, but then Sanders may have also been a make-believe person. If you’re interested in reading up on that intrigue, there is no shortage of material available on the web. I’m going to leave that subplot alone and just focus on the book, which is a gem of a read.But first a couple words on Willeford. I doubt I need to sell many readers of this site on the merits of his writing. Some Willeford fans might think of his Hoke Moseley series as his finest work, while others might prefer his earlier titles such as Cockfighter (1962) or The Burnt Orange Heresy (1971). Of the Willeford books I’ve read, it’s his second novel, Pick-Up (1955), that I value the most. When I first started this column, I drew up a shortlist (well, it was actually long) of books I might cover, and Pick-Up was among those. I haven’t gotten around to writing an appreciation of it, and maybe I never will for this series, as I have purposely been avoiding covering the same writer twice, in order to spread the hardboiled love. In any case, Pick-Up is a hell of a noir novel. If you like this kind of stuff and haven’t read it, do so. And while you’re at it, read the one I’m about to discuss; because whether it was written by Willeford or this Sanders guy, or some combination of the two of them, it’s pure.Whip Hand is one of those novels that’s narrated by several different characters. The primary players are: a trio of Oklahoma bumpkins who, while in Dallas, kidnap the young daughter of an oil tycoon and collect ransom; a troubled L.A. cop who has fled to Dallas to duck an investigation into his questionable police activities; the father of the kidnapped child, and the man’s adult daughter. The plot-line is far-fetched, but in reading along you really don’t care, because the story is interesting enough, and the characters are memorable enough, to carry the tale past that problem. The gist is that the cop happens to run into the Okies at a Dallas bus station and, seeing the fancy bags they’re carrying around (the buffoons purchased ridiculously conspicuous cases in which to tote around the ransom money) and wondering what might be in them, he pulls a switcheroo number on one of the dudes and winds up with a satchel full of the cash. After that, he forces the guy to tell him how they got the money, and after that, he decides he’s going to do a vigilante job in bringing the trio to justice (and meanwhile see what might be in all this for himself).for the rest go here:
www.criminalelement.com/ 

Bill Crider News; Terrie Moran says I won the Ed Hoch Award

Announcement (Congratulations, Bill)According to this announcement, it appears that Sheriff Rhodes will be around for at least two more books (assuming I'm not too lazy to write them): "Bill Crider's SURVIVORS WILL BE SHOT AGAIN and the next Sheriff Dan Rhodes mystery, to Toni Kirkpatrick at Thomas Dunne Books, by Kim Lionetti at BookEnds (NA)."
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Ed here: I haven't heard anything from the Committee but my friend Teri Moran sent me the following information and as Kramer of Seinfeld said "If it's on the internet it MUST be true."
Ed Hoch was supportive of my work early on. I also had the honor of editing his collection of private eye stories. This is a true pleasure for me, this award because of my respect and admiratiionn for Ed and his work. 
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In July 2008, with permission from Patricia Hoch, the SMFS renamed its Golden Derringer Award for Lifetime Achievement in honor of her late husband, Edward D. Hoch. With more than nine hundred published stories at the time of his death, Hoch was considered the most prolific writer of short mystery fiction ever.

Golden Derringer honorees are considered by a five-member selection committee. This year’s recipient of the EDWARD D. HOCH MEMORIAL GOLDEN DERRINGER FOR LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT is:  Ed Gorman
The Derringer Award is determined by a vote of the Short Mystery Fiction Society membership. The four story categories are Flash Fiction, Short Story, Long Story and Novelette. Recipients of the Derringer receive a plaque documenting their accomplishment, but until the official award is delivered, this year’s winners will be presented with this certificate.

MY FIRST NOVEL: DICK LOCHTE

MY FIRST NOVEL: DICK LOCHTE
I’ve written several times about how my debut novel, SLEEPING DOG, wound up in print. The details have appeared on this blog not very long ago and also can be found as an afterward in the new Brash Books edition of the novel. But, though SLEEPING DOG  was my first published book, it was not the first that I wrote.  That was a novel I pounded out on an electric typewriter at the tail end of the 1960s, while in my post-college youth toiling daily in Chicago as a member of the promotion department at Playboy magazine.
The novel was then titled THE FROG PRINCE, and it was a satiric comedy novel very much – honestly, waaay too much – influenced by Joseph Heller’s CATCH-22, which was then, and is now, my all-time favorite novel. Unlike that book’s protagonist who was trapped with a lot of oddball characters in a war horribly short on logic or even common sense, mine was entangled in a much-too-comfortable job at a men’s magazine where logic and common sense were not just missing, their absence was waved like a flag. The novel being a work of fiction, its magazine was not Playboy. Its name was Ogle, and its symbol was not a rabbit but, as the book’s title may suggest, a slimy tailless amphibian. Beyond that, THE FROG PRINCE was pathetically close to autobiography, even at its most bizarre moments. There was only one person at PLAYBOY who knew about the book – the noted science fiction writer AJ Budrys, who was then the editor of Playboy Press. During one of our lunches, he offered to “look over” the pages. He liked them and his suggestions and encouragement were responsible for my finishing the manuscript.
Before he moved on, AJ recommended me and the novel to a couple of agents. One was in the late stages of retirement and not taking on new clients, the other passed away shortly after I’d sent her a copy of the manuscript, no cause and effect there to my knowledge. At that point I began sending inquiry letters and sample chapters to publishers, maybe ten, with six replying that they’d be willing to look at what I’d done. This was during the dark days before electronic files could be emailed and I spent hours lurking around the office Xerox machines after hours, making copies of the book’s four-hundred-plus pages.
My effort resulted in several form-letter kiss-offs, a short note from a Doubleday editor that he’d been amused, but not enough, and a longer note from an editor at Dutton stating that she felt the ms. had “something” but needed work and, if I were willing to listen to her editorial advice, she’d try to get me a contract and an advance.
I immediately wrote back that I’d be happy to follow her advice. Then began weeks of waiting. Finally, she mailed back her regrets. There would be no contract. Her boss was “not quite as sanguine about the novel’s potential,” were her exact words, still branded on my memory after all the years.
So, THE FROG PRINCE was tossed into a trunk where it rested gathering dust until about nine years ago. By then I’d published four crime novels and a short story collection, been nominated for every mystery award, won the Nero, and been translated into more than a dozen languages. I’d just finished co-writing a series of legal thrillers with attorney Christopher Darden and was about to embark on a series with THE TODAY SHOW’s Al Roker. I wanted to put out another solo novel, but wasn’t sure I could get it done before starting in on the Rokers.That’s when I thought of THE FROG PRINCE. The main problem was that, by then,  I was a “mystery writer” and there was no mystery element in the ms.  I thought that problem could be solved without too much effort. Drop a body here and there, shift a few things around.
It didn’t turn out that way. It never does.
I kept the novel in the Swinging Sixties, in my opinion, the period when men’s magazines were at their, ah, peak. But I added a few significant events of the era that were taking place beyond the magazine, like the Civil Rights Act and the start of the Vietnam conflict, that I hoped would bring the story a little closer to the ground than it had been. I kept the characters, and quite a few scenes and then spent nearly seven months coming up with what I hoped was a dark, funny fairplay whodunit that for a number of reasons (fear of a lawsuit being one of them) I placed in 1969 Southern California instead of Playboy’s home town of Chicago.
Also, since there were countless numbers  of  books called THE FROG PRINCE, most of them for children (Amazon it, if you don’t believe me), I slapped on a new, more unique title, CROAKED!That’s when I showed it to you, Ed, and thanks to your recommendation, my first novel finally appeared in print, nearly forty years after I’d begun working on it.it.     

A movie review by Lev Levinson -- IDA

Sometimes I watch a movie that’s so outstanding, it’s like Mount Everest compared to the usual mountain range of pretty good movies.
This morning I watched Ida, a Polish movie with English subtitles, filmed in black and white, released in 2013, available on Netflix streaming and probably other sites.
Ida is set in Communist Poland during the 1960s, and tells of a young nun whose faith is challenged severely several times.  That’s it, folks.  There are no car crashes, shootings, fistfights, or entire cities swallowed up by demonic powers.  There isn’t even much dialogue.  People often are shown doing nothing more than thinking, but this thinking is very moving in the film’s contexts.
There are no angel choruses or rays of light emanating from heaven.  This is not the schmaltzy kindergarten view of religion.  This is about the struggles and temptations that people of faith sometimes encounter in the real world, and how difficult it is to reconcile the ideals of religion with the confusion and indeed horrors of human life on this planet.
Atheists probably would not consider this film worthwhile, because they believe faith is nothing more than ludicrous superstition.  But those of you who have had the experience of God, or who believe without having had the experience, will probably find the film as absorbing as I.  This movie has stayed with me all day - I can’t forget it.

Hitchcock; Black Wings

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 25, 2007
The new issue of American Heritage has a fine lengthy overview of Hitchcock's movies (and their collective theme of justified paranoia) by David Lehman. The above quote is one of Lehman's most telling points.

Understandably, much of the piece deals with Hitchcock's biggest successes, from Shadow of A Doubt to North by Northwest to Psycho to The Birds. But when I read an overview of the man's career I feel obliged to defend some of the films that weren't as successful commercially or critically.

FRENZY often gets treated as if it was Hitchcock's attempt to dabble in porno. Yes, it's surprisingly carnal coming from a man whose sexual icons were usually icy blondes. But its carnality and vulgarity seeme to me Hitchcock's way of saying to all his young imitators that he could be modern, too. The fault with this film is the script. The killer is far more interesting than the hero. This becomes even more of a problem because the actor playing the killer not only has the better part--he's a better actor than the hero.

THE TROUBLE WITH HARRY is one of the few times I've ever been able to sit through anything one could call "whimsical." Maybe it's the gorgeous glorious way H films the New England autumn. Maybe it's the simple charm of Edmund Gwen. Maybe it's the way a very young Shirley MacLain (in her first screen role) sweetly seduces the camera every time it comes near. Or maybe it's just the idea that a corpse keeps getting moved all over the county while local law enforcement tries to figure out what the hell is going on. Whatever, it has true charm.

MARNIE is a mess. I've always thought Sean Connery was miscast. The script wanders and pages go by without it focusing the way it should. But Tippi Hedren is convincing enough--and her backstory intriguing enough--that there's the kind of neurotic grit to the film you might find in a report by a social worker. Except for Connery the performances are excellent and that may be why, despite its considerable faults, I like it.

FAMILY PLOT demonstrates that H never lost his love for rear screen projection. There's a scene in here where the car in which stars Bruce Dern and Barbara Harris are in nearly goes off a cliff. It is so oviously a studio process shot that the entire sequence makes you resent Hitchcock. Was he just lazy? Did he really think he could fool modern audiences? Did he prefer (like John Ford in Liberty Valance) the look of the sound stage to the look of reality? That's the first thing I think of when somebody mentions Family Plot which is too bad because otherwise, for me, it's a very enjoyable movie. The A story with Dern and Harris is actually a very sweet tale of two para-hippies trying desperately to become con artists. The trouble comes with the B story, with William DeVane and Karen Black (her major career ended way too soon for me). Their acting is fine but the scriptwriters stumble badly in trying to merge this heist storyline with the A story. Still, Dern and Harris are so much fun who gives a damn that threst of the picture is so wobbly?

FROM OUR INTREPID REPORTER MARY COMES MORE (SHE SAYS FINAL) WORD ON THE PUBLIC DOMAIN EDITION OF BLACK WINGS HAS MY ANGEL

LAST COMMENTS (I swear) about my purchased edition of Black Wings Has My Angel. My copy arrived today from amazon.com. It ain't pretty but, as long as all the words are there, I'm not going to complain. I checked out the (bare bones) copyright page and under "First Published 1953, Gold Medal Books," it says: "Nearly reprinted, 1990, Black Lizard." What's THAT all about???? Then there's "Blackmask.com Edition 2005" and the ISBN number and, finally, it says Blackmask Online is a division of Disruptive Publishing, Inc. (interesting name). Of course, I googled THAT and it looks as if Disruptive Publishing is connected to Fictionwise E-books......... Very interesting, I say. I would have thought there would be some mention of the Elliott Chaze estate or something but what do I know?

Ed here: In the mist of memory, I recall Barry Gifford telling me that Black Lizard had made arrangements with Eliott to publish Black Wings. But the company was sold before their edition could appear.POSTED BY ED GORMAN AT 4:03 PM 2 COMMENTS: LINKS TO THIS POST 

Letter That Inspired Jack Kerouac's 'On The Road' Discovered

 NEWSLetter That Inspired Jack Kerouac's 'On The Road' Discovered
from the great Talking Points MemoSHARETWEETPIN-ITBookmarkCommentAP Photo / STANLEY TWARDOWICZByJOHN ROGERSPublishedNOVEMBER 23, 2014, 2:20 PM EST1104 Views LOS ANGELES (AP) — It's been called the letter that launched a literary genre — 16,000 amphetamine-fueled, stream-of-consciousness words written by Neal Cassady to his friend Jack Kerouac in 1950.Upon reading them, Kerouac scrapped an early draft of "On The Road" and, during a three-week writing binge, revised his novel into a style similar to Cassady's, one that would become known as Beat literature.The letter, Kerouac said shortly before his death, would have transformed his counterculture muse Cassady into a towering literary figure, if only it hadn't been lost.Turns out it wasn't, says Joe Maddalena, whose Southern California auction house Profiles in History is putting the letter up for sale Dec. 17. It was just misplaced, for 60-some years.It's being offered as part of a collection that includes papers by E.E. Cummings, Kenneth Rexroth, Robert Penn Warren and other prominent literary figures. But Maddalena believes the item bidders will want most is Cassady's 18-page, single-spaced screed describing a drunken, sexually charged, sometimes comical visit to his hometown of Denver."It's the seminal piece of literature of the Beat Generation, and there are so many rumors and speculation of what happened to it," Maddalena said.Kerouac told The Paris Review in 1968 that poet Allen Ginsberg loaned the letter to a friend who lived on a houseboat in Northern California. Kerouac believed the friend then dropped it overboard."It was my property, a letter to me, so Allen shouldn't have been so careless with it, nor the guy on the houseboat," he said.As for the quality of the letter, Kerouac described it this way: "It was the greatest piece of writing I ever saw, better'n anybody in America, or at least enough to make Melville, Twain, Dreiser, Wolfe, I dunno who, spin in their graves."It turns out Ginsberg apparently was trying to get it published when he mailed the letter to Golden Goose Press in San Francisco. There it remained, unopened, until the small publishing house folded.When it did, its owner planned to throw the letter in the trash, along with every other unopened submission he still had in his files.That was when the operator of a small, independent music label who shared an office with publisher Richard Emerson came to the rescue. He took every manuscript, letter and receipt in the Golden Goose Archives home with him."My father didn't know who Allen Ginsberg was, he didn't know Cassady, he wasn't part of the Beat scene, but he loved poetry," said Los Angeles performance artist Jean Spinosa, who found the letter as she was cleaning out her late father's house two years ago. "He didn't understand how anyone would want to throw someone's words out."Although she knew who Kerouac and Cassady were, Spinosa had never heard of "The Joan Anderson Letter," the name Kerouac gave it for Cassady's description of a woman he'd had a brief romance with."It's invaluable," historian and Kerouac biographer Dennis McNally said. "It inspired Kerouac greatly in the direction he wanted to travel, which was this spontaneous style of writing contained in a letter that had just boiled out of Neal Cassady's brain."It was a style he'd put to use in the novels "On The Road" and "Visions of Cody," which featured Cassady, thinly disguised under the names Dean Moriarty and Cody Pomeroy, as their protagonists. He'd continue to use it in such books as "The Subterraneans," ''The Dharma Bums" and "Lonesome Traveler," cementing his reputation as the father of the Beat Generation.Cassady would gain some small measure of fame as Kerouac's muse and, later, as the sidekick who drove novelist Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters bus across the country.Meanwhile, about a third of "The Joan Anderson Letter," copied by someone before it disappeared, became well-known to students of Kerouac.When Spinosa discovered she had the whole thing, she took it to Maddalena, a prominent dealer in historical documents and pop-culture artifacts, to authenticate it.He's reluctant to estimate what it might sell for. Although the original manuscript of "On The Road" fetched $2.4 million in 2001, everyone knew that existed. It's much harder to estimate the value, he said, of something no one knew was still around.For her part, Spinosa says, she's just happy her father rescued the letter from the trash. She's hoping whoever buys it will give the public a chance to see it."The letter is so good, and you see why these guys loved him," she says of Cassady's fellow Beats. "The writing, it just breathes off the page."Copyright 2014 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.