Home Is the Sailor

by Day Keene

No man could resist her. — But could any man ever have her? — After years at sea, Swede Nelson just wanted to find a nice girl and settle down. What he found was Corliss Mason: sensual irresistible - and deadly. Soon Swede's helping Corliss cover up a killing, but how long can they get away with murder? And why - even when he's in her arms - can't he shake that feeling that he's being set up?

A writer for radio, television, movies, pulp magazines and paperbacks, DAY KEENE created some of the most memorable noir nightmares ever penned. HOME IS THE SALIOR is his greatest book, a tale of passion and obession that makes James M. Cain and Jim Thompson look tame -- now available of the first time in decades!

Genres: Crime, Noir, Mystery, Fiction, Pulp, Thriller, Hard Boiled

204 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1952

About the author

Day Keene, whose real name was Gunnar Hjerstedt, was one of the leading paperback mystery writers of the 1950s. Along with writing over 50 novels, he also wrote for radio, television, movies, and pulp magazines. Often his stories were set in South Florida or swamp towns in Louisiana, and included a man wrongly accused and on the run, determined to clear his name.

Reviews

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

After a career at sea, Swede Nelson comes ashore with the thought of buying a farm in Minnesota and finding a nice girl to marry. It's a shame he runs into the widow Corliss Mason, the owner of the Purple Parrot, and her web of sex, lies, and murder...

Home is the Sailor, much like fellow Hard Case entry The Vengeful Virgin, is straight out of the James M. Cain playbook. You know the plot: a guy falls for a hot young woman and commits murder for her, then starts cracking under the pressure once he realizes she's bad news.

When Corliss comes to Swede the night before their wedding saying she's been raped, who wouldn't do what Swede did? Swede's drunken binges are believable, all things considered. The big reveal near the end was a little obvious but getting there was still one hell of a ride. When the cops start nosing around and Swede begins figuring out what Corliss is really up to, tension mounts and the story kicks into high gear.

So why didn't I give it a five? I found it a little unbelievable that Swede fell so hard for Corliss so fast. As I said before, the big reveal is telegraphed slightly.

If you're a Hard Case fan, this is one of the must-haves.

[Dave · Rating 5 out of 5]

Home Is The Sailor is a 1952 book that has more recently been republished by Hard Case Crime. From page one, it is an emotionally powerful book that moves along with breakneck speed. Not all the scenes take place at night, but it sure feels as if the sky was dark and brooding on every page of this book.

Swen Nelson, the "Swede," has been working the merchant marine for three years and saving every penny. He has a $12,000 stake and, when his ship docks at San Pedro, he is tired of hearing every tramp in every port in the world asking, hey sailor, are you lonely. Swede is going to take his stake and return to Hibbing, Minnesota, where he once upon a time lived, but hasn't any family there anymore. He is going to get married and buy a farm and settle down. Of course, this being a 1950's noir crime novel, the reader knows Swede will never make it to Minnesota and never settle down, but it's a nice idea while it lasted. Swede buys his bus ticket and has a few drinks in a bar before getting involved in a craps game. He's accused of cheating and, when someone swings at him, he has to defend himself as he has done in ports all over the world and, a few punches later, a man is nearly dead at his hands.

Swede wakes up in motor court motel somewhere on the California coast and isn't real sure how he got there, but there's the most beautiful little blonde he has ever seen in the room with him. A few more drinks and he wakes up with his stake gone and the blonde nowhere to be found. He's been taken by this hussy and he is going to find her and get his stake back. Although Swede is warned to shove off for his own good, he finds out that the blonde, Corliss, owns the motor court motel, and that she took him out of the bar for his own protection because it sure looked like someone was going to take this sailor out on leave for his roll. His stake is safely in the motel safe. And, he shouldn't have been pawing Corliss either, cause she wasn't just a street tramp, but someone who did him a favor and looked out for him. Thus, begins an incredibly passionate love affair as Corliss does Swede one favor after another and they fall for each other. There are a lot of scenes that are fairly risqué for the times.

Without giving away the story, one can merely say that it's as powerful as anything written in the pulp era and there's no soft slow lead-in. The story starts with Swede recovering from his bender and getting thrown in jail and there is no pause in the action. Highly recommended for anyone who enjoys reading Gil Brewer, Charles Willeford, and the ilk.

[Greg · Rating 3 out of 5]

First off, I hate the title of the book. It makes no sense to me except in a grammatically tortuous way. Where is the sailor? Home is the Sailor. You mean the sailor is home? Yeah that's what I said, home is the sailor. Those who live in glass houses and are allergic to editing their reviews shouldn't throw stones though.

There wasn't anything about this novel that really stood out for me, and I have a feeling I'll forget almost everything about it in a month or so, but for a quick read it has enough entertainment value to it that it was fairly good.

My big complaint is that by page 70 any half attentive reader is told what the big twist will be, and I'm not sure why the author decided to wave a big flag around to say what the twist would be in this way. A newspaper article is given an inordinate amount of description that basically tells you what the resolution of the novel is. The more I think about this I think that if the twist hadn't been given away in some manner like this I would have felt the author was cheating at the end of the novel. There should have been a better way for the reader to be given some of this information without being so obvious where the novel was going to go with it.

I think maybe I need to give this whole genre a bit of a rest if I'm going to insist on trying to write reviews for them. Unfortunately, there are three more Hard Case novels waiting for me at the library today so I'll be forcing myself to write some more of these reviews where I say nothing much.

[Toby · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another gem from the files of Hard Case Crime.

Read on the plane from London to Doha.

The penultimate read from my trip around Europe, saved specifically for this flight, and my gosh was it worth it.

Swede Nelson is not only a great classic noir character, tough and hard-boiled with a major weakness - in this case booze - but his name is so completely perfect for noir too. Fresh from three years at sea, he has a large bankroll and a dream of a farm in rural USA. What he gets is Corliss Mason, the most beautiful woman he's ever seen, and led around by the nose as the booze talks him in to more and more trouble.

I was very impressed with the writing of Keene, I was under the misaprehension that this was one of the Hard Case Exclusives as I had never heard of the author before but it turns out that he is of the classic school of hard-boiled pulp writers, loved by French cineastes. The plot and tone was very reminiscent of that golden period of film noir that ended in 1958 and more specifically the noir work of James M. Cain. You find yourself cursing the protagonist for his stupidity but still hoping he can make it out of each new fix.

Definitely one of the better Hard Case Crime books I've read so far and for fans of the genre well worth tracking down.

[Josh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Home is the Sailor is a booze fueled romp in the sack, packed full of whisky dreams and murderous nightmares.

First published in 1952 and later reprinted by the fine folk at Hard Case Crime, Day Keene's easy come, easy go, tale of marriage and murder is a fine story told through the watery eyes of perennial drunk Swede Nelson, a sailor who hopes to put the sea life behind him in favor of dry land.

The centerpiece of the story is a hotel owner and widow who instantly falls for Swede. For the drunken sailor turned land dweller, this whirlwind romance seems too good to be true...and it is. In quick succession Swede is wrapped in a web of desire and is murdering for his love. Little did he know this would be the tip of a very sharp edge iceberg.

Despite some cringe worthy dialogue and completely unbelievable scenes, Home is the Sailor is a lot fun. This book isn't a noir classic or high end literature; it's popcorn pulp which is sure to provide some lighthearted entertainment.

Side note: I love the cover art by Richard B. Farrell and Gregory Manchess, it captures one of the more memorable moments in the book perfectly.

[Kurt Reichenbaugh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fall guy drinks a ton of rum.

[Andy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nutty book about a discharged sailor who swills enough go-go juice to stun an army of elephants. The swabby falls hard for a trailer court tramp he thinks is the Venus De Milo with arms but she flirts and flops with any granite head thug that’ll beat Popeye silly for his dough. We refuse to put the book down because we can’t wait to see what beating he’ll take next and Day Keene doesn’t disappoint. The beatings and boozy blackouts keep coming. What a brilliant piece of trash. I couldn’t put the motherfucker down.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the best of the Hard Case series that I've read so far (and I've read some bad ones as well). On one hand, there's nothing new here (other than the sailor hero's ability, once ashore, to put down an ocean of booze). Drunk he may be, but the Swede continues to notice the little things, like his girlfriend's casual squishing of a bug on the car window, or the details of a murder in the newspaper. It all adds up to Set-up in the end. But it's Day Keene's attention to the little things that jumps this one up from the pack. Character, atmosphere, and when need be, two-fisted, jaw-breaking action. Keene covers all of these like a pro. My only complaint was seeing everything getting wrapped up so neatly in the end. But my guess is that most crime writers at that time were doing just that. Still, I want to read some more books by this guy.

[Lauren · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a pure shot of distilled noir, bleak and classic. It might not have Chandler's prose or Cain's super-heated strangeness, but it satisfies completely: you have a big lug who's neither as smart nor as good as he thinks, a woman as irresistible as she is amoral, a murder that's not taking place for the reasons the killer thinks, and a sure slide towards doom and disillusionment.

Swede Nelson has been a sailor and a general adventurer for years. He has hands like meat hooks, an inability to stay sober when he's on shore, and wistful dreams of going back home to Minnesota, buying a farm, and settling down with a nice lady. As Home is the Sailor opens, Swede is finally--supposedly--going to make that move. He's cashed out all his back-pay and bought a bus ticket home. But for all Swede's supposed good intentions for a peaceful life, he's still in the harbor: gambling, drinking, and fighting.

He wakes up from a hell of a bender to find out, in short order, that he's being arrested for attempted manslaughter (someone he punched in the night's fight just might die) and that he was stashed in a cozy motel cottage by Corliss Mason, the motor court's gorgeous--and single--proprietor. Apparently, Corliss found Swede drunk and careless in a bar and brought him to her motel and put his cash in the safe for him so he wouldn't lose it: what a swell gal, right? Now Swede feels like a real heel for trying to rape her when he woke up the next morning, and he feels even worse once she comes with his money--and his freshly ironed clothes--to bail him out. Luckily, she fell for him at first sight in the bar, because nothing is more appealing than a violent guy drunk off his ass; she was then totally not dissuaded from this first impression by the fact that she then had to hit Swede with a bottle to keep him away from her. Even Swede, not the sharpest pencil in the box and continuously drunk for basically the entire length of the novel, thinks that this is maybe a little strange, but hey, why look a gift dame in the mouth?

It won't surprise the reader that Corliss has already thought of a use for Swede's easy use of his fists. It also won't surprise anyone that the news story Swede keeps periodically checking up on, involving a a woman, her male accomplice, and a ton of missing money, just might have something to do with the plot. Keene handles this thread of supposed mystery way too clumsily for it to actually mislead anyone, yet doesn't treat it with enough gravitas for it to feel like yet another portent of tragedy. And after a while, Swede has even made part of the connection but somehow keeps failing to complete the circuit, which makes him seem dumb even for a guy who hasn't had a sober, non-hungover minute since he hit the shore.

So the novel loses one star for that and another, unfortunately, for the fact that Swede is all too frequently a dully unpleasant person (as opposed to an interestingly unpleasant person, which would have been fine) to spend time with. His hang-ups about women are pretty typical of a noir protagonist, and his tendency to slap Corliss whenever she shows any flicker of "hysteria" (even right after she's supposedly been raped) isn't that unexpected either, but it becomes annoying because Keene keeps having other character spontaneously assure Swede that he's a good guy, really.

But if you can deal with the clumsiness of both the "mystery" and Keene's desire to have it both ways--the dark allure of a disreputable protagonist with the heartwrenching tragedy of a good man falling from his chance at grace--then this is a good hit of the quintessence of noir.

[Steven · Rating 5 out of 5]

If this isn't a noir masterpiece I don't know what is. I've reread Cain, Chandler, Hammett, and get over them people, they were not the only ones to write great noir. Just because they are taught in schools and Keene isn't is no reason to anoint them and not him.

The bee continued to buzz, like the drone of a dentist's drill. Corliss reached out a finger and squashed it. Against the glass. Slowly. The small plop of its body filled the car with sound.

"Anyway you're through going to the sea, Swede," she said. She wiped her finger on the leather upholstery. Her voice was deep in her throat, and husky. "Well? I thought you wanted me?"

"I do."

"Then why are we sitting here?"

I turned the car in a sharp U turn and pointed it south, driving along the sea with the wind blowing sand over the highway, through patches of fog at fifty, eighty, ninety mile an hour. I wove in and out, the tires screaming on the curves. Foolish. Lucky. Both of us laughing like mad.

[Tim Schneider · Rating 3 out of 5]

Swede Nelson has been 18 years at sea. For the last 3 years he's been saving his money so he can buy a farm in Minnesota, get married and raise kids. His first night ashore, with a bus ticket to Minnesota in his pocket he gets blotto while in a craps game at a roadside tavern. After a major brawl, his savior is a beautiful young lady named Corliss Mason, owner of a successful motor court who seems to have fallen for Swede's charms. Of course those of us who have read our fair share of Fawcett Gold Medal paperback originals know that Swede is in deep trouble. And not just from a drinking problem that exacerbates all his issues.

This is the first book by Day Keene that I've read. Keene was a head writer for a number of serial radio programs before he started writing paperback originals. Overall the writing is fine. It's not of the quality of Jim Thompson or Gil Brewer, but it's at least average for the era. This book was among Keene's earlier efforts and owes a LOT to James M. Cain's classics. The book was trucking along at a decent clip with nothing surprising happening, but perfectly fine, until about 1/3 of the way in Keene introduced Chekov's gangster and moll in a newspaper article and I knew exactly what was going to happen from that point out. I will say that the ending was a tiny bit different than usual...so good for him.

This is a perfectly adequate old-time paperback original. There's little here to make you go wow, but you're not going to feel bad about the short time commitment. It just isn't anything special.

[Lawrence · Rating 4 out of 5]

What is a guy to do when he is on the high seas, decides to get out of the merchant marine life, settle down, and live the life? In a phrase, poor life choices. Swede Nelson has a wad of cash, is smitten with the doll, Corliss and she pulls him into a web of murder.

From Hard Case Crime, this was a book that draws you in and does not let go. Is it a love affair, or a lust affair? Is she sincere or just another temptress that needs someone to blame for her transgression? Lots of action in this novel. Recommended.

[WJEP · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is worth reading just to experience Swede, the biggest chump in all noir crime novels.

[Freddie the Know-it-all · Rating 5 out of 5]

Keep Calm and Chump-out

I love chump stories for the same reason I love henpecked husband stories.

[Maddy · Rating 4 out of 5]

PROTAGONIST: Swen "Swede" Nelson, ex-sailor
RATING: 3.5
WHY: Swen "Swede" Nelson has retired from a life at sea. All he wants to do is go back to his small town, buy a farm, get married and have a family. He stops at a bar on his way home and begins an epic bout of drinking and trouble. A woman named Corliss Mason "rescues" him and takes him to the motor court that she owns. Within a few days, he's murdered a man and gotten married to Corliss, drinking almost non-stop. There's some kind of set-up going on that Swede can't figure out. Classic hardboiled, almost noir, first published in 1952.

[Johnny · Rating 4 out of 5]

Home is the Sailor sounds very strange as a book title until you realize that it uses the rhetorical device of anastrophe (reversing the word order for emphasis). So, it essentially means, “The sailor is HOME!” That reversal of words is supposed to help us understand that this book is about a sailor in the merchant marine returning from years of service and his desire to find the ideal home. He starts out heading for his boyhood home in the Midwest, but ends up sublimating that goal (to some degree) in favor of an idealized wife.

That quick set-up doesn’t sound like a typical noir story of the type Hard Case Crime publishes. Nor does it sound like the kind of set-up one would have expected in one of the noir thrillers published in Gold Key editions during the early ‘50s (as this novel was originally published). Of course, the cover already gives away that “She Took A Man And Made Him A Murderer,” so we’re pretty surprised when the woman who picks up this drunken sailor in a bar treats him so kindly. And then, as per the formula, things start to go terribly wrong.
Sometimes, as a reader, we feel great empathy for the protagonist. The character is usually a pretty decent fellow who just ends up getting twisted into bad situations, lined up with bad allies, or was so desperate she or he needed to do something outrageously risky or clearly wrong in an attempt to get out of it. Naturally, these things rarely turn out well.

The drunken sailor protagonist in Home is the Sailor has a tough sounding name, Swen “Swede” Nelson, and he seems to be tough enough to go with the name. He does plenty of damage with his bare fists. In fact, he does enough to get himself in big trouble. Yet, one gets the sense that he brings much of the trouble onto himself. Swede has a severe drinking problem and these bad things keep happening to him after he has consumed (in the “immortal” words of “The Coneheads” on Saturday Night Live) mass quantities of alcohol. The first-person narration tells us that he knows better, but he just keeps trying to numb his sense that something is wrong.
What could be wrong with a marriage to a dream woman? Why does he feel like something is off with Corliss when everything seems right? Why does he need to keep drinking when Corliss is so wonderful? What is this ambiguous warning that another woman, Mamie, keeps giving him? Will he ever get his farm and his dream? Is he right to avoid being skipper of his vessels (even though he is certified), just because he doesn’t want the responsibility? Will he lose his big pay-off? Is he guilty of murder or even two murders? And how do these interesting headlines spread throughout the book foreshadow the key to the problem?

To be honest, Charles Ardai just keeps finding jewels within the lapsed rights of old pulp publishers. I could never have gotten away with reading some of these paperbacks when they were on sale because the racy covers often offered much more than was really inside (although this one has its moments) and my folks would have confiscated them (probably right to do so since I was barely walking when Home is the Sailor was first published, but the publisher still had this line of pulp novels going when I was pre-teen and way too interested in those racy covers). [BTW, Max Allan Collins who has written several novels for Hard Case Crime has a beautiful art book called The History of Mystery which has beautiful color plates of some of those lurid covers of which I speak.] Home is the Sailor was good enough to put Day Keene, its author, on my watch list (even though, alas, he must have predeceased my discovery since the rights appear to have belonged to his wife or daughter, Irene, when Ardai purchased them).

[Michael Mallory · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Home Is the Sailor" (and for the benefit of those below who don't understand the title, it's taken from a line in a famous poem by Robert Louis Stevenson)is a virtual template for a hard-boiled crime novel. Today one might accuse it of being cliched, but it was written more than sixty years ago, when today's cliches were just getting started. The protagonist of the book is one Swen "Swede" Nelson, a career sailor who wants to retire from the sea and settle down. Unfortunately, the girl he chooses is a classic noir femme fatale named Corliss (though how she got so hardened so young is anyone's guess). Big, tough, usually drunk, often angry, and possessing murderous fists, Swede also has his own wing in the Chump Hall of Fame, and soon finds himself in a tumultuous marriage with Corliss that quickly leads to a murder rap. Author Day Keene keeps things moving at breakneck pace (which is good, because if you had time to stop and think about some of the goings-on the plot would start to fall apart) and keeps the suspense cranked up throughout Swede's land-based detour through hell. While there's too much California sunshine for it to be a classic noir, it's good enough to satisfy fans of the genre.

[Gregory · Rating 3 out of 5]

Swede Nelson is a tough guy. He's a recently retired Merchant Marine looking to take his service savings back to Hibbing, Minnesota to start a farm and find a bride. The problem for Swede is that after disembarking, he lands in a seedy California tourist court with lots of shady people looking to make use of his passion and to twist his dreams. Frankly, Swede is a monosyllabic guy who drinks too much and hits too hard when gets in to all too frequent fights. Is he a likable central character? Questionable. I would go as far as say that I sort of felt sorry for the guy as most of the people he deals with are a couple of steps nastier than he is but that isn't always obvious at first. Swede ain't an angel but at his core, he wants to do right. I won't sugarcoat this book because it isn't what many people would like to read but if what I've said so far makes you curious then I'd say seek out a copy.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this book. It's true noir. The story of Swede Nelson who has saved several thousand dollars in cash and decides to give up the sea where he has spent the last 20 years. His plan is to head back home to Minnesota, buy a little farm, find a wife, and raise a family, but fate has other things in store as he meets femme fatale Corliss Mason.
As with all Noir stories, the femme fatale is the most beautiful, sexiest woman that our protagonist has ever met with the greatest sex. He will follow her anywhere and do anything for her even to the point of killing someone for her.

[Mark Goddard · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was reading about Day Keene and the critic said he wrote a lot of crap. I guess a lot of those writers from the pulp era did, ya gotta pay the rent. Home Is The Sailor is not crap, in fact it is one of the better hard case crime novels I have read. This book makes me want to investigate more of Keene's stuff.

[Sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found the main character in this to be so stupid and unlikeable that I didn't care what happened to him.

[The Professor · Rating 3 out of 5]

“Out of all the guys in the world who needed killing, I had to pick one who was wanted by the F.B.I.” Fun nudging towards silly. An undercover international murderess – stay with me – spies a rum-swilling knuckle-dragging jolly jack tar coming a nautical mile off and sends him to hell for lolz. It’s his own fault though. This yahoo vows love after 24 hours, gets hitched, gets his end away (it’s dynamite sex, natch) and then hot foots it to Hades. It’s an old, old story and I loved every minute of it.

“Home” is not without its problems. Swede Nelson is such a drunken asshole and Corliss such a well-set up widow that the reader quickly assumes her intentions are not entirely benign. One starts wondering whether the twist will be Swede and Corliss do actually go off and run a farm somewhere but of course in a novel with this sort of cover that’s never going to happen. In Mamie we have the usual genre good girl representing everything Swede isn’t going to get and there’s an FBI agent who talks a lot about deduction and provides an end of game wrap-up a la Hercule Poirot or that shrink at the end of “Psycho”. The unlikely coincidence at the heart of the novel is barmy (no one will ever believe Nelson’s shore leave story) but Keene at least seeds it early and repeatedly demonstrates he’s good on paying off set-ups. The sailor motif extends further than the title and Swede’s own surname with everyone calling him “mate” and lots of nautical similes peppering the prose to the extent it’s a wonder there isn’t a character called “Blowhorn”. As for any literary intent, Keene doesn’t appear to be working out any personal issues with women (Corliss’ motives remain interestingly ambiguous throughout) but any other message he might be trying to deliver boils down to the genre standard “don’t go on a four day bender”.

However, I do like reading about people – mainly men – behaving really badly and getting their just desserts and “Home” certainly delivers on that front. Noir crime fiction tickles the id with lots of drink and sex and flatters the ego with Lady Fate passing her terrible and inevitable sentence and in Swede Nelson we have fortune’s fool par excellence. This berk necks rum, picks fights, gets thrown in the clink and – something that only ever happens in fiction – has a beautiful woman come to bail him out and still the chump wonders how he’s got himself into all this mess. Chapters jump cut between Nelson have fraught conversations with Corliss in a bar to him waking up in jail and, mental resources badly strained, having to puzzle out what the sodding hell he did the night before. That’s far from original for the genre (notice how often Chandler’s Marlowe gets knocked unconsciousness) or for men in general but fast forward to 2004 and literary types using the same trick but with a female narrator are suddenly hailed as great artists and in 2016 it of course gets mashed up with the monster movie genre. But noir got there first. Here, Swede is the sort of brain-pickled man-child played (brilliantly) by Joachim Phoenix in “The Master”; he’d be a nightmare to be around but he is box office. I thoroughly enjoyed following his short-lived foray onto dry land and closed the novel imagining him paddling hard in a dinghy away from the shore to his ship hotly maintaining all land-lubbers are barking mad. “Well, wadda ya know?”

[Trevor Williamson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Day Keene's Home Is the Sailor, first published in 1951, is as condensed a take on pulpy noir as anyone's likely to find. It combines just about everything the genre uses as its standard: a ham-fisted, tough-jawed protagonist runs across a hot dame who isn't anything like she portrays herself to be, and winds up having to slug his way through trouble as the persistently wronged underdog.

Keene's prose is pretty snappy, if overly reliant on sentence fragments for rhythm, and his dialogue is a little bland, but his euphemisms are pretty strong, and his plot is pretty tightly packed. There's just no wasted space in a novel like this; it's meant to be consumed in a handful of hours and discarded just as easily, but that doesn't mean it's at all a real waste of time.

What keeps this one back from true greatness is that it just doesn't feel as transgressive or as subversive as other novels in the HCC lineup. Keene's noir-style chops are pretty solid, but that's all he really offers here. There's no real chewy sexual politics or philosophical nuance to his ham-fisted rowdiness, and as a result I think the overt sexism of the novel doesn't age well; I found myself hating the protagonist of the story more and more as the book continued, and I'm not entirely certain that was really Keene's point. In a tale that does intend to blur the lines between what is good and what is bad--ostensibly what "noir" fiction often aims to accomplish--I think it's a little regrettable that Swede makes out in the end like a hero as opposed to the highly problematic figure he really is.

But that, in a line, is what a lot of these 1950s potboilers really are: a snapshot of the many ideological problems behind cultural reproduction of masculinity in a post-WWII world. This is a fascinating text not for its subversiveness, but for the way it seems to reiterate a trend in more conventional or even conservative imaginations of masculinity and femininity after a period of tremendous horror.

For what it's worth, I think the book's pretty damn good, even if I resolutely think it's not something everyone will enjoy. I think it's very much a product of its times, and reflecting on what those times were and what this book says about popular media consumption at that time may well be a worthy endeavor.

[Williwaw · Rating 3 out of 5]

The yellow ribbon with the red crown over the black pistol "represents your assurance of quality." So it says on the back cover, concerning the catchy logo for the Hard Case Crime books. I discovered these books too late to acquire them as they first came out, and after stewing on this for a while, I bought a big pile of them through ebay. They are quite appealing because they are decorated with pulp-style covers (actual hand-painted scenes, unlike the shitty photo-shop jobs that you'll see on most contemporary paperbacks). And the writers in the line-up are quite impressive: Gil Brewer, Cornell Woolrich, David Goodis, Lawrence Block, Max A. Collins, and Charles Williams, to name just a few.

I developed my new enthusiasm for crime noir fiction only a few years ago, so I've got lots of catching up to do. So these books hit the spot!

Home is the Sailor is only the third or fourth title I've read from the Hard Case library. It's essentially a potboiler about a burly, hard-drinking seaman (Swen Nelson, or "Swede") who has saved up a pile of money. He plans to quit the sea, move back to Minnesota, buy a farm, and settle down. But he gets into a brawl while gambling somewhere near San Diego, and ends up being saved by a lovely gal (Corliss Mason) whose identity is murky and who seems a little too eager to tie the knot after a whirlwind romance. She's posing as a widow who inherited enough money to buy a motel & bar off Highway 101 in California. Much of the action takes place at the "Purple Parrot," with its several seedy characters, including the bartender, the groundskeeper, and restaurant staff.

I correctly guessed Corliss Mason's identity as soon as the first clue was provided. So the book is a bit too transparent. The plot is somewhat preposterous and overly convoluted, but that's fairly typical of crime noir. It's what I signed up for, so I won't complain.

All things considered, this is a fast-paced crime novel that's relatively short, entertaining and easy to read.

[Jake · Rating 4 out of 5]

Christa Faust is one of my favorite writers and I came to her work via Hard Case Crime. In an interview with her, I read that she got started on crime fiction by reading Day Keene. I wasn’t too familiar with Keene but I knew I had his Home Is The Sailor book in my HCC collection. It was low on my priority list but it shot up after the interview and now, I figured it was time to get to it.

It’s your typical pulp fare in the style of James Cain: boy meets girl under auspicious circumstances, money is involved, nothing is what it seems, sex, alcohol, violence, etc. It’s a genre I like but don’t love. I’m more of a mystery fan in the crime genre and pulpish noir has usually been adjacent to this but most HCC books are noirs and most are pretty good.

This one is no exception. Keene is a solid writer. Even though I could anticipate twists and turns, he builds the suspense well. It’s eminently readable and yet it holds the reader too. In other words, the tricks it relies on to keep the plot moving do not feel cheap. I don’t know if this was Keene’s first book or not (I don’t even know if that’s his real name) but I do know that he has his style down pat. The dialogue works, so do the scenes and characters, right up to the noir end.

The book won’t send me out scrambling for more Day Keenes but I won’t say no to one if I cross its path. All in all, this is another winner for Hard Case Crime.

[Viktor · Rating 4 out of 5]

A sailor comes home, buys a bus ticket back to his hometown of Hibbing, MN. Then he stops off at a bar.... Yep, hi-jinks ensue. It ends exactly as it has to, and it's very satisfying.

I live in SoCal, and some of the descriptions of the road trips are head-scratchers. But never mind. Ride along. After all, Raymond Chandler call Santa Monica "Bay City".

The title is from a Robert Louis Stevenson poem:

15. Requiem

UNDER the wide and starry sky
Dig the grave and let me lie:
Glad did I live and gladly die,
And I laid me down with a will.

This be the verse you 'grave for me: 5
Here he lies where he long'd to be;
Home is the sailor, home from the sea,
And the hunter home from the hill.

[Thom Brannan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is pure trash, and I could not put it down, lol. The reveal came late, not because it was too clearly telegraphed, but because it's been aped so many times since. For me, I was trained by Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang which is modeled off just this type of story, so of course when the piece of side information came up, I knew it wasn't only going to be important, it was going to be Important, with a capital I.

Still, it was about as much as I expected and thoroughly engrossing. Being a former sailor myself, I knew a bunch of guys who drank just like that, but probably for different reasons. They way they threw themselves at strippers and Mustangs, though, the main character's infatuation with the lady isn't unbelievable.

MORE HARD CASE, please! =]

[Donald · Rating 3 out of 5]

“Roaring drunk, filthy, elemental?”

Yes, to all three. And to those, add deadly.
Swede Nelson, after years at sea, runs into Corliss Mason. Hard.

“God almighty. What if I had to kill a man every time I wanted to really arouse her?”

This is a decent story, but it has that ol' plotline that I just never understand - man meets woman, falls madly in love, wants to marry her the next day, and then kills for her. Like literally, in 24 hours, all of that! Then he's shocked when she isn't all that she seemed - the night before! Come on man!
Still, I was entertained.

[Izzy Corbo · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a lot better then I thought it would be. Quick, engaging story of a man set up as a fall guy in the murder of his wife. Definitely, chauvinistic story and the ending is bit over the top, but a great yarn and enjoyable read.

[Eric Sharp]

Good book. Classic noir tradition.