Purloining Tiny

by John Franklin Bardin

Very good in a good dust jacket. (rem mark, tear on rear cover of dj with associated creasing.) Hardcover first edition - New Harper & Row,, 1978.. Hardcover first edition -. Very good in a good dust jacket. (rem mark, tear on rear cover of dj with associated creasing.). First printing. Stanley Ellin called this book "one of the strangest mystery tales I have ever read. Apparently set in mundane New York City, its actual geography lies in the perverse and shadowy sexual wish-fulfillments of its astonishing characters."

185 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1978

About the author

John Franklin Bardin was born in Cincinnati, Ohio on November 30, 1916. During his teens, he lost nearly all his immediate family to various ailments. As he approached thirty, he moved to New York City where during his adulthood he was an executive of an advertising agency, published ten novels and taught creative writing as well as advertising at the NEW SCHOOL FOR SOCIAL RESEARCH.

In 1946, Bardin entered a period of intense creativity during which he wrote three crime novels that were relatively unsuccessful at first, one of them not even being published in America until the late 1960s, but which have since become well-regarded cult novels. His best-regarded works, The Deadly Percheron, The Last of Philip Banter and Devil Take the Blue-Tail Fly experienced renewed interest in the 1970s when they were discovered by British readers.

Also involved in public relations and journalism, Mr. Bardin resided thereafter in New York City until his death.

Reviews

[Egghead · Rating 2 out of 5]

tries for seventies
bleak grit but winds up somewhere
much less fulfilling

[Printable Tire · Rating 1 out of 5]

I read this because the library didn't have this author's more famous novel, the Deadly Percheron, and I wanted to test him out. There are some hints of interesting weirdness (the reader is supposed to believe a show in which a guy dressed like the devil puts his step daughter in Iron Maidens and other escape traps is popular enough to be on 70's television) and the writing is clean, sometimes funny, but ultimately I'd say about 75% of it is characters recapping to each other facts and things that happened in the story before and that my friend is GARBAGE. Near 120 pages in it feels like the author was contractually obligated to write to a certain page length and so wrote plodding crap right up to that page number and then abruptly ended the book. In other words, the book is pointless and has no ending. There were enough glimpses of weirdness that I might try his more popular books out some day but this one is not worth your time.

"You can never leave someone about whom your feelings are ambivalent."

[John Marr · Rating 2 out of 5]

A disappointing final novel from a writer who started his career with three solid shots in a row. I bet Bardin thought he was writing the "Candy" of the mystery genre with this tale of a virginal sexpot kidnapped by her missing-a-few bricks father, but with pervy results. I bet he popped one every time he sat down in front of the typewriter.

[Rupert · Rating 2 out of 5]

I braced myself for this one. I knew it wouldn’t be as good as the 3 novels in the Bardin Omnibus, but it’s truly a hot mess. At the beginning you could feel some of the weird Bardin magic, reminded me a little of Devil Take the Blue-Tailed Fly, but then things get gelatinous. Almost gave up on it when it treaded into 1970s era Penthouse readers letters, but toughed it out for better or worse.

[M · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not his best; but perhaps the most unique, and uncanny reading experience I have had in my life. Tiny lives!

[Ann · Rating 1 out of 5]

Awful. Just… awful. Bad writing, ridiculous plot. Just soft porn, really, with a thin string of floss half-heartedly trying to hold a ridiculous story together.

[M.R. Dowsing · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was quite intriguing at the beginning but rapidly became too far-fetched for me, with unconvincing characters and situations. I abandoned it after about 70 pages. Best to stick to JFB's '40s trilogy I reckon.