Shake Him Till He Rattles / It's Cold Out There

by Malcolm Braly, Ed Gorman (Introduction)

SHAKE HIM TILL HE RATTLESNorth Beach, San It is the early 1960's and the beat scene is changing. The Narco Squad are coming down heavy. One particular narc, Lieutenant Carver, really has it in for Lee Cabiness. All Cabiness wants to do is jam on his sax, score some weed and hang with the action. He had a thing going with Jean but that's cooled off, and now she's going with that flashy pimp, Randozza. One night Cabiness's friend Furg introduces him to Clair Hubler, a slumming rich girl who wants to hire them for a private party. She's got an anti-guy vibe but you never know. But all Furg wants to do is score some junk to find out what all the excitement's about. Naturally he thinks of Sullivan, the local junkie playwright. But Sullivan has a problem—Carver is using him to set up his friends. One summer in North Beach, they all collide. That's when things get crazy, real crazy.IT'S COLD OUT THEREJD Bing is out from San Quentin, just trying to get by selling encyclopedias—but he's not very good at it. In fact, he's getting desperate. Kristie has just lost her airline job and is holding herself together so tight she's beginning to lose touch with reality. Grove is a quiet young man who gets by selling clever little cartoons to the papers, trying to work up his nerve to ask out Kristie. When Bing comes around their apartment building in a last ditch attempt to sell, their lives are forever changed. Because Bing has entered a world of backstabbing winos, lonely check-kiting old men, cocktail waitressing divorcees, bullying counterfeiters, impotent ex-generals and crazy street people. It's a California underground--life on the fringes. And as Bing soon finds out, he was safer in prison.

280 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

Abandoned by his parents, Braly lived between foster homes and institutions for delinquent children, and by the time he was forty had spent nearly seventeen years in prison for burglary, serving time at Nevada State Prison, San Quentin, and Folsom State Prison. He wrote three novels behind bars, Felony Tank (1961), Shake Him Till He Rattles (1963), and It’s Cold Out There (1966), and upon his release in 1965 began to work on On the Yard. When prison authorities learned of the book they threatened to revoke his parole, and he was forced to complete it in secret. Published in 1967, after Braly’s parole had expired, On the Yard received wide acclaim. It was followed by his autobiography, False Starts: A Memoir of San Quentin and Other Prisons (1976), and a final work of fiction, The Protector (1979). Malcolm Braly enjoyed fifteen years of freedom before his death in a car accident at age fifty-four.

Reviews

[Andy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Beatnik noir, so far this book reminds me of "Once A Thief" starring Alain Delon and Ann-Margret. Lovin' it so far.

1 week later - This book got stupider and supider as I went along. Check out this suspenseful climax: Our hero races against time to stop his ex-girlfriend from shooting up some strychnine-laced heroin. It's not the heroin, mind you that bothers him, it's the fact that it's laced with strychnine. Well! He still cares! Whoah.

2 weeks later - "It's Cold Out There" is a John Fante-like tale about an ex-con trying to make it in the straight world by selling encyclopedias from door to door. His writing flows more naturally in this context rather than in the beatnik gone suspenser of "Shake Him Till He Rattles".

[John Marr · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is strictly about It's Cold Out There, which is perhaps the best novel about low-end Socal not written by someone named Nathaneal. Freshly minted San Quentin alumni JD Bing is trying to make a go of it selling encyclopedias door-to-door when he gets enmeshed in the social web of a low-end bungalow court. While hardcore cynics may take offense at the (blessedly concise) happy ending, no one should have any complaints at Braly's great--but not gratuitous--take on the underside of the LaLaLand dream.

[Eric · Rating 4 out of 5]

Got this based on a recommendation for Shake Him Till He Rattles about the beatniks and junkies of the San Francisco underbelly, but was blown away by the other story in the collection, It's Cold Out There. Wow great little read.

[Jeff · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stark House continues to republish Gold Medal paperbacks in two-in-one volumes. With Malcolm Braly's Shake Him Till He Rattles and It's Cold Out There they've picked two of the best titles from the mid-1960s.

Shake Him Till He Rattles (1963) is a quintessentially beat novel which owes a lot to a previous Gold Medal PBO, North Beach Girl (1960) by John Trinian (Zekial Marko). It uses as a backdrop the coffee house and jazz club scene of North Beach and includes a lot of the same themes, particularly lesbian relationships. But Shake Him turns out to be a whole lot more than just an etching of the whole milieu, it questions the whole beat existence and suggests that it might be as much as a dead-end treadmill as its counterpoint "square" existence.

It's Cold Out There (1966) follows the first few months of character J.D. Bing's freedom following a long incarceration. He begins to realize that in the free world a lot of people live in prisons of their own making.

If you are a fan of Gold Medal PBOs from the 50s and 60s, this volume is a must. You might also want to check out some of the other volumes available from Stark House Press.

[Ben · Rating 5 out of 5]

This guy was an amazing writers, both of these books are among the best written 1960s paperback originals I've read. He's up there with Willeford and Charles Williams. And if you're skittish due to an overdose of Jim Thompson, a lot of this is dark but it's not all gargling with drano, i.e. there's even a little happiness in both books.

I'm really looking forward to On the Yard and his prison memoir. Too bad he died young but it's nice that he got 15 years of freedom at the end.

[Daniel · Rating 5 out of 5]

San Francisco crime be-bop noir. written in San Q. the North Beach underground you've probably never heard about but should. drug busts, dirty cops, aloof dames, sleazy dudes, run-down jazz clubs, yeah. killer stuff!!