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Desire in the Dust
"She was a blonde tigress cub and when she walked by, every man in the county watched how she moved beneath her sleazy cotton dress and turned their eyes away with something like a wrench."
144 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1956
17 people want to read
About the author
Harry Whittington
179 books42 followersHe also wrote under the names Ashley Carter, Harriet Kathryn Myers, and Blaine Stevens, Curt Colman, John Dexter, Tabor Evans, Whit Harrison, Kel Holland, Suzanne Stephens, Clay Stuart, Hondo Wells, Harry White, Hallam Whitney, Henri Whittier, J.X. Williams.
Harry Whittington (February 4, 1915–June 11, 1989) was an American mystery novelist and one of the original founders of the paperback novel. Born in Ocala, Florida, he worked in government jobs before becoming a writer.
His reputation as a prolific writer of pulp fiction novels is supported by his writing of 85 novels in a span of twelve years (as many as seven in a single month) mostly in the crime, suspense, and noir fiction genres. In total, he published over 200 novels. Seven of his writings were produced for the screen, including the television series Lawman. His reputation for being known as 'The King of the Pulps' is shared with author H. Bedford-Jones. Only a handful of Whittington's novels are in print today.
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Harry Whittington (February 4, 1915–June 11, 1989) was an American mystery novelist and one of the original founders of the paperback novel. Born in Ocala, Florida, he worked in government jobs before becoming a writer.
His reputation as a prolific writer of pulp fiction novels is supported by his writing of 85 novels in a span of twelve years (as many as seven in a single month) mostly in the crime, suspense, and noir fiction genres. In total, he published over 200 novels. Seven of his writings were produced for the screen, including the television series Lawman. His reputation for being known as 'The King of the Pulps' is shared with author H. Bedford-Jones. Only a handful of Whittington's novels are in print today.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
April 7, 2022
The characters are all stock and by the time they are introduced in the first few chapters you will already know what is going to happen. I read on in the hope of being surprised in the way that so many of these Gold Medal books do with plot twists and off-the-rails character behavior. Unfortunately, that did not happen in this one. Everything I thought would happen did, including the big reveal that was guessed at back on about page 10. In the meantime I had to endure long stretches of expository dialog. The characters are well-drawn and the plot nicely ordered, but this is all so familiar and predictable. First published in 1956, so maybe it gets a pass because reading it now, after several generations of TV and movies have followed this formula, I shouldn't be surprised that it seems familiar. However, this one is completely formulaic in a way that is unlike most of Whittington's other novels.
September 29, 2024
Dynamite title. Disappointing novel.
The story crawls, then gallops, then crawls again, as if it didn't know if it wanted to be steamy swamp noir or salt-of-the-earth literature. This has all the ingredients for backwoods hardboiled fun—sultry women, alcohol-fueled violence, vengeance and lust—but Whittington plays it safe here, hedging always on the side of morality, never letting his characters cross the lines that will really get them into trouble.
I'm not surprised it was made into a movie (starring Raymond Burr!) in 1960. The core story isn't bad—it's just weakly told—and the book's ending is totally the kind of ending I would expect Hollywood to do—a ham-fisted dollop of tragedy and lessons learned for our dusty sharecroppers and their wicked landlords. And yet, reading the synopsis on wikipedia, the movie sounds very little like the book! Go figure.
The prose is competent, and even good in places, but it doesn't cover up the sputtering, stalling plot. Whittington even has the nerve to have a really important story-beat recited by a character after the fact instead of putting the reader right there in the moment. Ugh. The quaint hillbilly turns of phrases the characters use were fun, too, but their occasional racism was off-putting. The reader might be better off gazing at the lurid cover and the title's promises than read the text. Whatever imagined would be better than what's on the page.
The story crawls, then gallops, then crawls again, as if it didn't know if it wanted to be steamy swamp noir or salt-of-the-earth literature. This has all the ingredients for backwoods hardboiled fun—sultry women, alcohol-fueled violence, vengeance and lust—but Whittington plays it safe here, hedging always on the side of morality, never letting his characters cross the lines that will really get them into trouble.
I'm not surprised it was made into a movie (starring Raymond Burr!) in 1960. The core story isn't bad—it's just weakly told—and the book's ending is totally the kind of ending I would expect Hollywood to do—a ham-fisted dollop of tragedy and lessons learned for our dusty sharecroppers and their wicked landlords. And yet, reading the synopsis on wikipedia, the movie sounds very little like the book! Go figure.
The prose is competent, and even good in places, but it doesn't cover up the sputtering, stalling plot. Whittington even has the nerve to have a really important story-beat recited by a character after the fact instead of putting the reader right there in the moment. Ugh. The quaint hillbilly turns of phrases the characters use were fun, too, but their occasional racism was off-putting. The reader might be better off gazing at the lurid cover and the title's promises than read the text. Whatever imagined would be better than what's on the page.
November 21, 2023
Classic Whittington!
White trash sharecroppers, the inevitable daughters, the rich folks looking down upon them, what could go wrong?
White trash sharecroppers, the inevitable daughters, the rich folks looking down upon them, what could go wrong?
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews