miker writes:
>I ordered the SHARK INFESTED CUSTARD but it got
cancelled
>for some reason. But I'm not out of Willeford yet.
I've
>got WOMAN CHASER, MIAMI BLUES (thanks, Bill Denton)
and THE
>MACHINE IN WARD ELEVEN on the shelf. Of course I
probably
>won't enjoy THE MACHINE since it's short stories.
;-)
...well SHARK was remaindered 5 or 6 years, and I got my copy
for, irrc,
$3.00 at a Half-Price Books ... so there should be copies Out
There.
It took me forever to track down THE MACHINE IN WARD ELEVEN
-- this was before the recent reissue in the UK. Initially
because it kept showing up on science fiction lists [it's
not; but the initial version had this cover quote from
Science Fiction Digests on the cover, you see, and...] -- and
then even more so, when I found out the 'subject' of the
title story. You see, when I was in first grade ['49-'50] my
father had a 'nervous breakdown', was put in a sanitarium ...
and was subjected to electroshock treatments.
[At the
time I didn't know what was going on; I just knew that the
man who came out was not the same man who'd gone in.... That
vicarious experience has, yes, affected my life for the past
50 years...]
It's
not a "cheerful" story, nor book: it _is_ worth reading if
you are looking for truly _hard-boiled_ fiction.
I know that they are what made him belatedly famous -- but
I've always thought the Hoke Moseley novels were the least of
Willeford's fiction. [His two-volume autobiography is in a
class by themselves; I, also, would have loved to have read
more...]
That
said, for years I proclaimed that, of the thousands of films
I've seen, only in one case -- where I'd read the source
book/story _first_
-- did the movie come close to capturing the essence of the
book: That was the film version of MIAMI BLUE....
That
number held until a friend who had the Sundance Channel
captured a copy of WOMAN CHASER for me. Okay, make that
Two...
And
then, a couple of months ago, I got around to watching the
DVD of COCKFIGHTER, I invested in thanks to Rara-Avis.
Considering
that COCKFIGHTER, while not a "mystery", is my own favorite
of Willeford's fiction, well, all I can say is despite a lack
of proper appreciation while he was alive .... Charles
Willeford has been Very Well Served, thrice, by the
adaptations [yes, I know he wrote the screen play for CF...]
of his work to film....
Most
writers would kill, for even one....
-- Bill B™
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 02 Jan 2003 EST