In a message dated 2/14/03 3:12:23 PM Eastern Standard Time,
owner-rara-avis@icomm.ca writes:
<< What do you recommend of his, Bill? Are the BRASS
KNUCKLES
stories good? THE PULP JUNGLE made FRENCH KEY sound
pretty
good, although it's kind of hard to tell what is
hardboiled
and what isn't. I also have my eye on SIMON LASH:
PRIVATE
DECTECTIVE. There's a series with one title about a
goose
that the rara-avis archive suggested might be good but
not
hardboiled. My preference would be for good AND
hardboiled.
Somebody in the archive mentioned that the book has a
"dic-
tated" feel to it which I wouldn't argue with, but I
have to
say that I found almost every page to be entertaining.
I
got exposed to a lot of new names. >>
I was the one who some time ago said Frank Gruber's THE PULP
JUNGLE felt like a dictated book to me. That hasn't kept me
from reading it several times with enjoyment and going back
to it to dip in for a story or two on scores of other
occasions. Whether it was dictated or not, it has a breezy,
conversational style that I find charming. Gruber also allows
himself to wander like a conversationalist while the core of
the story remains his climb in the world of the writer.
Something I really enjoy is going along with him as he scraps
and hustles to stay alive in New York until he gets
established. One other aspect of the book is at the end when
he goes into detail about his eleven-element pulp formula. He
was quite serious in his discussion about putting a story
together and I learned from reading it although the method he
used was by definition "formula." Writers who turned out huge
volumes sometimes had their own personalized formulas.
I seem to recall that Erle Stanley Gardner had a wheel gizmo
of some type (I think advertised in writer's magazines of the
time) that had revolving wheels with plot elements on some
wheels and character types on others. I don't remember
exactly as it has been years since I read about it but it was
a device that old Erle would spin and then take the elements
fate decided and write a story from them. I always thought it
was probably psychological support more than anything else.
If you are turning out scores of stories a year, coming up
with that many settings, characters and plots must have very
daunting.
Gruber's fiction I find enjoyable in a light sort of way. It
has been years since I read one of his novels but I recall
them to be entertaining. THE FRENCH KEY was okay but I
enjoyed others in that series more, Johnny what'shisname and
Sam Cragg. THE HONEST DEALER was one of the better ones.
Gruber liked to gamble and that showed as well as his
knowledge of the desert setting. That series could be rather
funny. The Otis Beagle stories were fun as well.
There is one other book by an old pulpster that is out there.
Published by Sherbourne Press, the same publisher as Gruber's
THE PULP JUNGLE and BRASS KNUCKLES as well as Goulart's
anthology THE HARDBOILED DICKS is Robert Turner's SOME OF MY
BEST FRIENDS ARE WRITERS BUT I WOULDN'T WANT MY DAUGHER TO
MARRY ONE (1970).
After complaining elsewhere that I had never seen a
reasonably priced copy, somebody tipped me to a copy for
$20.00 and I got it this week. It is a fun book but a bare
shadow of the Gruber volume.
Turner began selling to comics and the pulps around 1940,
although he didn't hit his stride in pulps until after the
war. He was also an agent for a time and an editor with
Popular (sharing an office with Damon Knight) for an even
briefer time. I'm not sure why this one didn't work as well
for me. Gruber was a crafty, ambitious guy who carefully
worked his way up the then existing food chain for writers.
This is hard to pin down but Turner comes across as William
Bendix while Gruber is more of a Brian Donlevy.
The most enjoyable part of the Turner book for me was his
account of his TV scriptwriting days circa 1959. One of the
shows he worked on was the Darin McGavin series "Mike
Hammer." Frank Kane got him the gig, Kane having written over
twenty of the episodes. From there Turner did some scripts
for ZIV which produced shows for syndication like "Tombstone
Territory,"
"Coronado 9" and "Johnny Midnight," shows that I enjoyed as a
kid. Rod Cameron was in "Coronado 9" and Edmund O'Brien was
in "Johnny Midnight." Can't remember who starred in
"Tombstone Territory" but I recall really liking the show. I
think the hero ran the newspaper in Tombstone. Maybe Bill
will remember if it wasn't on opposite "The Lone Ranger" down
in Alvin, TX.
It was interesting to me that of all his writing credits,
Turner seemed most proud of selling regularly to the
hard-boiled digest "Manhunt." He sold them two stories and
then they rejected the next nine (all of which sold to other
markets.) "Trying to write for "Manhunt" eventually led to my
selling
"Bluebook," "Playboy" and other slicks and semi-slicks. It
made me bear down more on being different, on trying to write
more smoothly and sparsely," Turner wrote.
Upon reflection, even though it wasn't as much fun as
Gruber's, I did enjoy the Turner book and certainly got more
than my $20.00 in pleasure.
Richard Moore
-- # To unsubscribe from the regular list, say "unsubscribe rara-avis" to # majordomo@icomm.ca. This will not work for the digest version. # The web pages for the list are at http://www.miskatonic.org/rara-avis/ .
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 14 Feb 2003 EST