--- Michael Robison <
miker_zspider@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Ed Lynskey wrote:
>
> I'll test drive Carter Brown in a few days with a
wary
> eye.
>
> ************
> My feeling about The Body was that if Carter Brown
had
> taken the time, he would have been close to JDM
in
> style and quality. Unfortunately, there was
little
> call for that in the environment he was writing
in.
>
> In 1939 the Australian government imposed a tariff
on
> American books that was so high it effectively cut
off
> the supply. Up until this time Australia had been
an
> avid consumer of America's hardboiled fiction.
More
> from my review:
>
> Starved for femmes fatale and smoking
Thompsons,
> Australia rose to the challenge to produce its
own
> homegrown hardboiled. Publishers such as Horwitz
and
> Cleveland sought out local authors and paid them
by
> the word to churn out hundreds of short novels
every
> month. It was commercial literature at its
worst.
> The plots were corny and the dialog vapid, but
the
> publishers were paying for quantity, not quality.
At
> first they imitated that which they replaced.
The
> settings were predominantly big U.S. cities, and
lots
> of alcohol mixed with beautiful but dangerous women
to
> revolve around a murder.
Interesting background. I scanned a few pages last night of
my Carter Brown. You pretty much describe what I read. I
wonder if any "gems" emerged from this flurry of writing. I'd
be willing to bet U.S. pulp in the 1930s had its own share of
bad writing. A few "gems" (aside from Hammett and Chandler)
also fell out. Bruno Fischer comes to immediately to
mind.
Ed
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