Dave,
I tend to agree with you about the nature of noir and the gap between New York publishers and indy publishers. There are certainly a handful of indy presses who put out true noir novels (hell New Pulp Press only puts out dark, bleak books) but the readership/distribution is limited. While one of our titles, The Disassembled Man, is nearing 600 copies sold, most of our books, including the Gil Brewer reissue, are lucky to sell a couple hundred copies and only a handful of bookstores carry our books consistently. The question: is it lack of demand or just lack of distribution/marketing? I tend to believe that the demand is there but not enough for the NY publishers to bother with. NY publishers have no use for a niche readership, even if the niche is a fairly big one like noir fiction. The good news is that the dark books we crave are out there, you just have to poke around a bit...
Jon Bassoff
New Pulp Press
--- In rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com, "Ron Clinton" <clinton65@...> wrote:
>
> I have this anthology -- it's titled THE BEST FROM MANHUNT, and the Caldwell
> story is "In Memory of Judith Courtright." Other authors include Evan
> Hunter, Jack Ritchie, Richard Prather, Craig Rice, Helen Nielsen, Fletcher
> Flora, and a half-dozen others.
>
> And, no, it's been too long since I've read it and have no memory of the
> Caldwell story -- how good it was, how dark/noir, etc.
>
> Ron C.
>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com [mailto:rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com] On
> > Behalf Of Jeff Vorzimmer
> > Sent: Friday, March 12, 2010 6:48 AM
> > To: rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com
> > Subject: Re: RARA-AVIS: Re: Small Crimes
> >
> > There was an anthology of stories from Manhunt, which, if I recall
> correctly had a
> > story by Caldwell. I imagine the anthology is pretty hard to find these
> days.
> >
> > Jeff
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: <rrandisi@...>
> > To: <rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com>
> > Sent: Thursday, March 11, 2010 5:26 PM
> > Subject: RARA-AVIS: Re: Small Crimes
> >
> >
> > > I've been looking to buy somecopies of Manhunt lately, and noticed that
> in the
> > Oct. '54 issue there was a story by Erskine Caldwell. That may be old news
> here,
> > but I just saw it.
> > >
> > > RJR
> > >
> > > --- In rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com, "Allan Guthrie" <allan@> wrote:
> > >>
> > >> Interesting, Dave. There's no denying that paperback originals exploded
> in
> > >> the 50s and gave us a lot of the writers we admire these days. Many of
> those
> > >> writers were struggling to find a hardcover publisher and the pbo
> explosion
> > >> was something of a godsend. I'm not sure how prevalent noir was in the
> 50s,
> > >> though. Most paperback originals weren't that dark. Goodis, Thompson,
> etc.,
> > >> were exceptions rather than the norm.
> > >>
> > >> Books like Double Indemnity, How Like A God and Anyone's My Name were
> > highly
> > >> original in concept at the time they were published. These days they'd
> seem
> > >> pretty cliched because they've been imitated so often (I don't know if
> > >> that's true of HLaG, haven't read it, but I suspect if it failed to get
> > >> published it would be on account of the second person narrative rather
> than
> > >> being too dark). Not sure who published Woolrich or Macdonald
> originally,
> > >> but I'm pretty sure Woolrich's first published books weren't crime
> novels.
> > >> Incidentally, Erskine Caldwell's debut -- the ultra-noir THE BASTARD,
> from
> > >> 1929 -- would appear to have been self-published, something I only
> recently
> > >> discovered. Too dark for New York, I suspect. Might also explain why he
> > >> rarely spoke about it.
> > >>
> > >> Al
> > >>
> > >> ----- Original Message -----
> > >> From: "davezeltserman" <Dave.Zeltserman@>
> > >> To: <rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com>
> > >> Sent: Thursday, March 11, 2010 6:03 PM
> > >> Subject: RARA-AVIS: Re: Small Crimes
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> > Al, thinking about this a little bit, I'll stick with my original
> > >> > observation, and that's that publishing has changed dramatically over
> the
> > >> > past 25 years, specifically crime fiction, with much more resistance
> by NY
> > >> > to publish dark crime fiction and real noir. Yes, many of the great
> noir
> > >> > books from Jim Thompson, David Goodis, Charles Williams, Dan Marlowe,
> > >> > Peter Rabe, etc. came from Gold Medal and other paperback publishers,
> but
> > >> > at least they existed--today, Hard Case is the only equivalent I can
> think
> > >> > of, and Charles is publishing a tiny fraction of original crime
> fiction
> > >> > compared to Gold Medal. And I'll stick by that books like Dead City,
> > >> > Cain's Postman and Double Indemnity, Seymour Shubin's Anyone's My
> > Name,
> > >> > Rex Stout's How Like a God, all published by NY as hardcovers would
> be
> > >> > just about off limits to NY today. All you have to do is look at the
> most
> > >> > popular PI from the 50s, Mike Hammer, and the last 25 years, Spenser,
> to
> > >> > see how much crime fiction changed. Btw. who published Cornell
> Woolrich
> > >> > and Ross Macdonald originally?
> > >> >
> > >> > --Dave
> > >>
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > ------------------------------------
> > >
> > > RARA-AVIS home page: http://www.miskatonic.org/rara-avis/
> > > Yahoo! Groups Links
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> >
> >
> >
> > ------------------------------------
> >
> > RARA-AVIS home page: http://www.miskatonic.org/rara-avis/
> > Yahoo! Groups Links
> >
> >
> >
>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 12 Mar 2010 EST