yeah I liked "wounded & slain" too, and don't really get all the hate for it. it's maybe too obviously Freudian, with the wife character having to relive her trauma to overcome it. but I enjoyed that book and was very glad that Hard Case made it available again.
I remember not really digging "cassidy's girl" so much. wasn't that the one where the guy crashed the bus...twice? it just seemed silly. but a lot of Goodis is silly if you want to look at it that way. he still has that weird power.
and his last book "somebody's done for" is decent. not "street of no return" awesome, but still pretty good.
Tom Armstrong
--- In rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com, "Allan Guthrie" <allan@...> wrote:
>
> And BEHOLD THIS WOMAN, a very early one, is his worst.
>
> THE WOUNDED AND THE SLAIN is one of my favourites, though, so you might well
> like BEHOLD THIS WOMAN.
>
> Al
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Ron Clinton" <clinton65@...>
> To: <rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com>
> Sent: Tuesday, July 13, 2010 4:00 AM
> Subject: RE: RARA-AVIS: Where have you gone Rara-Avis (Brewer)
>
>
> > Not a fall, per se, and I probably overstated that by comparing him to
> > Brewer, but certainly an uneven finish. THE WOUNDED AND SLAIN and FIRE IN
> > THE FLESH, for example, are two later books that are far cries from the
> > brilliance of his earlier work. Having said that, as you rightly point
> > out,
> > THE BLONDE ON THE STREET CORNER and SHOOT THE PIANO PLAYER/DOWN THERE
> > sandwiched these two lesser works, and both are quite good. His final
> > one,
> > SOMEBODY'S DONE FOR, was a generally unremarkable capstone, but certainly
> > better than WOUNDED and FIRE. So again -- yes, more uneven a career end
> > than a linear decline.
> >
> > Ron C.
>
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