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RARA-AVIS: An introduction and two explanations 

Greetings, all--

Just a quick intro: my name is Katherine (Kathy) Harper.  I'm a
non-traditional grad student at Bowling Green State University and have
been a fan of hard-boiled fiction since 1983, when a professor suggested I
read Dashiell Hammett's collection _The Continental Op_ as background for
a short story I was writing. That was it--I was hooked.  Although I will
read just about anything that isn't overly graphic, I'm fondest of William
Riley Burnett, Frederick Nebel, Day Keene, Richard Stark (Donald
Westlake), Loren D.  Estleman, and Bruno Fischer. RARA-AVIS readers will
probably enjoy my Burnett website at http://ernie.bgsu.edu/~kharper/

Now for the explanations:

On Fri, 10 Jan 1997, William Denton wrote:

> I got some mail yesterday from someone (an alt.folklore.urban reader)
> who is trying to nail down "cement shoes" and "Chicago overcoat."

A "Chicago overcoat," at least in its original meaning, is a coffin.  A
similar term, "wooden kimono," has been used since at least 1914 and
probably before.

> The fellow also wondered about the relationship between the people who
> spoke this kind of slang and the writers.

In Bill Burnett's case, he talked with gangsters, prostitutes, racetrack
touts et al. every night when he went on duty as desk clerk at a seedy
Chicago hotel.  He made friends with a minor hood who thought Burnett was
fascinating because he (a) read books, and (b) wanted to write them, and
who took him on tours of all sorts of gang hangouts.  Until he met this
man, Burnett had no idea how to write as people actually speak;  after a
while in his company, he was able to sit down and write _Little Caesar_,
which made his reputation as a hard-boiled author.

Hammett, of course, pulled his slanguage straight from his experiences as
a Pinkerton man, and many others started their careers as newspapermen.

> On a related note, what's the story behind "gooseberry lay"?

Heh-heh.  "Gooseberry lay" means stealing clothing hung out to dry. 
Hammett included it in _The Maltese Falcon_ because it *sounded* dirty; 
Cap Shaw blue-penciled it and ignored the word "gunsel" on the same page,
which sounds like "gunman" but is actually tramp slang for a young boy
taken as a lover by an older man. 

(I collect slang terms, BTW, so don't be surprised to hear from me
whenever a question like this comes up.) 

I look forward to some great discussions and debates here on RARA-AVIS.

Katherine Harper
Department of English
Bowling Green State University
Visit the W.R. Burnett Page at http://ernie.bgsu.edu/~kharper/


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