I think part of the deal when reading an author like Prather
is that you
have to be willing to read the material without a
contemporary sensibility.
If you want to read it with contemporary sensibilities for
the purpose of
an analysis of the work, fine.
But if you want to read it as a piece of popular genre
writing, you need to
approach it without the modern sensibilities. You need to
approach it as a
person might have in the 50s or 60s when they were
written.
I think Prather fits comfortably into what I call the
"screwball" private
eye writers. It might have started with authors like Bellem,
Latimer and
Norbert Davis, but the writers like Prather, Avallone, and
Goulart were
trying to maintain that sense of fun within the hardboiled
genre. And, I
have to admit, although most of the stuff today seems
outrageous (also
sexist and racist), I still can read a Prather in a couple of
hours and
when I am done say--well, that was kind of fun. Best,
GWN.
P.I.E.S. (Private Investigator Entertainment Service)
Catalogs of new and used private eye fiction
Gary Warren Niebuhr, Owner
P. O. Box 341218
Milwaukee, WI 53234
piesbook@execpc.com
<http://www.execpc.com/~piesbook/piescatalog.html>
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