Re: RARA-AVIS: Chemical Dependence and Hard-Boiledness (was:

Mark Sullivan (ANONYMEINC@webtv.net)
Mon, 17 Aug 1998 11:11:11 -0400 (EDT) Drugs appeared in pulp fiction earlier on, but they were usually what
the private eye was fighting against. Just look at those wonderful book
covers in that great digital postcard site someone sent in a month or
two ago (http://www.pulpcards.com, thanks whoever it was), there is a
whole section on depravity, William Irish's Marihuana among them, plus
Wiliam S. Burroughs's first, Junkie, which was published as half of an
Ace double under the name William Lee. It was probably the beats and
their fellow travellers who brought the casual attitude towards drugs
into literature. Although they are not mysteries, Last Exit to
Brooklyn, Man with a Golden Arm and just about everything by Wiliam
Burroughs is pretty hardboiled. These all feature people who would have
stolen to pay for Marlowe's drug nightmare in Murder My Sweet (I forget,
did Dali desgn that one, I know he worked on Spellbound).

Mark

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