Charles Willeford was an admirer of Chester Himes's work. Two
of his articles on Himes in the Writing and Other Blood
Sports collection show Willeford's respect. Willeford
believed Himes's best novel was not one of his Harlem
Domestics. It was Hime's drunken orgy The End of the
Primitive. Rara Avians should give it a try.
These two writers both took HB writing through the funk of
human nature and created something new. So new, they both did
not receive major attention until later in their lives.
Both Willeford and Himes went into crime fiction under
strange circumstances. Willeford because an army buddy bet
him he couldn't be published and Himes out of desperation an
ex-pat struggling in Europe.
Both had cynical perspectives on society and the creatures
who inhabit it. Yet, both loved socializing.
Himes wrote the apocalyptic Plan B and killed off his two
soul saints. One could kill a rock and the other would bury
it. Willeford tried the same with Hoke Moseley in the
unpublished Grimhaven or so I've read. I've actually never
have had the pleasure of reading a copy. Hoke gets depressed
and then kills his children. I wonder how long it took his
agent to change his mind...
Chong
__________________________________________________________
Get your FREE personalized e-mail at http://www.canada.com
-- # To unsubscribe from the regular list, say "unsubscribe rara-avis" to # majordomo@icomm.ca. This will not work for the digest version. # The web pages for the list are at http://www.miskatonic.org/rara-avis/ .
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 01 Jan 2001 EST