On Wed, 31 Jan 2001, William Denton wrote:
> BRASS KNUCKLES, by Frank Gruber. This is the
collection of Oliver Quade
> stories, with a memoir about his time writing for
the pulps. I saw it for
> $25 (ex-lib) but didn't get it right away. The only
mention of Gruber and
> Quade my web searches turned up were in the list
archives, with
> recommendations from Messrs. Taboada and Lochte,
among others. I checked
> for Gruber in O'Brien's HARDBOILED AMERICA, to no
avail. The only mention
> of him in THE BIG BOOK OF NOIR is in an anecdote by
A.I. Bezzerides about
> a time when Jack Warner interrupted him, Gruber and
Steve Fisher playing
> craps. (Gruber seems to have been a good craps
player.) The mentions in
> the archives convinced me I should grab it, so I
went back to the store.
> Is Gruber pretty much forgotten these days? He wrote
a lot and it's all
> solid stuff, from what I've read, but I don't think
he had any luck with
> fancy Black Lizard reprints.
Gruber seems to be forgotten, but there is (at least was in
earlier editions) an essay and a crime-oriented bibliography
of him in "20th Century Crime and Mystery Writers" (now, of
course, "St. James Guide"). Gruber falls somewhere between
the screwball comedy and hardboiled and there's no noir
element in his writing, so maybe that's why he doesn't get
mentioned any more.
His Fletcher-Cragg novels are quite fun, he made them from
the early fourties to the sixties.
> Anyone else picked up anything good
lately?
I was reading a Max Smart novel by William Johnston. Even if
you liked the series, don't bother with this one.
"America Noir": a collection of essays about undergroud
writing and film making in post-war America. Forgot the
writer's name, but the book deals with Willeford, Charles
Beaumont, Ray Bradbury (undergroud?), Samuel Fuller, Roger
Corman, Richard Condon et cetera. Published last year.
"The Noir Style": a big and stylish coffee table book with
great still photos, included with analyse about the visual
style and motifs of films noir. A good book - except that
there is no filmography and there were some films I knew
nothing about and would've liked to check.
Juri
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