I'm interested in finding out if any of the following authors
are worth pursuing. Are they hardboiled/noir? If so, are they
any good? Any opinions or information welcome.
Leonardo Sciascia Jean-Claude Izzo Massimo Carlotto Yasmina
Khadra Giorgio Scerbanenco Santo Piazzese Jorge
Ibarquengoitia Shane Maloney
Thanks in advance
Al
----- Original Message ----- From: <
Moorich2@aol.com> To: <
rara-avis@icomm.ca> Sent: Tuesday, January 21, 2003
4:31 AM Subject: RARA-AVIS: Ralph Dennis and the 70s
> In a message dated 1/20/03 4:02:57 AM Eastern
Standard Time,
>
owner-rara-avis@icomm.ca writes:
>
> <<
> Great stories, Richard, and thanks to Bill and you.
Ralph Dennis
> goes on my TBR stack. I wondered why publishers
dropped him.
> Market pressures? Fickle reading public? All of the
above.
>
> Ed Lynskey
> >>
>
> My original article appeared in Mystery Scene and
was reprinted when
Dennis
> died. Ed Gorman was a Dennis fan and Mystery Scene
also printed an
> appreciation by David Everson, who had a nice series
going about Ilinois
> politics. Everson became a correspondent of Dennis
and he and I later
> discussed Dennis. I do not have the copies of
Mystery Scene to hand to
> refresh my memory.
>
> The key problem was that the editor that was Dennis'
champion was let go
and
> his replacement did not take up the slack. Whether
the new editor didn't
> care for Ralph's work or just was primed to dislike
everything by his
> predicessor does not make much of a difference. He
lost his champion and
he
> was dead meat after that.
>
> Also, I have to notice that his hardback novel
MacTAGGART'S WAR (1979) was
> not (to my knowledge) reprinted in paperback. It was
a very ambitious
novel
> and was of a type to be of interest to movie makers
at the time but it
didn't
> hit and the failure to get a paperback sale had to
have hurt him. I very
> much liked the novel, which was a historical caper
story that concerned
the
> gold bullion shipped from England to Canada in June
1940. It had its
flaws
> as Dennis overreached his abilities but it was
superior to similar novels
of
> the period.
>
> Aside from the orphaning of his work, the reprinting
started on his
Hardman
> series with the third novel but that did not extend
to the others as
planned.
> It just wasn't to be.
>
> I do know that Dennis was friends with Ben Jones of
"The Dukes of Hazard"
TV
> series fame and worked on some projects with him.
Jones now has a museum
> some miles south of me and I hope to visit and meet
him and ask about
Dennis.
> Jones was elected to Congress about the time of
Dennis' death so I can
only
> assume that anything they were working on took
second place to the
political
> needs of Jones.
>
> A couple of additions to my earlier post. I went
into great detail about
> Oxford Books without mentioning that the stores died
as a result of
national
> chain pressure. I had it in there and then edited it
out. The main store
> died along with the used outlet Oxford
Too.
>
> Also, I said I wanted to reconnect with his sister
without mentioning that
> she had copies of his unsold novels. If I ever win
the lottery or want to
> put it all on the line, publishing Dennis is
something I would likely do.
I
> do believe him when he said he pushed the envelope
on anti-heroes and I
also
> think this might have hurt him in that period and
today might not be a
> problem.
>
> Maybe one day I will see.
>
> And damn you Bill Crider for egging me on. You knew
you would set me off
> although you probably didn't count on the loop to
Jud Sapp and all the
rest.
>
> Richard Moore
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