> Thanks for this. It's timely for me because I'm just
in the middle of
> reading "Shoot the Piano Player", my first exposure
to Goodis. (Suggested
by
> Mr. Crider's video'd queries, "Goodis or
Thompson?")
Bill's was an interesting question. On one hand I have been
totally enraptured by Thompson's writing although I never
considered him a great writer. Goodis' writing has moments of
absolute brilliance but he doesn't always hold my attention.
With Goodis you have what I call James M. Cain moments where
you can't decide whether a book of his is total shit or one
of the great books of the twentieth century. Goodis has
written novels that I think are probably some of the best of
the century and rank up there with Fitzgerald, Hemingway,
Steinbeck, Dos Passos, O'Hara, etc. But his writing is the
most uneven of the second generation of hardboiled
writers.
As an example I would say Street of the Lost is probably one
of the great books of the century. It is overlooked because
it's scarce, having had, by my count, only two printings and
that in paperback and for the fact that you would probably
have to endure a lot of novels of his that range somewhere
between the mediocre and good, before you get to a novel such
as Street of the Lost. Also, there aren't any of those really
good reads among his books that propel you to dig up more,
the way there are with Thompson, Brown, Latimer, Williams,
etc.
Street of the Lost is very much like Nelson Algren's Walk on
the Wild Side, but superior to it in every way, yet you can
walk into almost any bookstore and find Algren's, but not a
single copy of any of Goodis books'.
Jeff
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