My experience is very different from Jeff's. I read one
Goodis novel and, somehow (maybe I'm just perverse), felt
propelled to 'dig up' the rest. I've only read one that was
disappointing. Most of them I'd rate as (at least) very good,
with six or seven stand-outs. And I don't think he's anywhere
near as uneven as certain of his contemporaries. Gil Brewer
springs immediately to mind.
Al
----- Original Message -----
From: Jeff Vorzimmer
To:
rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, November 01, 2006 4:10 AM
Subject: Re: RARA-AVIS: David Goodis review
> 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
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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