Paul Kavanagh is not listed as a pseudonym in the Library of
Congress Card Catalog's entry for Such Men Are Dangerous: A
Novel of Violence. Indeed, the first printings of the
book, both its 1969 hardback and its 1970 paperback
reprinting keep up the illusion with the following prefaces
(which don't seem to be in later reprints):
Publisher's Note
The
manuscript of this novel was mailed to us some months
ago. The envelope was postmarked Miami and bore a
postoffice box in that city as a return address. A line
on the title page indicated that the book was "by J.O.
Kerr." Readings by several members of our editorial
staff led to a nearly unanimous decision to
publish the work, and a letter and contract were sent to Mr.
Kerr at the given address.
Not
long afterward we received a letter with a Key West postmark
and no return address. The correspondent identified
himself as the user of the pseudonym "J.O. Kerr" and
consented to the publication of the work, with several
stipulations. "J.O. Kerr" was to be replaced as the
author of record by "Paul Kavanagh"-which is the name of the
book's lead character. No contract would be signed;
instead, this letter would serve as proof of the author's
consent to the terms therein set forth. All rights in
the manuscript were turned over to the publisher, now and
forever, on the condition that the publisher in turn donate
the sum of one dollar to the charity of the publisher's
choice. Finally, the publisher would respect the
author's desire to privacy and make no attempt to identify
him, locate him, or enter into communication with him.
The
letter also included the following disclaimer notice, which
we quote:
All names which appear in this work are fictitious, including
that of the author and protagonist. There are no such
places as Mushroom Key or Little Table Key in Florida or
elsewhere, nor is there a town called Sprayhorn in South
Dakota. Neither the characters nor the locations and
events herein described are based on any real persons,
locations and events. All that follows is the product
of a man's imagination, and if any resemblances seem to exist
between all or part of this work and real life in our real
world, the author is sorry about that.
After due consideration, we did dispatch a letter to "J.O.
Kerr" in care of his Miami address, requesting clarification
on certain points. This letter was returned with the
information that the addressee had relinquished the box and
had left no forwarding address. We hope Kerr-Kavanagh
will forgive us for this, our first and last attempt to make
contact with him.
In view of the circumstances surrounding the manuscript and
of the peculiar language of the disclaimer, we at once made
every effort to determine whether the book was in fact a work
of fiction. After exceptional investigation, we can
only state that we have been wholly incapable of confirming
the existence of any of the book's characters or
events. Queries to governmental agencies have brought
either immediate unequivocal denial or, in several instances,
no reply whatsoever. We have been unable to equate the
unnamed intelligence agency in the book with any existing
agency, nor can we establish the existence of any military
operation comparable to that mentioned here as being located
in the nonexistent town of Sprayhorn, South Dakota.
We have thus had no course but to publish this book as a
novel, and to echo the author's own disclaimer: We
assume this to be a work of the imagination, and if any
resemblance is detected to real persons, places, events or
institutions, we, too, are sorry.
As a final word we might add that we have chosen to be
somewhat more liberal than Kerr-Kavanagh has required.
Full royalties in accordance with established publishing
industry standards will be paid to a charity or charities
selected by our editorial board.
Editor's Preface
The
editorial preparation of Such Men Are Dangerous presented
certain problems which might be of general interest.
Since policy forbids arbitrary editorial changes without he
author's consent, and since "Kerr-Kavanagh" was wholly
inaccessible, the text which follows is a virtual verbatim
copy of the original typescript. Certain
structural alterations which might otherwise have been
recommended to the author were not made, nor were even the
most minute points of syntax revised.
The reader will in a few instances note a failure of
agreement between subject and verb and other departures from
standard English usage. There is a thin line separating
grammatical inaccuracy from narrative style, and this is most
notably the case in the first person narrative form. No
doubt
"Kerr-Kavanagh" himself would have insisted upon several
changes had they been suggested to him. Nevertheless it
seemed preferable to err on the side of permissiveness and
let the chips of grammar fall upon the rich soil of stylistic
idiosyncracy, as it were.
A variety of minor editorial chores were performed,
however. "Kerr-Kavanagh" showed a cavalier disinterest
in consistency of capitalization, and here accepted standards
were followed, with one exception: the intelligence
agency, never identified by name, appeared in every instance
as "the Agency." It was presumed that the author had a
reason for this unusual use of the upper case and it remains
untouched.
The original manuscript was not divided into chapters.
After long consideration and careful study, the decision was
made to apportion the book into eighteen chapters. If
the author has strong feelings to the contrary, he need only
inform us and future editions will be corrected
accordingly.
Obviously, typographical errors, liberally salted throughout
the original script, have of course been rendered
correctly.
The title is "Kerr-Kavanagh's" own. It is presumably a
reference to the familiar pejorative description of Cassius
in Julius Caesar. Since the author did not suggest that
the passage be quoted as a frontispiece, we have elected to
omit it.
Paul Kavanagh is one hard man. He almost makes Parker
seem warm, and loquacious. After being rejected as too much
of a sociopath for "the Agency," Kavanagh, the character,
just wants to left alone on his small island. However, an
Agency man tracks him down and for one nasty job.
The illusion of Such Men being autobiography was ruined in
1971 when a second Paul Kavanagh book came out, The Triumph
of Evil. This was another "novel of violence," but this
time it was a third person narrative about a seemingly mild
mannered assassin (a preview of Block's later Keller?).
A third novel by Paul Kavanagh, this time listed in
the LCCC as a pseudonym, came out in 1974. Not Comin'
Home to You is a fictionalized account of the killing spree
by Charlie Starkweather and Caril Fugate that was also the
basis of the great film Badlands.
All three were later reprinted with Block's name on
the cover. All three are well worth reading, but the
first, Such Men Are Dangerous is an outright classic.
Mark
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