Since I've read most of the vintage crime fiction that's been
reprinted, I've started on a kick of tracking down rare books
and thought the list might like to know my thoughts on some
of them. As a follow up to Brotherhood of Velvet, I read P.
J. Wolfson's Bodies are Dust .
Bodies are Dust (1931) is bleek, but it was interesting to
find that David Goodis had a stylistic predecessor. The books
is a must-read for Goodis fans. Though, where Goodis almost
always has two important female characters--one the
embodiment of good, the other bad--Wolfson has one female
character who appears to the male protagonist as,
alternately, saint and sinner, depending on his own
conscience. The story itself seemed familiar and I realized
from reading old posts that it is the biblical story of King
David.
If you try to look at it from the context of 1931, it must
have seemed radical at that time. It is hardboiled crime
fiction and social commentary and very noir, even more so
than the books of the genre that preceeded it.
Goodis will be my next read--Retreat from Oblivion. Other
rare books I intend to track down and read include
Bezzerides' The Long Haul, Karp's Cry Flesh (which I found at
a used book store this morning) and Hardman, as well as
Goodis' Fire in the Flesh (I'm almost done with the Goodis
catalog).
Anyone else care to contribute to my list of super rare books
that are none-the-less worth tracking down?
Jeff
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