--- In
rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com, "jacquesdebierue"
<jacquesdebierue@...> wrote:
>
> --- In
rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com, "Richard Moore"
<moorich@>
wrote:
> >
> > "The Neccessity of His Condition" was a great
story. Davidson
wrote
> > so many fine stories. There was one collection
of his mystery
> > stories published after his death. Few are noir
but I am a
sucker
> > for anything by him. There was also a
hard-to-find collection
of his
> > true crime pieces published by Regency Books in
the early 1960s
that
> > I have around here somewhere. As with the
"Necessity" short
story,
> > Davidson did a great deal of research for the
articles even
though
> > the magazine word rate was low. I especially
recall the article
on
> > Devil's Island, one of the great noir locations
in the world and
in
> > literature.
> >
>
> You know what, now that you mention the title, it
does sound very
> familiar....
"The Necessity of His Condition" was most recently in THE
AVRAM DAVIDSON TREASURY, edited by Grania Davidson, and the
excellent posthumous collection of his crime fiction is THE
INVESTIGATIONS OF AVRAM DAVIDSON edited by Davis and Richard
Lupoff, a title which echoes by intention that of perhaps
Davidson's magnum opus, THE ENQUIRIES OF DOCTOR ESTERHAZY,
which will reward any reader of crime fiction who also
appreciates the fantastic and the baroque...an expanded
editiion, THE ADVENTURES OF DOCTOR ESTERHAZY, is in
print.
At the current remove, it seems very clear that EQMM's Fred
Dannay liked to encourage crime fiction that spoke up for
civil rights and against bigotry whenever possible.
Davidson's most completely successful novel, MASTERS OF THE
MAZE, draws on his experience as a responsible writer of
historical crime articles for Men's Sweat and true crime
magazines; his protagonist is one of the more typical
irresponsible contributors. Algis Budrys noted that
Davidson's meticulous research, including interviews and site
investigation, caused much eye-rolling among those who wrote
bad fiction to be presented as fact, all published under
variations of the title (as Harry Harrison put it once, iirc)
"Love Starved Arabs Raped Me Often." At least one major
anthology of those "true men's adventure" stories and covers
has been published recently (and bits of them are all over
the web, of course), but no one's bothered to put CRIMES AND
CHAOS back into print...perhaps Grania Davis or Henry
Wessells will manage that eventually.
Mario, I'm not sure I understand your comment...you recall
the story after reading Richard's citation of the title? Two
citations of the title, including mine, jog the memory?
Todd Mason, who would suggest that PRIME CUT is certainly
close enough to noir, or at least a nightmare, and would've
been moreso, probably, if its releasing company hadn't been
collapsing as it was being filmed, and what we saw as final
cut was far from prime, so much as rushed out and showing all
sorts of signs of that. And FINN as well as its source
certainly should be considered relevant...thanks for the
citation of the Hambly, Cap.
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