Jeff wrote:
"I finally got my hands on a copy of A I Bezzerides Long Haul. Although
I was sure it was noir fiction, I was pretty sure it wasn't crime
fiction, if that's possible and it turned out it's not."
So I take it the crime element in They Drive By Night was added for the
film?
"Bezzerides only wrote two novels, Thieves Highway being the other, and
was known more as a screenwriter of film noir classics.
"Is Thieves Highway crime fiction?"
Can't answer that, as I haven't read it yet, but the jacket to my
University of California Press copy of Thieves' Market (the novel's
original name) describes it as "a fast-paced proletarian novel . . .
inspired by the author's youthful experiences as a trucker hauling
produce to the packing houses of Californias Central Valley.
Also, the forward says he wrote three novels: Long Haul (1938), There Is
A Happy Land (1942), "about a family of rural drifters, and Thieves'
Market (1949).
Didn't he die just a year or two ago?
Mark
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