While I might agree that there are occasions where Goodis could have
researched better (it's not a big bugbear of mine, though -- I don't expect
or want realism from Goodis), I disagree with the implication that you need
to have experienced what you write about to be convincing. Authenticity, for
fiction, is in the details, and not in who experienced them.
Al
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jeff Vorzimmer" <jvorzimmer@austin.rr.com>
> I know he had has his fifteen minutes of fame and fortune with the
> serialization of Dark Passage in the Saturday Evening Post, the subsequent
> film version and the brief Hollywood screenwriting career that followed,
> but
> I don't think he crammed enough living in those good years to give his
> novels the necessary verisimilitude before retreating to the oblivion of
> the
> poolhalls of Northeast Philly. Hemingway, by contrast, actually ran with
> the
> bulls he wrote about and was in the First World War as well as the Spanish
> Civil War.
>
> When you read any of the dozens of flying ace stories he cranked out in
> the
> early forties, you realize just how apt the Walter Mitty analogy is. I'm
> sure the guy could count on one hand or two hands the times he was even in
> an airplane. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong here.
>
> Some interesting notes about his novels: They are all crime novels. All
> but
> four of them are set in Philadelphia. About half of them have the main
> character contemplating suicide at one point.
>
> Jeff
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