"The Paris Manuscript" by Joseph Goodrich (2022)

I was fully enraptured by Joseph Goodrich’s The Paris Manuscript, a historical noir set at the dawn of the fabled Années folles that is at turns dark, whimsical, nostalgic, and deeply moving. Structured like an on-rush of memories, the book begins in 1979 when elderly widower Ned Jameson goes through an old trunk while deciding whether to move in with his daughter, the contents of which send him back to 1919, in the years following World War I, where he lived with his wife, Daisy. Tormented by memories of the war, he worked as a journalist, and Daisy as an illustrator. Intrigue overtakes their lives when Daisy’s brother is blackmailed into becoming a saboteur. After the blackmailer is found murdered at a party they were attending, Ned begins to suspect Daisy is behind it—and he sets out to find the truth with an unlikely amateur detective, Marcel Proust, who volunteered at a hospital during the war.

When Proust enters the picture, The Paris Manuscript takes on a wonderful air that’s almost magical realist at times, but Goodrich keeps it grounded, making Proust a believable character within the drama at hand. When one thinks about it, isn’t In Search of Lost Time the underlying theme of so many noir works? In this sense, Proust makes a natural, though not obvious, sleuth proxy. Through Proust, Goodrich also makes a strong case for the detective-as-artist (or, is it, artist-as-detective?). “My asthma made it impossible for me to leave the car,” Proust recalls. “…I had to content myself by feeding upon what I could see. But what I can see is never enough… I must extrapolate. I am predisposed to the art of detection by illness… What I do as an artist is not so very different form what I do when I discovered [a clue which you’ll have to read the book to find out!]”

New Acquisitions: November 19, 2022

 Aviation pulp, anyone? Time for a deep dive into the early work of David Goodis. Here's a large pile of Fighting Aces that I've amassed recently.

New Acquisitions: Nov. 14, 2022

A few recent additions to the library: Beach Bodies (2022) by Nick Kolakowski, Say Goodbye When I'm Gone (2020) by Stephen J. Golds, and Corruption City by Horace McCoy (1959).

Got a Light? In Search of the Samuel Fuller Matchbook

Anybody got a light? Not that I smoke, but I am looking for a special matchbook created by Samuel Fuller to commemorate the publication of his 1936 novel Burn, Baby, Burn. According to the Pottstown, Pennsylvania Pottstown Mercury, one million of these promotional tchotchkes were produced. Maybe one of them is out there, somewhere.

(Pottstown Mercury, January 21, 1936, page 4)

Pulp Modern: Halloween Horror Issue (vol. 2, no. 9, Fall 2022)

The latest issue of Pulp Modern (vol. 2, no. 9, Fall 2022), edited by Alec Cizak, subtitled Halloween Horror Issue, is a terrific collection. I greatly enjoyed all the pieces, and appreciate Cizak's curation, which brought together a nice variety of fiction, non-fiction, and illustrations, all of which complement each other in how different they are, and together celebrate the breadth of the horror genre. Among my favorites were the opener (Ramsey Campbell's "Out of Copyright") and closer (Stanley Rutgers' "Rejection"), which both offer macabre takes on the publishing industry. In "Out of Copyright," an unscrupulous editor gets more than he bargained for when he republishes a rare text, and in "Rejection" a frustrated writer will do anything to get published in his favorite magazine. Bookending the issue with both stories was a clever and effective editorial choice not only for the obvious thematic similarity, but also because they highlight something key to horror: desire, and most specifically what happens when one is confronted directly with desire. 

Recent Acquisitions: A Trip to the Mysterious Bookshop

I decided to make an out-of-the-way pit-stop at the Mysterious Bookshop on my way home from work to pick up a signed copy of Lawrence Block's The Burglar Who Met Fredric Brown. As expected, I found a couple other things I had been looking forward, and several I didn't know that I had been looking for but clearly should have been. Stark House Press/Black Gat's reissue of Robert Silverberg's Killer, a whole ton of vintage A.A. Fair paperbacks, a reprint of Day Keene's Homicidal Lady that I didn't have, and lots more.

From Gil Brewer to Harry Whittington

I'm suffering from some serious book envy today. Royal Books has a first edition hardcover of Gil Brewer's The Red Scarf for sale, inscribed from Gil to Harry Whittington and his wife Kathryn with some writerly tough-love motivationFor Harry and Kathryn:

Harry, if you don’t sit yourself down and write the honest to God book of your guts very soon, I’m sure as hell going to bash you over the head with a sledge hammer.

I mean it.

Since I can't afford this treasure, I'll have to be content with the images posted by the seller. 

"The Burglar Who Met Fredric Brown" by Lawrence Block (2022)

Wouldn’t it be nice to curl up with a good book, doze off, and wake up in that world? That’s a question Lawrence Block explores in his latest novel, The Burglar Who Met Fredric Brown, the 12th novel to feature professional thief and Greenwich Village bookstore-owner Bernie Rhodenbarr. No one’s asking me to contain my enthusiasm, and so I won’t—I absolutely loved this book, and I think any of Bernie’s many fans will, too.

As a big fan of Block and his Bernie series, this didn’t disappoint in the slightest, hitting all the hallmarks of the series that readers have come to expect. The humor, the Greenwich Village setting, the warm friendship between him and series regular Carolyn, and of course the burglary. But Block also takes readers into new territory. The Burglar Who Met Fredric Brown is much more a fantasia than the earlier volumes. If you’re familiar with Brown, then you might have a little idea what’s in store, and if not, then it might help to know that Brown was an ardent admirer of Lewis Carroll, and there’s more than a hint of Wonderland in both his works and in Block’s latest. I found Block’s incursion into magical realism to be an absolute delight.

Justin Marriott Interview

Last year I had the pleasure of contributing to Justin Marriott's Paperbacks at War: 20th Century Conflict from the Front Lines of Vintage Paperbacks, Pulps and Comics, an in-depth look at over 170 wartime classics (and some not-so-classics). I wrote about Doomsday Mission by Harry Whittington, Hell to Eternity by Edward S. Aarons, The Dirty War of Sergeant Slade by Lou Cameron, Gresham's War by William Crawford, and Skylark Mission by Ian MacAlister.

Marriott is a prolific editor, writer, and publisher, and he was kind enough to answer a few questions about his work and Paperbacks at War.

Before we talk about Paperbacks at War, could you give a little background about yourself, and how your interest in literature developed?

I’m a pretty average Joe. Early 50s, married with two young daughters and living in a coastal town in the West of England. The day job is for a large financial organization where I work as a project manager in IT. 

I’ve still yet to develop any interest in literature! But I was a voracious reader from an early age, especially of comics, a habit I inherited from my dad. Growing up in the 70s in the UK, it was an age before video, and there were only 3 TV channels, all with limited programming aimed at kids. So Dr. Who was a must see on Saturday evenings, and the novelizations of Doctor Who were the first genre books I encountered. These were in the form of hardbacks loaned from the local library. I would read them cover to cover in a day. Even at that early age, I started to identify which authors I preferred—with Terrence Dicks, the creator of the Daleks, being a favourite.