"A Death in Mexico" by Jonathan Woods (2012)

Jonathan Woods’s debut novel, A Death in Mexico (New Pulp Press, 2012), is an outrageous and unruly mescal-soaked murder mystery packed with plenty of euphoric and hallucinogenic highs and none of the regrettable aftereffects. Readers looking for a by-the-books police procedural won’t find anything so straight-laced or conservative in this book; adventurous readers—those willing to drink without first asking what’s in the glass—will savor Woods’s unorthodox mélange of sex and slaughter under the sun.

It all begins when a young female corpse is discovered mutilated in the streets of San Miguel de Allende. Leading the investigation is police inspector Hector Diaz, a man prone to indigestion, ill-timed erections, and hallucinations of Aztec gods. After the corpse is identified as Amanda Smallwood, a young model from Texas, the trail leads Diaz to a local community of expatriate American artists that includes a charming convicted child molester, a Canadian diplomat’s wife, and scores of jilted lovers and wannabe artists living Bohemian fantasies with total abandon—any of whom seem desperate, envious, inebriated, or crazy enough to have committed the murder.

"Hell on Church Street" by Jake Hinkson (New Pulp Press, 2011)

Is this noir enough for you? "The story of my life is I lived, I fucked up, and I'm going to die. I'll probably go to hell." Hell on Church Street is the debut novel from Jake Hinkson, who first made his mark as a scholar in the pages of Eddie Muller's Noir City Sentinel and with short stories in ezines like Beat to a Pulp. Hinkson's first book is like some unholy union of Sinclair Lewis's Elmer Gantry, Jim Thompson's The Killer Inside Me, and Charles Willeford's The Black Mass of Brother Springer. Hell on Church Street tells the story of Geoffrey Webb, a rotund con artist with a clerical collar and a delusional superiority complex. After taking a job as a youth minister for the Higher Living Baptist Church in Little Rock, Webb begins a doomed affair with the preacher's teenage daughter. Once the local sheriff gets wind of this, he attempts to blackmail Webb into stealing a valuable document from the preacher, which sets off a chain reaction of violence in the Baptist community.

Hell on Church Street is one of the rare novels that actually deserves the over-used comparison to Jim Thompson, not just because Webb follows in the footsteps of such crazed protagonists as Lou Ford (The Killer Inside Me) and Nick Corey (Pop. 1280), but because Hinkson takes a risk and deviates from Thompson's iconic moulds. As Webb's world spins further out of his control, he develops a self-awareness lacking in Ford and Corey: "And then it hit me. Maybe the problem was me. Maybe I wasn't as hidden and smart as I thought I was. Maybe the problem had been me all along." Despite his perverse sociopathy, Webb suffers a genuine fall from grace, and we sympathize with him in ways that we never can with Thompson's protagonists.

Who do we hold responsible—or thank—for unleashing such a savagely psychotic, yet strangely compassionate novel as Hell on Church Street? That would be New Pulp Press, a small outfit under the editorial leadership of Jon Bassoff. Over the past three years, they have cultivated an arsenal of bold, experimental crime fiction titles - many of them from debut authors such as Hinkson—that carry on in the grand noir tradition without pandering to pastiche. Leonard Fritz's In Nine Kinds of Pain is a love letter to the seediest aspects of Detroit, with literary echoes of Burroughs and Bulgakov; Heath Lowrance's The Bastard Hand is a crack-addled ride through the backwoods of Mississippi; and if you ever wondered what a collaboration between Bukowski and Ian Fleming might have looked like, check out Jonathan Woods' collection Bad Juju and Other Tales of Madness and Mayhem. And with Woods' debut novel, A Death in Mexico, already on deck for 2012, New Pulp Press is a small publisher to watch.

(This review was originally published January 23, 2012 in the Los Angeles Review of Books.)

"The Criminal Kind: Bardsley, Piccirilli, and Woods" at The Los Angeles Review of Books

Over at the Los Angeles Review of Books, my Criminal Kind column continues with reviews of Greg Bardsley's Cash Out, Tom Piccirilli's The Last Kind Words, and Jonathan Woods' A Death in Mexico.

Read the full article here.

Fulfilling all of the promise of Bardsley’s short story “Crazy Larry Smell Bacon” ... Cash Out marks an exciting new entry into the mystery field. Flat-out funny prose that doesn’t resort to parody is a rarity. Bardsley’s clarity and eccentricity should be treasured. Here’s hoping that a follow-up novel isn’t too far around the corner.

If Shadow Season was a turning point for Piccirilli — signaling a maturation of theme and style — then The Last Kind Words marks the start of a major new period in Piccirilli’s oeuvre, and it stands among his finest and most moving works to date.

Jonathan Woods’s debut novel, A Death in Mexico, [is] an outrageous and unruly mescal-soaked murder mystery packed with plenty of euphoric and hallucinogenic highs and none of the regrettable aftereffects. Readers looking for a by-the-books police procedural won’t find anything so straight-laced or conservative in this book; adventurous readers — those willing to drink without first asking what’s in the glass — will savor Woods’s unorthodox mélange of sex and slaughter under the sun.

"Hell, Hurt, Blood and Rapture" at Los Angeles Review of Books

My most recent post at the Los Angeles Review of Books is called, "Hell, Hurt, Blood and Rapture." Check it out for reviews of Jake Hinkson's Hell on Church Street (New Pulp Press), Reed Farrel Coleman's latest Moe Prager book, Hurt Machine (Tyrus Books), John Rector's Already Gone (Thomas & Mercer), Alan Glynn's Bloodland (Picador), and a Harry Whittington anthology from Stark House Press that includes Rapture Alley, Winter Girl, and Strictly For the Boys.

Read the full article here.

Excerpts below:

Hell on Church Street is one of the rare novels that actually deserves the over-used comparison to Jim Thompson, not just because Webb follows in the footsteps of such crazed protagonists as Lou Ford (The Killer Inside Me) and Nick Corey (Pop. 1280), but because Hinkson takes a risk and deviates from Thompson’s iconic moulds.

Rector writes hardboiled noir with a rare poetic élan, tight, almost violently compressed action, and reticent melancholy... He’s already proven himself among the freshest and most stylistically austere voices working in the thriller field. In fact, labeling his books “thrillers” feels too limiting. There’s a tonal ambience and doleful vibe that permeates his work, which comes as a surprise, considering how action-packed and tense his narratives tend to be. Acutely visual, Already Gone pulses with cinematic urgency and visceral punch.

Reed Farrel Coleman’s Moe Prager saga, about a Brooklyn ex-cop turned reluctant wine merchant and occasional PI, is that rare series that improves with each new entry. Coleman is now up to the seventh book, Hurt Machine, and it’s not only the best one yet but also the darkest... Coleman’s novels, like Ed Gorman’s, impress not with distractingly complex plots (though they’re both certainly capable of spinning real page-turners) but with their profound clarity and expert simplicity. Coleman’s characters don’t need grand schemes or million dollar payoffs as motivations: as Moe too frequently discovers, there’s enough potential for lifetimes of pain in our everyday lives.

Alan Glynn’s Bloodland, a loosely related follow-up to 2009’s Winterland, is a stunningly intricate and timely piece of globalization noir... In its depiction of immoral business practices and the increasingly blurred lines between criminals and politicians, Bloodland is like an amped-up 21st-century version of Dashiell Hammett’s The Glass Key. From the exploitation of human labor through umpteen middlemen to who-knows-where, Bloodland captures the fragmentary and alienating mechanism of international affairs with prismatic clarity.

The real prize of the anthology, however, is Strictly For the Boys, originally published in 1959, and the only one of the three to bear Whittington’s own name. The story is about a battered wife attempting to flee an abusive husband who refuses to let her, her mother, and her new boyfriend alone. Downright disturbing in its realism and sobering depiction of domestic violence, Strictly For the Boys displays a social consciousness that was prescient for its time, and which continues to be relevant today... Editor and scholar David Laurence Wilson deserves special commendation for his tireless efforts to restore Whittington’s reputation (and, in the case of Winter Girl, to restore the text itself). Wilson and Stark House publisher Greg Shepard give their books scholarly attention on par with the Library of America. Meticulously researched and lovingly edited, Stark House presents these forgotten paperback novels not as pulp curios, but as real literature, and set the bar high for other reprint series.

Interview with Leonard Fritz

Leonard Fritz’s In Nine Kinds of Pain, the latest from New Pulp Press, is one of those novels that knocks you over the head and leaves you in a daze, as if there’s one of those spring-loaded boxing gloves behind each page. Fritz is full of surprises, ideas, and especially stories, and his debut novel is as audacious as it is awesome. I could keep gushing, but instead I’ll just post a link to my review so we can get on with the interview.

Pulp Serenade: Where did the idea for In Nine Kinds of Pain come from?

Leonard Fritz: Well, I wanted to write some Detroit stories, so I began piecing together personal stories with stories from the neighborhood I lived in. I just followed the ol’ chestnut, “Write what you know.” This book is what I knew.

PS: How similar is the final product to your original conception of the novel? Were there any big changes during the writing or editing process?

LF: The final product is very close to the way I envisioned it from the beginning. I kind of work that way, where I have the concept and then I flesh it out. I usually just allow the ending to happen, though, see where it goes and where the characters take it. In the editing process, there were some things that needed updating, like any reference to any part of Tiger Stadium. I had the old ballpark as a meeting place, but more of the ballpark kept getting torn down every week, so I had to eventually omit that location altogether. I wanted the story to be relevant to now.

PS: Are there any parts of the book based on real events? Like the whole garbage dump-drug smuggling operation?

LF: Most all of the book is based on real events and real people, in whole or in part. And the garbage dump thing was real, too. When I heard about it I thought it was too cool not to include in the story.

PS: Some of my favorites parts of the book are the “Here is Wisdom” segments that engage one-on-one with the reader. Even though they’re not commenting directly on the story, they’re setting the stage. Why did you choose to deliver the information in this manner as opposed to inserting it more conventionally into the narrative?

LF: Because I thought all that info as narrative for the characters would slow the story down, and I wanted it to be fast-paced. And I didn’t want to have the characters deliver all that foundation because they’re not thinking about that—they’re just living their lives. But, I needed a way for the reader to know how Detroit clicks in order to help them understand the why’s and how’s of the story, so I decided to incorporate those look-ins.

PS: To me, the main character of In Nine Kinds of Pain seems to be Detroit itself. You even dedicate the book to the city. It’s not a pretty portrait, but it’s very affectionate. What is your own relationship to the city like? Are you a native resident?

LF: I lived in Southwest Detroit for about 35 years, so I did my time. I’ve worked for the city and was an elected official for the area and loved the city but, like in the story, it won’t love you back. I wanted Detroit itself to be the antagonist, and I guess that must have come through.

PS: So, would you recommend Detroit as a tourist destination? If you knew someone was visiting the city, what would you recommend they do, and where would you recommend they definitely not go?

LF: If you visit Detroit, either stay right near the ballparks—I mean, don’t leave that entertainment district at all—or venture way out into the suburbs. Otherwise, you’re like that idiot I describe at the beginning of the book, wandering into the neighborhoods, not knowing what you’re getting yourself into. Come see the Tigers or Red Wings, soak up the atmosphere of a blue-collar town, then leave immediately.

PS: There are no conventional heroes in your book—no beacons of morality, goodwill, or upstanding citizenship, and no one that you would really want to model your own life after. Yet there is something appealing to them… For me, it had to do with how much more alive they seemed the closer to destruction they came. As I said in my review, they seemed to really appreciate life, even if it wasn’t an ideal one. I was wondering what it was that drew you to the characters, and made you want to get into their heads and under their skin?

LF: I guess just wanting to have characters that were flawed, because that’s what I saw. Even the people we look up to, all of us, are flawed in some way. And I’ve known some great people, some people that would literally lay down their life for me, people that have my back to this day and have giant hearts of gold, but would be considered cold-hard criminals in normal society. It’s a strange dynamic to live in.

PS: Why did you choose to include comic panel inserts throughout the novel? Did you ever consider writing the entire story as a graphic novel?

LF: I’ve always liked to draw, and I wanted to have some fun. At first I thought of illustrating parts of the text, but then I thought little sidebar stories that were illustrated outside of the text would be more interesting. I felt that the whole novel itself didn’t really translate well graphically, though, like the “Here is Wisdom” parts.

PS: There are several illustrative homages in the book: Daniel Clowes, Margaret Kilgallen, Jorge Longaron, and Alden McWilliams. Could you say a few words about these artists, and why you chose to pay tribute to them in this way?

LF: I love Clowes’ darkness and knew that he would be one of the artists that I needed to include in this tribute. Kilgallen’s street sort of tagging quality caught my attention a few years back, and I grew to appreciate her work. Longaron and McWilliams reminded me of the old Sunday comics or the Saturday morning cartoons, and I always loved those.

PS: Who are some of the writers who have been the biggest influence on you?

LF: Bukowski and Irvine Welsh were my biggest influences, I think, just because they gave me permission to write stories that weren’t happy, and I think I needed that. They were sort of my springboard backwards to writers like Camus. And I didn’t read Hubert Selby Jr. until someone in grad school said I wrote like him. I gravitate to the dark and unusual writers, which, I guess, isn’t much of a surprise.

PS: How about Detroit writers—who has gotten the feel of the city right, in your eyes? And what about Detroit on film—any favorite movies set in the city?

LF: Maybe Robocop? I don’t know. I like Elmore Leonard but not because of his Detroit portrayals, but because of his characterizations. I don’t think I’ve ever read a Detroit someone or seen a Detroit something and said, “Wow, they really captured the city!” I’m trying, but I can’t think of any who’ve done the real Detroit justice.

PS: You close the novel with a Nietzsche quote: “To expect that strength will not manifest itself as strength...is every bit as absurd as to expect that wakens will manifest itself as strength.” I was wondering why you chose that quote to end the book? In some ways, it reminded me of the parable of the scorpion who stung the frog who was carrying it across the river and explained, "I could not help myself. It is my nature."

LF: Well, I wanted to end with a quote and Nietzsche’s philosophy definitely lends itself Detroit. Then, once I started re-reading the manuscript, that ending quote popped into my head, because it was very appropriate—don’t wander into the Murder Capitol of the World and expect anything less that what it is, and don’t expect it to change and get mad when it doesn’t. It is what it is, and the people are what they are.

PS: How did you get hooked up with Jon Bassoff and New Pulp Press?

LF: He gave me an opportunity so I sent him my stuff. I’m grateful he gave my writing a chance. Getting published is one of the biggest crap-shoots out there, I’ve found—you really have to have the right person read your stuff, the one who likes your style and your story, and hit them at the right time. I didn’t realize until I was getting my MFA how polarizing my writing was—I had some who loved it to death and maybe worshipped it too much, and others who hated it so much they hated me personally.

PS: How do you discover new books to read? Local booksellers, online, word of mouth…

LF: All of the above. I like to troll around small bookstores, large bookstores, go online, read reviews and such. I did a reading at a small indy bookstore a few weeks ago, and while I was in the back waiting to come out to talk and sign the book, I was looking through their stacks and making a mental list of new books I wanted to get my hands on.

PS: I saw online that you also did the cover for Jake Hinkson’s upcoming Hell on Church Street. Do you do a lot of graphic work outside of writing fiction?

LF: I’d have to say I’m more of a graphic artist than a writer. I know that’s poison to admit, but visual art will always be my first love. I like fooling around on the computer and doing design things, but I really love to take pen to paper and just draw. For me, the line between telling a story with text and telling it through visuals is blurred, and I’d like to incorporate more visuals into my text for the next one.

PS: What’s up next for you? Your website mentions a new novel for next year, You Can Kill Anyone. Can you say a few words about that book, or any other projects you have in the works?

LF: You Can Kill Anyone could be considered a continuation of Nine Kinds, but it’s really a stand-alone story. Some of the characters make appearances in the next one, like Father Costa in a flashback. Jimmy Bible is a main character in the next one, where he is only mentioned as an ancillary character in Nine Kinds. But, it’s a lot like the neighborhood, where you may not know someone personally, but you know their father or sister or cousin and you can relate to them because of that relationship. We’ll see how the next one goes.

"In Nine Kinds of Pain" by Leonard Fritz (New Pulp Press, 2011)

Opening Leonard Fritz’s In Nine Kinds of Pain is like stepping into the Noir Asylum for the Mentally Insane. It’s cracked-out crime fiction at its finest and most fucked up. There’s power in Fritz’s words, and every page seems capable of catching you off-guard, holding you at gunpoint, stealing your wallet, busting your nose, and leaving you bleeding, black and blue, and blubbering—in a metaphorical sense, that is. In real life, I’d never volunteer for an ordeal like that, but in a book, that’s exactly the sort of stylish bravado I want to see, and it is doubly impressive coming from a debut novelist. In Nine Kinds of Pain is ambitious, but more importantly it is also successful—not to mention batshit crazy, and pretty damn funny.

How does one even go about describing the story? It’s like an explosion of bad people, bad intentions, and bad feelings. There’s Baby, a prostitute who is left bleeding on a pile of garbage by a brutish client; now she wants to get the hell out of Detroit once and for all. Then there’s her two-timing boyfriend, Dante, who’s gotten involved with some dangerous dudes. Father Costa is an alky priest with a bad case of DTs, and whose increasingly whacked-out religious visions all center around Baby. Then you got Dallas, a desperate, horny, and suicidal cop whose wife has dumped him. Meanwhile, Dallas’ crackhead colleague, Ron Frady, is knee-deep in an a big scheme that will either make him rich or get everyone above killed.

Phew—that wasn’t easy, and even that doesn’t do In Nine Kinds of Pain justice. Fritz has constructed a story that doesn’t rely on a linear mystery. There’s only one way this story can end—and that is badly. We know “whodunit” because we’re following them every step of the way. In true noir fashion, Fritz is more interested in the motivating factors that force his characters to make such terrible, foolish decisions. Take for example Father Costa. When he turns the vestry upside-down for a bottle of anything to take the edge off, we feel every shake and every drop of cold sweat. And as his preoccupation for Baby turns into a delusional nightmare in which he plays Jesus, we walk through every Biblical fantasy alongside him. By the end, little that Father Costa says or does makes much sense in the real world, but inside his head, he is playing out a religious drama of futile redemption and martyrdom. Who knows what the rest of the world thinks of Father Costa—we never see him from their perspective. Fritz burrows deep inside the priest’s own booze-addled consciousness, and from his perspective, everything is at it should be. It’s a wild ride seeing the world through Father Costa’s eyes, and he’s only one character among many in this psycho-prismatic novel.

When it comes to style, Leonard Fritz can be as daring and bonkers as his characters—but he’s also a heck of a lot smarter and more self-controlled. The fractured narrative and experimental prose suggested William Burroughs, while the stream of consciousness and gutter rhapsody reminded me of Henry Miller. I mention these authors not only to suggest the sophistication and high-quality of Fritz’s writing, but also to point out that In Nine Kinds of Pain isn’t your run-of-the-mill crime fiction novel. It’s a welcome reminder of just how far-reaching, diverse, and experimental the genre can be. Fritz is an exciting and fearless writer. Throughout the novel, he breaks the narrative and delivers a series of chapters titled, “Here is Wisdom.” These are didactic, direct-addresses from an unknown narrator to the reader, talking about Detroit, the hierarchy of the streets, and the down-low on politics, drugs, and violence that contextualize the story for non-natives. It’s like a tour guide given by Travis Bickle: bitter, disgusted, intolerant, but strangely understanding and poetically perceptive. Fritz’s literary arsenal also includes comic panels (drawn by himself—damn, he’s talented!), and even a mathematical equation, to tell his story.

Call me crazy, but as dark as the book is, I also thought it was pretty funny. That’s one of the things I like most about noir—things are terrible, but sometimes you just have to laugh. And I laughed a lot when I was reading In Nine Kinds of Pain. One of my favorite passages had to do with Dallas and his failed attempt to get back with his ex, Liz. As if things couldn’t get worse for the guy, when he gets home, his neighbor’s dog is gone. The guy is so pathetic, he doesn’t even have his own dog to mourn over—he has to look across the street. Here’s the passage as written by Fritz: “He had been saddened after his date with Liz, a date that didn't go as well as he had hoped, a date in which he had pulled out his penis. He'd been further saddened when he'd returned home and had discovered that Smiley, the one true bright spot in his life, the smile in most smile-less days, was gone.”

I’m not sure whether the Detroit Chamber of Commerce should put a hit out on Fritz or give the man an award—hopefully the latter—because as vicious and vile as the city comes across in the book, it is written with such loving pride and protectiveness. You get the feeling that if anyone else said anything bad about Detroit, Fritz would be the first one to step up and defend his city. While New York City inches closer and closer towards Disneyland, Fritz’s Detroit still has an edge to it. I’ve never been to there but, oddly enough, after reading this book, I kind of want to go. (But I’ll probably stay away from the neighborhoods where Baby, Dallas, and company hang out.)

In Nine Kinds of Pain isn’t for the cozy-inclined—there’s nothing wrong those types of novels, and I occasionally want something lighter as well, but it is worth knowing what you are getting in for with this book. These characters are at rock bottom, and they aren’t redeemed by any hearts of gold or final acts of absolution. They’re addicts, dealers, prostitutes, killers, no good lovers and back stabbers. The best you could say is that they do what they have to do to survive, but even that’s a stretch. What makes them appealing to me, at least, is that when they reach the end of their proverbial rope, they all seem more alive than ever before. Their lives may suck, and they may hate Detroit, but man, they really want to hang on to what little they have. In a weird way, they value existence more than many. These aren’t boring characters. They’re not apathetic and they don’t sit down and watch sitcoms until the cows come home. They’re active and they’re crazy and they’re funny and they’re interesting as hell. Sure, they screw up their lives and everyone else’s, but at least they don’t go down quietly. There’s something wonderful about reading characters so full of life, even if it is an admittedly unpleasant one. But thankfully, even that doesn’t stop them from living—or dying—to the fullest.

Heath Lowrance Interview

What happens when a nuthouse runaway makes the acquaintance of a semi-psychotic reverend in a Memphis laundromat and the pair decides to take a road trip to North Mississippi? Get your riot gear on and prepare for the chaos. Neither crack dealer nor churchgoer is safe from this duo in The Bastard Hand, the debut novel of Heath Lowrance. The book was published by New Pulp Press, and it’s a real wild trip across the American South. Lowrance’s pen is on fire, and he writes with conviction, originality, and energy. For my full review, click here.

Lowrance was kind enough to answer some questions for Pulp Serenade about The Bastard Hand, as well as say a few words about his forthcoming projects.

Pulp Serenade: You begin The Bastard Hand with “In the beginning…” – So, how did The Bastard Hand begin for you? What’s the genesis of the story?

Heath Lowrance: It's been a few years since I wrote it, so I don't really remember what sparked the idea. I know I was reading a lot of William Faulkner at the time, and some Charles Willeford, and those two very different writers bled into my head and did a bunch of unpleasant things. I think I wanted to do something really visceral, something that didn't flinch away from ideas we normally think of as sacred, although the religious stuff just sorta crept in there when I wasn't paying attention. Next thing I knew, it took center stage.

PS: I’m a sucker for first lines, they’re one of my favorite parts of novels. Is there any story behind your first line: “My Apocalypse began without the fanfare you might expect.” Did you consider other first lines?

HL: That first line was one of the last things I wrote, actually. I didn't know when I started the book it would end so violently. But when it was done, I thought it might be a good idea to clue the reader in about what he or she was getting into here. A guy getting kicked out of a bar is no big deal. But that guy later deciding that he's God sorta shines a different light on it.

PS: The Bastard Hand doesn’t have traditional chapter numbers or titles. It’s an interesting and bold choice that I really liked – what were your intentions behind this?

HL: The idea was to keep it moving, keep it all feeling like part of a long narrative stream, like a guy telling you a story. And chapter breaks, when you think about it, are sort of false, anyway. Chapter One, Chapter Two... I mean, who cares what the chapter number is?

Some readers didn't care for that approach, though, and I guess I can understand that. That's no clear place to put a bookmark and go to bed. I'm trying the Ken Bruen approach with my next book-- that is, having chapter breaks but not calling them chapter breaks.

PS: I really liked your short story “Testament” – it’s gusty, clever, and pretty damn funny. And like The Bastard Hand, it reinterprets the Bible through new eyes. I could almost imagine Phineas Childe reciting it. Was it written at the same time as The Bastard Hand, or is there any other connection between the two?

HL: I'm glad you like “Testament”--it's supposed to be the first in a series of little stories that will eventually re-tell the entire Old Testament from the POV of God himself, without me making up anything except maybe the Big Man's state of mind at the time. I've sort of stalled on it a little, because it's been a good ten years since I've read the Bible and I intend to be as true to that book as possible. I have some heavy re-reading in the future...

Other than my bizarre fascination with the concept of religious faith, they don't have much to do with each other. The Bastard Hand isn't trying to be anything but a good story, albeit with some serious religious underpinnings. Testament, though... well, I'd be lying if I said there wasn't an agenda there.... ha.

PS: As you were writing The Bastard Hand, did the story change much from the original direction you wanted to take it in?

HL: Yeah, for sure. As I said, all that religious stuff just snuck in on me and took over. I wasn't aware until later that I'd put words in Charlie's mouth--and sometimes in Reverend Childe's mouth--that reflected some of my own thoughts about religion. I hope this doesn't scare anyone off from the book...primarily, it's just a fast-paced, ultra-violent Southern Gothic Psycho-Noir.

PS: Classic noir novels seem to be set in LA or NY, but now we’re seeing a lot more of the country – Woodrell is writing about the Ozarks, you writing about Memphis and North Mississippi, and Sallis is also writing about Tennessee in his John Turner trilogy. What do you make of this trend?

HL: It's the sense of isolation, I think. It breeds paranoia and uneasiness for outsiders. The Ozarks or the Appalachians or the woods of North Mississippi still have the very heavy weight of history, they still have the dark charm of a scary folk tale or ghost story. Even Memphis, which is obviously NOT isolated in the same way, still wears all its past sins on its sleeves, apparent in the old cotton warehouses, for instance: they're high-priced bungalows now, but it was only a hundred and fifty years ago that those very same warehouses were where slaves were worked and beaten. Market Street or Front Street, which is now so bohemian, was once the place where black men were sold to the highest bidder.

You can't get away from any of that in Memphis. The ghosts of it still linger downtown. That sort of backdrop really lends itself well to dark crime stories.

PS: It seems to me that one of the challenges of writing noir is negotiating how dark a character can be before losing the reader’s sympathy. Both Phineas and Charlie have their share of psychotic moments, but to me there’s also something kind of “normal” about them, if I can use that word. They’re sympathetic and, in a way, relatable. Or at least understandable. This is my long-winded way of asking, can you say a few words about developing your main characters, and what challenges you faced when writing them?

HL: Both Charlie and the Reverend were amazingly easy to write. Maybe they're both relatable because the idea of good guy/bad guy just didn't come into the equation. I tried to give both of them real foibles--Charlie his desperate need for human contact, the Reverend his burning desire for... um, booze? Women? But more importantly his thirst to bring Hell down upon the town of Cuba Landing. All those things are twisted, I suppose, but easily understandable.

PS: Did you ever encounter any roadblocks when writing the novel? If so, how did you keep from giving up or scrapping the project altogether?

HL: When I was about halfway through the book, some years ago, my entire life collapsed around me. Got a divorce, went into a monstrous tailspin of depression. Crashed on many sofas, ultimately slept in the back of my car. This crazy shit went on for almost two years before I finally got my act together (well, as much as possible!). When I finally got back to The Bastard Hand I had a very different perspective. So the second half of the book is maybe a bit angrier, a bit more "spiraling out-of-control"-feeling, whereas the beginning is a bit funnier.

PS: What does your writing station look like?

HL: It's a god-awful mess. Books and papers everywhere. Notebooks and loose change, flash drives and Batman action figures.

PS: Token goofy interview question: favorite snack while writing?

HL: White Cheddar Cheez-Its, which drives my wife nuts. That cheezy stuff sticks to your fingers and gets all over the keyboard.

PS: For a while you were hosting an Essential Noir series on your blog, Psycho Noir, where guests contributed their own lists. Where did the idea for this come from, and what does your To Be Read pile look like now?

HL: The idea came only because I was truly interested in what other people with good taste were reading. And it paid off--there were several writers mentioned that I'd never heard of, let alone read, and I immediately started in on making myself familiar with them.

To Be Read, currently: Vincent Zandri's re-issue of Godchild is waiting for review, and I'm really looking forward to it. I just bought a stack of Loren Estleman books that I haven't read yet. And another stack of Frank Kane stuff. More Richard Stark, because I can't allow a month to go by without reading him. Also, you had suggested a few good Westerns for me, which I really need to get to because I'm thinking I'd like to write a Western eventually.

PS: What’s up next for Heath Lowrance?

HL: Good Lord willin' and the creek don't rise, I have a second novel, called City of Heretics, which takes my pathological need to poke at religion to ridiculous lengths. There's an agent looking at it now, the agent of my dreams, actually, and with any luck she'll take the bait. In the meantime, I'm at work on a third, which has nothing to do with religion and everything to do with Professional Wrestling. It's called The Heel.

Those, and a handful of short stories here and there. The usual.

PS: Thanks, Heath, for your participation and best wishes for The Bastard Hand!

"The Bastard Hand" by Heath Lowrance (New Pulp Press, 2011)

If someone asks you where the wildest, craziest stuff is happening these days, point them in the direction of New Pulp Press.

Their latest is Heath Lowrance’s The Bastard Hand, and it blazes a trail of chaos, crack houses, and unbridled craziness through the back alleys of Memphis and the backwoods of North Mississippi.

It all begins in a Memphis laundromat. Charlie Wesley, who recently escaped from the loony bin, meets Reverend Phineas Childe, a preacher just passing through the city on his way to Cuba landing, a small town in North Mississippi. Wesley is broke, beaten-up, and in need of a doctor—as well as a friend. And friendship is just what Phineas Childe is willing to provide. But Phineas is no ordinary preacher—he drinks, swears, frequents brothels, and his sermons border on the insane. As Wesley tries to figure out what Phineas is really up to, Wesley’s own life begins to spiral out of control as he gets involved with a band of crooks with plans to knock over a crack house.

Noir has its distinguished lineage of crazies, presided over by Jim Thompson’s Lou Ford (The Killer Inside Me). To this list we can now add Charlie Wesley, Lowrance’s narrator and the eyes through which we watch Phineas Childe’s master plan unfold. One of the challenges of employing a psychotic narrator is not to make their neuroses too obvious, or too schematic. Lowrance, like Thompson before him, succeeds in not only making his narrator compelling and disturbingly relatable, but also making their vision “normal” for the reader. Sure, we know something’s not right, but the true horror of the situation doesn’t reveal itself until late in the novel, when noir’s diabolical hand of fate is too far along for it to stop now.

Another thing I like about The Bastard Hand is Lowrance’s choice of locations: Memphis and rural North Mississippi. The stereotype of Noir is LA or NY, at night, shot in black and white, the neon glow of a bar sign reflecting off the grimy pool in the gutter. Yes, but there’s a lot more to noir than that, and a lot more to the country. American Crime Fiction has written its own geographical chronicle of the country, just as it has written its own history of the nation and its people. Fredric Brown set The Far Cry in Taos; James Sallis sets his John Turner trilogy in Tennessee; Megan Abbott takes on Phoenix in Bury Me Deep; Daniel Woodrell has the Ozarks; Vicki Hendricks and Day Keene used Florida; and soon Frank Bill will be introducing us to Crimes in Southern Indiana. On the one hand, The Bastard Hand takes us on a wild ride with a couple of psychos; on the other, it takes us on a tour into parts of the country that you might not have visited before. Maybe they’re familiar to you because (like Lowrance) you have lived there. I’ve never even been to Memphis or Mississippi before, but they sure make a great backdrop for a crime novel.

Part of the fun of The Bastard Hand is watching an apocalypse slowly unfurl from quiet, humble roots to a maelstrom that engulfs an entire town. That sort of escalating bedlam makes for an entertaining reader. More compelling than the mayhem, however, are the contrasting ways that Charlie and Phineas deal with it. Lowrance smartly made this duo like yin and yang. Charlie is impulsive—he rushes into crack houses without so much as a weapon, says what is on mind without thinking through what might happen, and generally lives life flying by the seat of his pants. Phineas, on the other hand, is the more calculated type. He’s intelligent, and his mind works with a labyrinthine logic. They’re both as demented as they are normal, just in different ways. There’s a human vulnerability to Charlie and a fiendish genius to Phineas; at the same time, Charlie was the one in a padded room while Phineas was out driving around the country.

Phineas explains to Charlie his philosophy about sanity and insanity:

“You gotta learn to use people’s craziness, son. That’s what it’s all about….Every single person in the world is a little bit off, y’ know, in one way or another. Everyone’s got their own secret little sickness that they nurture and care for. The wise man moves through the world, spotting the craziness and embracing it. It can work for you, if you know how to pull it out.”

Who’s the crazy one? Hell if I know. What I do know is that both these guys were damned fun to read about, and The Bastard Hand is a hell of a good read. The Bastard Hand may have just come out, but I’m already looking forward to seeing what devilish things Lowrance has up his sleeves for us next.

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Check out Heath Lowrance's blog, Psycho Noir.

Jonathan Woods Interview

Jonathan Woods’ short story collection Bad Juju & Other Tales of Madness and Mayhem (New Pulp Press) was one of the wildest literary rides of 2010. Some of the stories reminded me of Bukowski writing a 70s Men’s Action Novel, others had the surreal fever of the Hell sequence at the end of Jim Thompson’s The Getaway – but these comparisons don’t do justice to the originality of Woods’ collection. They’re funny, sexy, thrilling, and all-around terrific stories.

Woods’ has that rare zing of spontaneity and impulsiveness that make a story seem to come alive on the page. Temptation lies around the corner for his characters, and more often than not they follow it to the end of the line. They do it for sex, money, a need for adventure, out of drunkenness, and occasionally just plain stupidity. Woods’ characters are a diverse lot, and they’re a fun, albeit sometimes dangerous, lot to be around. But isn’t that what you want from a story? Something to take you out of your everyday life for 10 minutes and give you a jolt, some charge of narrative electricity to wake you up from the quotidian humdrum nausea? Woods takes you around the world – Mexico, Venezuela and, heck, even Southern Vermont – and there’s plenty of exhilaration and peril to experience at every turn.

Take “Drive By” – for my money, one of the best stories in the collection – about a frat boy taken for a ride by a gorgeous, mysterious woman who encounters danger, sex, and excitement. This pulpy cocktail is at the heart of many of Bad Juju’s stories, and it’s irresistible. In the excellent story “Looking for Goa,” a criminal couple’s bond is put to the test as they hide out after a bank robbery. Woods mixes taut suspense with perceptive comments about human behavior and relationships, capping it all off with an effectively clever twist. My favorite of Woods’ endings is from “Dog Daze,” about a woman who tries to come between a man and his dog. Woods times the punchline just right, achieving a nice balance of ironic humor and an open-ended ambiguity that leaves you wondering where the characters will go next.

I had the pleasure of meeting Jonathan Woods at NoirCon 2010. Afterward, he was kind enough to answer some questions by email for Pulp Serenade.

Pulp Serenade: How did this collection come together?

Jonathan Woods: The stories in Bad Juju were written over about 2½ years. The first was “Ideas of Murder in Southern Vermont.” I stole the title from Wallace Steven’s famous poem. After that story, I have no recollection which stories were written before or after which other stories. My friend the painter Bill Komodore was my first reader for most of them.

The organization of the stories in the published book was the result of consultations with the spirit world and some dreams I had. One of my favorite plays is called 52 Pickup by T.J. Dawe and Rita Bozi. The titles of 52 scenes from a relationship, from beginning to end, are written on a pack of playing cards, one scene per card. To begin the play one of the two actors throws the cards in the air. The two actors randomly pick up cards one at a time, acting out each scene of the relationship in the random order in which each card is retrieved. I think this same idea applies to the arrangement of the stories in Bad Juju. That being said, I like the order in which they appear in the book. And the last line of the last story ends the book perfectly.

PS: At what point did New Pulp Press get involved, and how did you link up with them?

JW: I met Jon Bassoff in May 2009 when we signed the agreement by which New Pulp Press agreed to publish Bad Juju. I went up to Denver to meet him in person, to make sure he didn’t look like Quasimodo. He favors black T-shirts, jeans and local Denver microbrews. A few weeks before that he’d read Bad Juju and loved it.

Jon’s company New Pulp Press is one of the really exciting new ventures in crime fiction publishing. Along with the crime fiction series published by PM Press and Europa. The best new writing is being published by small presses. Examples on the lit side include: Tinkers by Paul Harding, publisher: Bellevue Literary Press; Joshua Mohr’s Termite Parade published by Two Dollar Radio; and Lord of Misrule by Jaimy Gordon from McPherson & Company. That’s where it’s happening. And on the web. About half of the stories in Bad Juju were originally published in various webzines. 
 


PS: Where do your stories typically begin -- with a character, a location, a title, or something else?

JW: They begin when I lower a bucket into the old id and draw it back up. “Maracaibo” – I just liked the name. It felt like one of those late 1940s adventure movies with William Bendix and some sexy broad set in the tropics. “An Orphan’s Tale” was inspired by two sentences in a Eudora Welty novella called “Moon Lake.”

PS: What is your writing routine like?

JW: When I’m writing a story, it’s like I’m in a fever, working night and day until it’s done. There are gaps of varying length between each story. Writing a novel is different. You have to hack at it day in and day out like cutting your way through a jungle with a machete. I write exclusively on a computer. Some of my revisions I do by hand on printed pages. I like to write late at night. There’s something about that time, when you’re totally enclosed in stasis. The world cast into darkness.


PS: Are these stories based on your own travels at all?

JW: I have traveled to all the places I write about except Maracaibo. All the stories are strictly made up by yours truly, though “Incident in the Tropics” was extrapolated from a real life incident I witnessed in Panama. 
 


PS: What character do you see yourself in most?

JW: I am all my characters. And they are me.


PS: You open the book with two terrific quotes. One is from Dashiell Hammett, "I haven't laughed so much over anything since the hogs ate my kid brother," and the other from Donald Barthelme, "Oh, there is nothing better than intelligent conversation except thrashing about in bed with a naked girl and Egmont Light Italic." How and why did you
select these two particular quotes?

JW: The ingredients of my stories are sex, violence and humor. Sex and violence are around us every day, in the newspapers, on the late night TV news. The humor part is to keep me from putting a bullet through my brain. The two quotes kind of tie into that. The Hammett quote combines violence and humor. The Barthelme quote combines sex, humor and a certain wistfulness. The two quotes just seemed like a great way to introduce my stories.

PS: What other writers would you pick as major influences?

JW: Chandler and Cain, obviously. Poe. Barry Gifford. Chester Himes. Henry Miller. Alexander Trocchi’s Young Adam. Nabokov’s Laughter in the Dark. Lowry’s Under the Volcano. Frank Miller. Quentin Tarantino. The list goes on.
 


PS: Let's put you in the shoes of Earl Thigpen in "Drive By." A gorgeous, strange woman picks you up, buys you dinner, then gives you an AK-47 and asks you to kill her brother. Do you say yes?

JW: Anything can happen.
 


PS: A reoccurring motif in your collection is characters traveling abroad who wind up in trouble. Do you think these same characters would get in trouble if they just stayed home, or are they unconsciously seeking out trouble themselves?

JW: For me noir and tropical countries just seem to go together. But actually ten of the 19 stories in Bad Juju are set in the States. My characters would get into deep shit no matter where they are.
 


PS: There's a terrific line from your story "Maracaibo": "Bill watches her leggy departure, fascinated by the enigma of desire." This "enigma of desire" seems to be a central theme to many of your stories, could you say a few words about what it means to your characters?

JW: Love and lust are major plot points in my stories, as they are in life. 
 

PS: Are there any plans to expand any of these stories into full-length novels?

JW: Not at the moment. I actually enjoy writing short stories more than novels. There’s an intense period of creation and then you have this object called a story that works like a multifaceted gemstone. I think short stories are one of the great contributions of America to literature. Think of all the great names of our short story writers: Poe, Bierce, Eudora Welty, Katherine Anne Porter, Raymond Carver, John Cheever, Paul Bowles. 
 


PS: Bad Juju has taken you on the road recently -- we met at NoirCon in Philadelphia. Where did you travel to, and what were your experiences like with your first book?

JW: Since Bad Juju was published in April 2010, I’ve been traveling around quite a bit promoting the book. This has included a reading at the KGB Bar in NYC, Noir@theBar in St. Louis, BookPeople and the 2010 Texas Book Festival in Austin, Murder By the Book in Houston, Bouchercon and Noircon and a bunch of appearances in my hometown of Dallas. It’s been great fun. I’ve met tons of great people. And I love reading excerpts from the stories aloud. It adds a whole other dimension.
 


PS: What's up next for you? Any news or projects you can share?

JW: I’m working on some new stories. There’s a new one up on Plots with Guns called “Swingers Anonymous.” This year 2010 has been very much devoted to promoting Bad Juju. Hard work, and lots of fun.

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Be sure to visit Jonathan Woods online at Southern Noir, and visit New Pulp Press to purchase Bad Juju & Other Tales of Madness and Mayhem.

"Flight to Darkness" by Gil Brewer (Gold Medal 1952/New Pulp Press 2009)

As its title proclaims loud and clear, Gil Brewer’s Flight to Darkness is a monument of pulp psychosis—a turbulent, never-ending nose-dive into the depths of one man’s paranoia that, to his utter and horrifying dismay, repeatedly comes true. Nightmares manifest in his real life almost as fast as he can think them up which, considering the degree of his mental trauma, means that things turn bad awful quick for Eric Garth. Originally published by Gold Medal in 1952, we can thank New Pulp Press for giving the book its first reappearance in fifty-seven years. This marks the first release of their “Legends of Pulp” series.

Flight to Darkness opens on Eric’s last day at a California sanitarium where he is being treated for post-traumatic stress disorder from his experiences during the Korean War. He dreads sleep because of a single, reoccurring dream in which he murders his wealthy half-brother, Frank, with a wooden mallet. His only consolation is Leda, a nurse who gives him plenty of close, personal attention. When Eric leaves the sanitarium, he drives off in a new car with Leda, his wife-to-be, in the passenger seat. She’s anxious to get married, but he doesn’t trust his sanity enough to commit just yet. En-route to Florida to reunite with his family, things literally turn south. Eric is suspected in a hit-and-run incident, and then his brother Frank shows up to re-institutionalize him. And then Leda stops visiting him at the hospital. Suspecting the worst, Eric plots his escape—only nothing can prepare him for the mess that awaits him back home.

As in Brewer’s excellent 13 French Street, the main character’s increasingly manic, warped consciousness infects every aspect of the narrative. The first-person narration entraps us in his fragile worldview, which is always on the precipice of shattering. Just like the claustrophobic house in 13 French Street, the physical environments of Flight to Darkness are manifestations of Eric’s psychological states. The movement of the novel is from the sterile, falsely calm sanitarium to the wild backwoods of Florida, with raging rivers and shifting earth that crumbles under their feet because of the torrential rains (a perfect symbol of the characters’ own insecurities).

Communicating the mental distress of his characters is one of Gil Brewer’s strengths as a writer. Physically, the novel alternates between stasis and motion: confinement in hospitals, jails, and secluded cabs, contrasts to the larger action of driving across the country, breaking out of hospitals, and car chases deep into the woods. While the plot shifts between these two modes, the internal narrative of Eric’s mental state continually pushes forward at an erratic rate. Even in the moments of relative still, there is never calm: rising tension, but never release (until the climactic finale scene, that is).

So where does this “flight to darkness” take Eric? Nowhere, really. Geographically it takes him around the world (if we mark the start of his journey during the Korean War and the conclusion in Florida), but psychologically he realizes much of what he already knew and feared before. Even when he first meets Leda, Eric thinks to himself “There she was. My fate stood right there in the door…A fate that was going to be mixed up with death, murder, money, and hell.” He knows she wants money, and it is his brother that has the money; the doctors’ concerns for his own stability are proved right (aided by some scheming frame-ups); his brother’s criticisms of his uncontrollability and penchant for wasting money seem right-on; and he even throws away (at first) a loving relationship for a second chance at a knowingly dangerous fling with Leda. This actualization of one’s own self-doubts is a reoccurring theme not only in Gil Brewer’s work, but also of many of the pulp paperback originals of the era, and one of the defining characteristics of noir literature.

As one would expect with Gil Brewer, Flight to Darkness is filled with snappy dialogue, creative and vivid euphemisms, and striking phrases. Here are just a few of my favorites:

“I cursed her. She was a complete savage, bursting with passion, lustful, wanton, wild. At first it was like drinking hot red wine. Then the whole world shuddered and rocked, with the trees thick and mingled with her hair and the smell of it with the sunny shade, a dark blinding explosion.”

“The open door of the sedan swung gently, to and fro. Wild and with unseen tears in the sunny afternoon.”

“My chest felt as though it was in a vise with somebody slowly turning the handle so my breath came shorter and shorter until I might not be able to breathe at all.”

“It was wild crazy loving and she said things only I would ever hear and half-recall as we tumbled headlong and viciously up through the blackness into the star-studded night.”

[Cover art by Kenney Mencher.]