The Friday Project: WILD AT HEART by Barry Gifford

Patti Abbott is working on a project called Fridays: The Book You Have to Read, the gist of which is to refresh people’s memories about great books that might have slipped off the radar. Last week we did Horace McCoy’s KISS TOMORROW GOODBYE. This week we’re picking – trumpet parp, if you will, maestro – Barry Gifford’s WILD AT HEART.

“Findin’ out the meanin’ of life and all is fine, far as it goes, but dead’s dead, you know what I mean?”
  Barry Gifford, WILD AT HEART

Barry Gifford doesn’t waste words. WILD AT HEART – THE STORY OF SAILOR AND LULA (1990) is a novel written by an author who is also a prize-winning poet, which partially explains his ability to pack 44 chapters into 156 pages and also goes some way towards explaining the impressionistic, imagistic style he employs. Each chapter is a short, punchy vignette in which Sailor and Lula outline their philosophy on life while striving to stay one step ahead of the law and the potential killer Lula’s Mama has set on their trail. A seamless blend of ’30s hard-boiled brevity and the on-the-road Beat tradition of the ’50s, WILD AT HEART comes on like the deranged offspring of Horace McCoy and Jack Kerouac as he struggles to draw breath in the sultry atmosphere of a William Faulkner short story.
  On his release from prison after serving a term for manslaughter, Sailor Ripley breaks parole and takes to the road with Lula Pace Fortune in order to escape the oppressive grasp of Lula’s disproving mother, Marietta. The plot doesn’t get any more convoluted than that; what sustains WILD AT HEART’s narrative is the colourful cast of characters the couple encounter on their flight west towards California. By turns intriguing, bizarre, grotesque and lethal, the collection of misfits only serves to confirm Lula’s heartfelt conviction that the world is indeed ‘wild at heart and weird on top.’
  Imbued with Southern gentility and decorum, Gifford’s style has been described by critic Patrick Beach as ‘chicken-fried noir’ and – as per the rules of hard-boiled fiction – a happy ending is never on the cards for the star-crossed lovers. “Safe?” exclaims Marietta’s friend, Dal. “Safe? Ain’t that a stitch. Ain’t nobody nowhere never been safe a second of their life.” The frisson generated by a blend of uncertain direction and inevitable danger crackles from the back seat of Lula’s white ’75 Bonneville convertible. A distraught Lula can force Sailor to dump a crazy hitchhiker when the kid gets a little too weird for her liking, but she remains all too aware of the overwhelming forces – not least of which is that of Fate – ranged against the pair:

Sailor stroked Lula’s head.
“It ain’t gonna be forever, peanut.”
Lula closed her eyes.
“I know, Sailor. Nothin’ is.”

We Just Want Your Extra Time And Your … KISS

Patti Abbott is working on a project called Fridays: The Book You Have to Read, the gist of which is to refresh people’s memories about great books that might have slipped off the radar. Last week we did Edward Anderson’s THIEVES LIKE US. This week we’re picking – trumpet parp, if you will, maestro – Horace McCoy’s KISS TOMORROW GOODBYE.

“One of the nastiest novels ever published in this country,” declared Time Magazine. “The real nihilist of the hard-boiled school, the laureate of the blank wall,” claimed Geoffrey O’Brien. The writer was Horace McCoy, the novel KISS TOMORROW GOODBYE (1948). By then French writers such as Sartre, Andre Gide and Andre Malraux were ranking McCoy alongside Faulkner, Steinbeck and Hemingway; Simone de Beauvoir went so far as to suggest that McCoy’s THEY SHOOT HORSES, DON’T THEY? (1935) was “the first existentialist novel to have appeared in America.”
  McCoy earned the existential outlook the hard way. He fought as a pilot in WWI, winning the Croix de Guerre in the process. From 1919 to 1930 he worked as a sports editor for The Dallas Journal, and also co-founded the Dallas Little Theatre. Then the Depression hit. Finding himself out of work, McCoy wrote short stories that were published in Detective-Dragnet, Detective Action Stories and Black Mask, and struggled to become a Hollywood actor.
  His experience of Hollywood during the Depression provided the material for the downbeat melodramas THEY SHOOT HORSES, DON’T THEY?, NO POCKETS IN A SHROUD (1937), and I SHOULD HAVE STAYED HOME (1938). He finally found work in Hollywood, but as a screenwriter for B-movie westerns; by the time the French writers ‘discovered’ his novels in the ‘40s, McCoy was “broke, depressed and fat from too much food and booze.”
  KISS TOMORROW GOODBYE offered redemption. McCoy’s most ambitious work, the novel follows Ralph Cotter, a Phi Beta Kappa scholar who remoulds himself as a viciously immoral killer after his breakout from prison (pausing only to head-shoot his partner, so he won’t slow him down). Once out, Cotter organises shakedown of a corrupt small-town police chief, dupes a millionaire’s daughter into falling for him, and generally engages in a relentless one-man assault on the mores of middle America. An unusual blend of rapacious action and contemplative self-examination from the reprehensible anti-hero, KISS TOMORROW GOODBYE prompted Kirkus Reviews to predict, “This will probably be quarantined from libraries but … this has a literate, nerve-lacerating, whip-lashing effectiveness.”
  Amen to that. – Declan Burke

Nobody Move, This Is A Review: WHAT BURNS WITHIN by Sandra Ruttan

What burns within WHAT BURNS WITHIN is Sandra Ruttan. There is, among the six or seven sub-plots, a story about arson, and the title could also refer to personal hells, but what really burns, with a cold intensity, is Ruttan’s seriousness, the clarity of her intent, the laser-like precision she brings to the process of saying that the truth is subjective and the universe is pitilessly indifferent, so let’s roll up our sleeves and do something about it.
  The characters who roll up their sleeves here are RCMP officers Craig, Tain and Ashlyn, who begin the story investigating child abductions and potentially related arsons and rape cases in the Vancouver area. The trio’s complex history is explored as the three main stories weave together, although Ruttan is clever enough to use this material to propel the story forwards rather than rely on flashbacks and digressions that might slow the scintillating pace.
  Short and snappy chapters, terse dialogue, staccato delivery of minimalist description – Ruttan’s style harks back to the classic hardboiled era, although she’s more Horace McCoy than James M. Cain or Dashiell Hammet. McCoy, like Jim Thompson, always had bigger fish to fry, and told more than tales rooted in criminality. As with Thompson, and Ruttan, McCoy was fascinated by conflict, its roots and possible resolutions, and particularly the conflicts of the mind (WHAT BURNS WITHIN also engages with notions of justice and forgiveness, religious extremism and secular self-sacrifice, damaged sexuality and the abuse of power). And yet Ruttan is very much a shower rather than a teller: there are very few internal monologues to be heard in WHAT BURNS WITHIN, the subtleties of the characters’ complex psychologies being drawn out through their interactions with their colleagues. That’s a difficult skill to make invisible, but it’s one of Ruttan’s most effective weapons.
  It’s a war out there. Writers wage war on the credibility of the reader with every weapon they have, and most crime writers do so by having their characters go into battle in a quixotic, unwinnable war against criminality. Sandra Ruttan has gone to war under a banner of honesty, bringing an integrity to the genre that results in a bleakly depicted but ultimately compassionate, fascinating and meticulously researched police procedural that dares to say that we – as a community, city, society or culture – are entitled to believe we can become better people. – Declan Burke

(A Minister for Propaganda Elf writes: The Grand Vizier would like it to be known that Sandra Ruttan has previously reviewed THE BIG O, thus raising issues of log-rolling and mutual back-scratching, most of which are discussed at length here.)

Crimes Against Crime Fiction # 2,102: The Daily Telegraph

The Daily Telegraph ran a feature on Saturday entitled ‘50 Crime Writers To Read Before You Die’, and we’re still not sure if we should laugh or cry. Yes, we’ve always had a sneaking fondness for GREAT EXPECTATIONS as a noir-ish tale – but Charles Dickens as a crime writer? Hmmmmm ... Happy days for The Artist Formerly Known As Colin Bateman, who gets the following entry: “Any appearance by Bateman’s regular protagonist, journalist Dan Starkey, heralds the imminent death in amusing fashion of half the population of Belfast. Comic thrillers that are actually comic and thrilling.” Hurrah! Okay, now for the crying bit: the list of 50 does not – repeat not – include James M. Cain, Ross Macdonald, John D. McDonald, W.R. Burnett or Horace McCoy. Seriously. But it does – repeat, does – include Benjamin Black. Wot? Benny Blanco? ARE YOU FRICKIN’ KIDDING US?????

Flick Lit # 12: Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye

“One of the nastiest novels ever published in this country,” declared Time. “The real nihilist of the hard-boiled school, the laureate of the blank wall,” claimed Geoffrey O’Brien. The writer was Horace McCoy, the novel Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye (1948). By then French writers such as Sartre and Gide were ranking McCoy alongside Faulkner, Steinbeck and Hemingway; Simone de Beauvoir went so far as to suggest that McCoy’s They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? (1935) was, “the first existentialist novel to have appeared in America.” A veteran of WWI, a pulp writer for Detective-Dragnet, Detective Action Stories and Black Mask, McCoy’s experience as a struggling actor in Hollywood during the Depression provided the material for the downbeat melodramas They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?, No Pockets in a Shroud (1937), and I Should Have Stayed Home (1938). He finally found work in Hollywood, but as a screenwriter for B-movie westerns. By the time the French writers ‘discovered’ his novels in the ’40s, McCoy was, he claimed, “broke, depressed and fat.” Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye offered redemption. The novel follows Ralph Cotter, a Phi Beta Kappa scholar who remoulds himself as an immoral killer after his breakout from prison. Once out, Cotter organises a shakedown of a corrupt small-town police chief, dupes a millionaire’s daughter into falling for him, and generally engages in a relentless one-man assault on the mores of middle America. An unusual blend of rapacious action and contemplative self-examination from a reprehensible anti-hero, Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye prompted Kirkus Reviews to predict: “This will probably be quarantined from libraries … (it) has a literate, nerve-lacerating, whip-lashing effectiveness.” Happily, James Cagney happened to be looking for “a really nasty role” that would cement his celluloid persona as Hollywood’s premier screen bastard. While his role in Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye (1950) resembled a reprise of Tom Power, his vainglorious gangster in Public Enemy, gone were the facial pyrotechnics, the grapefruits mashed in moll’s faces, the pathetic self-delusions. Instead Cotter was a phlegmatic character, whose sadistic outbursts of violence were all the more terrifying for their juxtaposition with Cotter’s charisma. Scripted by Harry Brown, the film was directed by Gordon Douglas, who cast a veritable who’s-who of B-movie noir stalwarts, among them Barbara Payton, Ward Bond, Steve Brodie and Barton MacLane (Bond and MacLane had teamed up before, as cops sharking Humphrey Bogart in The Maltese Falcon). The direction is classically taut, allowing Cagney every opportunity to chew the scenery and spit it back in the face of the audience. Even allowing for what the audience expected of a Cagney role, Ralph Cotter was a departure for 1950’s America. Callous immorality was one thing, but the leading man viciously beating on his on-screen girlfriend (Payton) was a slap in the face too far. The movie was duly panned by the critics, who obviously knew as much about what ticket buyers wanted back then as they do now … On the back of the film’s commercial success, McCoy sold an original script, Scalpel (1951) to Hall Wallis Productions; again, both novel and film were winners. McCoy was working on a new novel, The Hard Rock Man, when he suffered a heart-attack. When he died in 1955, at the age of 58, his widow had to sell his books and jazz collection to pay for his funeral.- Michael McGowan