pornokitsch

Underground Reading: A Purple Place for Dying by John D. MacDonald

A Purple Place for Dying (1964) is Travis McGee's third adventure and the best so far. 

After the discomfort of New York in Nightmare for Pink, Travis has left the big city for the small town. Although he's still not back in Florida (the location is sort of a geographically-ambiguous analogue for Texas), Travis is much more comfortable someplace where he gets to do his own driving. 

For once, I agree with him. 

Not above the driving, but I'm a sucker for a corrupt-small-town mystery. A dozen of MacDonald's best stand-alones are set in this genre, in the vein of Hammett's Glass Key or Jim Thompson's Killer Inside Me. It makes a great set-up for a timeless one-man-against-the-world storyline, and, as we well know, Travis loves to be that one man.

A Purple Place for Dying is also the best mystery in the series to date.

If you're up for mingling with the literary crowd, that Mieville fellow is speaking at an English PEN event on October 12. (We're only telling you because we have our tickets safely purchased.) William Gibson, China Mieville, BICS, MCM and the Pulps & Paperback Fair. October is shaping up to be one hell of a month.

Classic Covers: Drum Beat - Dominique by Stephen Marlowe

Chester Drum, international private eye, is one of my favorites. 

Stephen Marlowe (born Milton S. Lesser) not only plotted a series of lively (if improbable) jet-setting adventures, but also there was an overarching story to the entire series. Drum actually has a beginning and an ending - the character grows, the supporting cast changes and things happen for a purpose. 

Also, the covers are fantastic.

Loot x Borderlands

Yesterday we spent three hours in Borderlands, probably the finest genre bookshop in the world. We meticulously petted all the books and the investigative house Sphynx. The picture is a bit blurry - but underneath the stack of Hard Case Crime books is a pile of old Pulphouse publications - and underneath those is the prize of the batch - the first edition of Lovecraft & Dunsany's Survivor and Others.

 

We were also really pleased to see that Rebecca Levene's Cold Warriors had made it overseas. After taking this photo & giggling (because we're that kind of weird), we discovered the last two Hermetic Division promo pins in our bag, which we left with the wonderful manager, Jude. 

"San Francisco is the most depressing city in America. The come-latelys might not think so.... But she had lost it, boy. She used to give it away, and now she sells it to the tourists. She imitates herself. Her figure as thickened. The things she says now are mechanical and memorized. She overcharges for cynical services. Maybe if you are from Dayton or Amarillo or Wheeling or Scranton or Camden she can look like magic to you because you have not had a chance to see what a city can be."   -  John D. MacDonald, The Quick Red Fox (1964)

Underground Reading: Nightmare in Pink by John D. MacDonald

Nightmare in Pink (1964) is only Travis McGee's second adventure, but already John D. MacDonald is taking his most famous creation out of his comfort zone. 

Travis is a creature of his own little world - his boat, his docks, his beloved Florida waterways. Travis lives to sip good gin, stare intently at the ocean and shtup his needy sex-slaves - someplace with lots of sunshine. Not, say, New York.

Alas, in Nightmare in Pink, poor Travis is hauled far from port. Mike, Travis' army buddy, has a little sister in trouble. "Trouble" is McGee's watchword (more specifically, "desperate woman with no other recourse", but that's more a watch-phrase). Mike would take care of Nina's situation himself, but he's broken and blind - the result of an enemy attack that took place whilst Travis was off shagging hookers on leave. 

[I'm not making this up. Travis was, ahem, "wrapped in the thighs" of a geisha at the time that Mike was sustaining crippling injuries. Please keep note of this at the book's midway point, when he expounds mightily about cold-hearted whores and how he would never sink so low as to partake of one. Nice try, Trav.]

On wings of guilt & lust, Travis heads to New York to see what he can do for poor Nina.

Literature’s a democratizing force. Its power makes so much of the world accessible to anyone who can read, equally, without regard to anything about “who we are” or where we came from or any of that. If you want to participate in the world of letters, all that matters is your ability to make yourself intelligible, when you write, and to apprehend what is being said, when you read.  - Maria Bustillos, on The Phantom Tollbooth

THIS THING.

Classic Covers: Diamonds are Forever by Ian Fleming

There are ten thousand beautiful Bond covers. This one is a 1964 printing of Diamonds are Forever, from Jonathan Cape. 

 

Underground Reading: The Deep Blue Good-by by John D. MacDonald

John D. MacDonald is my favorite author. 

I can prove this with mathematics (see diagram A, to the right) - I own vastly more JDM than I do any other author. And still keep buying it. Despite having a near-complete set of his works, I'll pick up any of his books, whenever I see them. Given the vast variety of publishers & cover art, this will keep me busy for a long while.

The tragic irony is, I'm not particularly fond of MacDonald's most famous creation: the itinerant "salvage consultant", Travis McGee. Appearing in 21 novels from 1964 to 1984, McGee is considered MacDonald's magnum opus. Travis, the philosophical rogue that he is, is a vastly influential character - both in a literary sense and as an encapsulation of a certain modern masculinity.

I kind of hate him.

I promise I won't turn the blog into a vacation slideshow, but this photo is pretty important. Dining at the Billy Goat Tavern in O'Hare Aiport is like finding a swimming pool in hell. 

10 hours of travel - CHEEZBORGER BREAK - 5 hours of travel. God bless them.