This book was a recommendation of Paul Bishop(Bish’s Beat) on June 19th. As I was already a Frank Gruber fan from his Johnny Fletcher novels, I decided to give it a whirl.
It’s a fascinating chronicle of one man’s journey toward his goal of being a writer. The many stories he wrote that went nowhere, didn’t sell, he didn’t give up. He wanted to break into the pulp magazine market with dozens of magazines during that time.
He finally starts to sell and gets quite big. Then he moves into the book market with several false starts before beginning to do well. Same thing with Hollywood.
It’s a portrait of a man who’s dream never faded. He wouldn’t let it.
The book is filled with wonderful anecdotes of the writers he knew during those years. Raymond Chandler, Erle Stanley Gardner, Lester Dent, Walter Gibson, and a host of others that I’m not familiar with(I’m by no means as up on the pulp era as I’d like). And the editors: John Nanovic, Leo Margulies.
The style is nice and breezy, simple, I devoured it in one sitting.
Two recommendations for this one! Perhaps I should brush up on my Gruber before I read it. What do you recommend?
I like those remembrances kind of books. wouldn’t it be great if James REasoner would write one of these?
Cullen, I”ve been reading his Johnny Fletcher series lately(did two of them, The Gift Horse and The Navy Colt, for Forgotten Books). He’s the con man who, with his partner, Sam Craig, keep having to play PI to get themselves out of trouble. He mentions both books in talking about the writing. The French Key was his first novel. There’s an amusing bit where he recounts an incident from the book that actually happened to him.
It’s been years since I read one of his westerns, so I don’t really have a recommendation there.
Charles, a memoir from James would be interesting reading I think.