The "NO RULES" break-down, finally

I meant to do this a long time ago, didn't, forgot about it, remembered again, didn't care, cared again, and now finally I'm doing it.

Tail end of last year I ran a series of guest posts here called "No Rules", inviting a whole bunch'a writers, bloggers and critics I really liked to stop by, and spout off about whatever they felt like. If I may say so, the whole thing was an unqualified success; not a dud in the bunch.

I want to thank each and every one of the contributors (a thank you that's WAY past due, I know). I was honored to have you.

Here are the links to each of them:

Charlie Stella

Katy O'Dowd

Anthony Neil Smith

Kimmy Dee

Ron Warren

Ray Banks

Charlie Williams

Allan Leverone

Eva Dolan

Thomas Pluck

Luca Veste

Pete Risley

David Cranmer

Benoit Lelievre

Nigel Bird

Troy Lambert

Mike Dennis

Matthew C. Funk

Jennifer Thomson

R. Thomas Brown

Dani Amore

Aaron Philip Clark

Chris Rhatigan

Jason Michel

Vincent Zandri


Looking back on these posts now, I'm still a little amazed at the high level of quality and insight. Once again, thanks to all of you for adding a little class to the joint. Maybe we can do it again sometime.

No Rules: VINCENT ZANDRI

The very last No Rules guest post is written by one of the very first friends I made in the Hardboiled/Noir community, none other than VINCENT ZANDRI. If you don't already know, Vin is the Amazon best-selling author of many, many fast-paced and crowd-pleasing thrillers like THE INNOCENT, GODCHILD, THE REMAINS, MOONLIGHT FALLS, CONCRETE PEARL, MOONLIGHT RISES and SCREAM CATCHER. He's diverse as hell and one of the tightest plotters around.

A little affection always comes into it when I talk about Vin; sorry, can't help it. Because as well as being a great writer he's also a truly great guy. Back before my own first novel came out, he took the time to lend his insight and sharp ear to this novice, and has remained a steadfast friend ever since.

I'm proud to give you VINCENT ZANDRI, with an essay that couldn't be more timely...


It’s a Wonderful Noir Life

Like a whole bunch of us saps, we grew up watching It's a Wonderful Life, thinking, "Hey, it must be Christmas." Like everyone else, I cried when Mr. Gower punched George in the head, cheered when George packed his bags to leave for some big trip overseas, cried again when his "tired" old man died and he couldn't go.

"Wonderful Life" was filmed and released in 1946 during a special time in US history. The big war to end the first big was over. Lots of soldiers were coming home from Europe and Japan. Many of them had never been away from their hometowns until the war began. Most of them had known what it was to suffer during the depression. Some were wounded and maimed. All were affected one way or another. The trauma of the war became indelibly painted on the faces of these soldiers as they were suddenly thrust into what would soon become Eisenhower "normalcy." Nuclear war was now as real as Christmas snow.

If some of these guys and gals were anything like my 44 year old grandfather, a Captain who walked away from the army after a 20 year career in Panama, Africa, Europe, and other exotic locales only to be forced to make the mad march through the Hurtgen forest while at the same time, suffering 150% casualties to his company, they were disillusioned at best. From what my mother tells me, he went from sipping red wine in France and marching the Champs Elysees to working at a Buster Brown shoe store in Upstate, New York, within thirty days of getting off the big boat. Talk about a life change. The two time purple heart and bronze star recipient probably cashed his first civilian paycheck in twenty years just before heading to the bijou to catch the new "feel good" flick starring Jimmy Stewart, himself a decorated war vet.

I think Frank Capra and the rest of the writers of "It's a Wonderful Life" knew damn well that despite winning the war, another war would have to be fought on US soil. And that one wasn't about a dire economic survival like everyone had realized a few years earlier. You know, like do we eat today or heat the fucking house? But a different kind of survival. Keeping up with the Jones's kind of survival. That kid Petey ain't belting out "Hey dad, did you see the new car next door" for no reason when George barks back, "Isn't our car good enough for you!" Okay, I might have the dialogue slightly wrong but it's a nonetheless discriminate attempt on Capra's part to show the American public what's in store for them for the coming decades as the trees get cut down and the suburbs ariseth out of the ashes of fallen heroes. Such is the price of war, and the fight for freedom.

George Bailey is an everyman who is full of heart and at the same time a selfish individual. He wants to do what he wants to do. He wants to be an existentialist with a big heart. He wants to be an Indiana Jones long before Spielberg's comic book concept of the adventurer is born. He wants to build bridges like Picasso paints paintings. He wants to conquer the world and be his own man. But a gross loyalty to family, job, God, and duty get in his way, and he's forced to give up his dreams for a life of wife, children, a house he can't afford, a broken down old car, and a future that is so bankrupt and dismal, he wants to kill himself. Merry Christmas.

But in 1946, this is precisely the type of man America would come to count on to create a thriving nuclear powerhouse. Existentialists and thinkers need not apply. The US government was out to influence a whole bunch of suburban newcomers by guilting the crap out of them into giving up their dreams now that they had survived the war with their lives. In the end, they succeeded. We beat the Soviets after all. Sort of.

But politics aside, George's character resounds to this day for those young men and women who have harbored huge dreams throughout childhood and adolescence only to see them squandered on a big wedding and a honeymoon that doesn't last longer than the time it takes for the checks to clear. One is only young once, and then suddenly the hopes and dreams turn into a heavy drinking bout at the local and getting kicked out on your ass in the snow. Only then do some of the darkest thoughts you never dreamed you'd be capable of conjuring enter into your head. Usually they are accompanied by violence. Whether it's to yourself or to others or both.

George Bailey stood on a bridge in the falling snow on Christmas eve during WWII and considered severe violence to himself. The scrunched, bulging eyed, black and white agony on Jimmy Stewart's face resonates with all of us who have ever contemplated abandoning home and job for a better (more wonderful) life, even if for a fleeting moment. Despair drips from his eye sockets and his blood radiates with hopelessness. Over a few hours time, George has been handed a tricky gift. The gift of having never existed. The tricky part is that he gets to see what it's like when his mother rejects him and an angel named Clarence thrusts the responsibility of every life of every man on a navy transport being killed because "George wasn't there to save his little brother from falling through the ice" back when they were kids. As if Hitler and Tojo had nothing to do with it. Poor George: manipulated in life, and even more manipulated during his brief tenure as a suicide. This fucker just cannot get a break.

George Bailey, the concept, makes me want to run.

When I see George Bailey, the man and character, holding his ZuZu and her petals in his arms, and his neighbors filling baskets with cash so he can pay off the debt some evil banker has thrust upon him through illegal activity, I stand up and shout for him to leave home. Don't spend another night in Bedford Falls, George. Fuck Christmas. First, go stick a knife in the evil banker fucker's neck, then go pack up the family and move south. Or move to Europe. Or just leave the family altogether and forget the cancers that eat away at you in the form of the American Dream. Live, George, Live!

At the end of the movie, Clarence the guardian angel sends George a copy of “Tom Sawyer”, with the penned inscription. "Dear George, remember no man is a failure who has friends. Thanks for the wings, Love Clarence." Fuck you Clarence! Apparently you had an agenda too. Tom Sawyer was an everyman. A young man who lived on his own terms. Something George Bailey and so many American men will never get the chance to do, simply because they fall into the trap of suburban responsibility, unbearable debt (beginning with college student loans), physical unfitness, family responsibility, guilt, and loneliness beyond compare. Have I mentioned the emasculation of political correctness?

There are dark elements in "It's a Wonderful Life" to be sure. So dark, I rank it up there under certain circumstances with "Seven" and "Angel Heart." In each of these noir films exists a common thread: one man forced to realize his worst, most horrid fears in a hellish, unforgiving world shrouded with false hope, blatantly false advertising, God inspired guilt trips, indifference, and greed.

Happy New Year.

No Rules: JASON MICHEL

JASON MICHEL is a Pushcart Prize nominee, published author and the Head Honcho over at PULP METAL MAGAZINE and PULP METAL FICTION, where he has recently released an anthology of the best of PMM entitled Laughing At The Death Grin! and his newest novella And The Streets Screamed Blue Murder!
He has hopes one day of becoming a James Bond villain as he thinks he'd be good at it.

Jason, you mad man, welcome to Psycho-Noir...


THE PULP METAL MANIFESTO

“I dreamed I was a butterfly, flitting around in the sky; then I awoke. Now I wonder: Am I a man who dreamt of being a butterfly, or am I a butterfly dreaming that I am a man?" -Chuang Tzu

1: PULP METAL is imaginary.

PULP METAL is a figment of our imagination posing as a literary Gomorrah and downright fun place to read some of the most talented writers in cyberspace. It is a flight of disastrous fancy. An idea.
An ode to the imagination.

2: Imagination is the mind at play.

It is as amoral and as serious as child's play.

3: The only true freedom; the only true oppression is in the mind.

The only limits are the ones that we set ourselves in believing that we are a solid unchanging individual. Science is beginning to show us that the Self, as Buddhists have been saying for millennia, is a crock. We are a thousand people in a thousand moments and situations, even if we pretend not to be. The ego is a jealous god and deserves a smacked bottom.
So, make peace with your inner-fascist.
Crack open a beer with the serial killer inside.
Go for a date with the flirty secretary of the soul.
Is this not what we do as writers?
Manifesting these personalities into the world through our imaginary filter.

4: All concepts, art and language derive from the imagination of somebody.

Words may have evolved from birdsong, but it was imagination that connected them to objects. Those very same objects that are all around you as you read this. Those very same objects that you are made of.
Holy Shit, Batman!

5: Imagination is both individual and collective. The flow can go both ways. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

Stan Lee, Ian Fleming, Homer, Shakespeare, Bob Kane, Karl Marx, Coca-Cola, Rowling, Dostoevesky and any other creator of art, ideology, image and ideas have left their mark on us, whether we like it or not.
Why let them have all the fun?

6: Your imagination is your most precious resource. Your wittiest joke. Your deadliest weapon.

"Imagination is intelligence with an erection." - Victor Hugo

7: Revel in your imagination. Tickle its feet. Jitterbug with it. Slap it around a bit. Make love to it. Revere it.
Reclaim it.

For too long our imagination has been denigrated to an almost worthless state that is not "real".
"It's just her imagination."
"It's all in your head!"
"Stop daydreaming and get back to work!"
We live in interesting times, as the ancient Chinese curse has it. There is the Faustian whiff of a hundred Revolutions carried on the breeze. History shows that in the cold light of the aftermath, all that is left is another dull shower of cunts at the top of the shit pile. Left or right, the story has the same final scene.
All in the name of ideas.
Don't you dare imagine something that doesn't contribute to productivity!
That is the death rattle of our epoch.
Unless it is for entertainment purposes, of course. Entertainment brought to us from a collective, safe and turgid imagination born in a boardroom and designed to pacify us before the commercial breaks and political campaigning comes on. Until it is time to shop, materially, politically and spiritually.
This is the world we live in.
No matter that imagination may just be our way to slow the downward plummet of this rotting smorgasbord of tired old ideologies, creaky economics and environmental angst.
Reclaim your imagination.
Do you know what this is, my fellow daydreamers?
This is fighting talk.

*

Some practical exercises of the imagination:

I have personally had experience of all of these exercises and found that some of them have contributed greatly to my writing and others are just cracking good fun.
*Disclaimer! Practice these exercises at your own risk as some people have gone batshit crazy because of some of these techniques. Don't forget to ground yourself back to the world with a nice cup of tea. Then again, what is life without a smidgeon of danger. Take responsibility for your actions and if caught, remember, deny everything!*

i. Learn the loci system of mnemonics and create your own memory palaces à la Hannibal Lecter.

ii. Read The Diceman then have a party according to the laws of the die. Watch the chaos ensue and observe your reactions.

iii. Be a creative prankster. Go to a book shop and sneak dirty poetry in self-help books. Confuse your boss: Once I was asked why I was wearing jeans at work which is not officially allowed (I was, but to my credit, they were black). I told the man that they weren't "jeans but just looked like jeans in the way that sometimes summer looks like autumn". The poor sap just turned around and walked out of the room. He has never said a word about my attire since.

iv: Read all you about Jung's Creative Imagination or Dali's Paranoiac-Critical Method, then create an imaginary world of your own and go walking through it, interacting with the characters of your own creation.
Write about your experiences.
A good way to start is:
1. Sit or lie down comfortably. Close your eyes. Tense every muscle in your face and body and then relax them telling yourself that "as my limbs get heavy I can go deeper and deeper into an imaginary state".
2. Visualize a staircase and count from one to ten with each step you take going down it, telling yourself that it'll take you "deeper and deeper into the state".
3. When you have counted to ten see a grand old door in front of you. Tell yourself to open the door and enter into your world.
4. As you enter your world utilise all your senses: touch, smell, taste, hearing as well as sight.
5. Off you go!
6. When you wish to come back just see the door again and exit. Go back up the stairs (counting back from ten to zero), then slowly open your eyes and slowly get up.
7. Write.

v. Here's a good one for atheists and agnostics (I, myself, am a radical agnostic. To paraphrase Husserl and RAW, all perception is gamble).
Learn all you can about the way of altering your state of consciousness, otherwise known as Ritual Magick. Read that old bastard Crowley, A O Spare etc (although the Victorian waffle is unbelievable and Grant Morrison's Pop Magic! is far more fun), then create your own ritual and invoke a famous character that everyone knows is imaginary and have a chat.
I once did this with The Silver Surfer and he told me that "The way of knowledge is the loneliest path of all".
Not exactly known for his fart jokes though, eh?

vi. Print out the IMAGINE! poster at the top of this rambling of a mad man and cover the world in an advertising campaign for the imagination.

Just IMAGINE what that would be like ...

No Rules: CHRIS RHATIGAN

CHRIS RHATIGAN is a prolific writer of short stories, with work appearing at A Twist of Noir, Pulp Metal, Beat to a Pulp, Shotgun Honey and lots of other places besides. Along with Nigel Bird, he’s the editor of the fantastic collection PULP INK. He also blogs at Death By Killing.

I’m very pleased to give you Mr. CHRIS RHATIGAN…



Back when I was reporter, I had the opportunity to interview Curtis Sittenfeld, author of novels like Prep, Man of My Dreams and American Wife.

She’s a ridiculously smart writer and was nice enough to take some time out of her day to talk with a small-town reporter.

Anyways, she told me that if she was going to write, she needed about a four-hour block to really get going.

I wasn’t writing fiction at the time, so I took down her answer and plowed ahead. Now that I’ve been writing for a few years, my response would be, What?!

Let’s just say my writing process is not like that at all. Part of it is how my life works – I’m a freelance proofreader, so I check email 70,000 times a day for projects, as the first one who responds gets the project. I’m also a student, so homework, class, blah blah blah gets in the way.

Four-hour blocks of time just don’t exist.

But even if they did, I still don’t think I would write that way. I tend more toward the random burst school of writing – fifteen minutes here, maybe an hour there.

Here’s how one of my stories typically evolves:

I get an idea in shower or overhear a conversation at auto mechanic or some other mundane shit.

If the idea has some staying power, I write most of the story in my head on my walk to school. I get a good idea of who the characters are, how the story will evolve, how most of the dialogue will go – this is where most of my real writing is done.

Then I brew a lot of coffee and put words on the page. This is followed by random stabs at editing and the inevitable days of intense self-doubt/hatred.

Even at this point, fifty percent of my stories never move beyond the hard drive. But, if I still think the story might be worthwhile, I fire it off to the writing group.

They give me brilliant feedback. I do more editing and I send the story out.

Then I drink a beer or twelve.

So, as much as I’d like to be Curtis Sittenfeld, banging out page after page four hours at a time, I’ve realized that’s simply not who I am. Maybe I would need to be more disciplined if I were writing a novel, but for now, my cobble-shit-together style is working just fine.

No Rules: AARON PHILIP CLARK

AARON PHILIP CLARK’s debut novel, THE SCIENCE OF PAUL, was published January 2011 by New Pulp Press, and was hands-down one of the best novels I've read all year. It came out right before my own debut novel from the same publisher, which caused me no end of anxiety-- THE SCIENCE OF PAUL was a hard act to follow. Set in Philadelphia, it introduced the crime fiction world to Paul Little, an ex-con battling his demons. Little has been called the “antithesis to the classic noir tough guy”.

Clark is currently putting the finishing touches on A HEALTHY FEAR OF MAN, the second novel in the Paul Little series. To learn more about Aaron, visit his website here, or better yet, join his Facebook page.


I suppose I should have known better. After all, I read Jay McInerney’s Bright Lights, Big City. And it did make the publishing industry seem strikingly similar to Hollywood; the fast talking Tad Allgash-like schmucks, the models, and the book parties, the cocktails and the coke. Of course, that was the 80s, the decade of excess—Regan and Gordon Gekko. There was no Internet, no mobile porn, no text messaging, no social networks, and face it, people read a lot more. Writers were actually hip, not in the way of disposable celebrities like Paris Hilton or the Kardashians, but their cool factor was in direct correlation with their intelligence and wittiness. People valued their opinions and they were culturally relevant. It was simply a different time; charging admission to a book signing was unheard of and Oprah Winfrey couldn’t make or break an author’s career. But things have changed; it’s an Amazon planet. Numbers and rankings, 99 cent downloads, free e-books (for today only), book trailers and short films, self-publishers and small houses, Facebook ads, contests and giveaways, and commercials with James Patterson hocking Nooks. Anything goes. And this is a good thing, right?

The film industry wasn’t always the Wall Street of the West, or the cesspool so many thespians and screenwriters are now forced to wade through. Once upon a time, there was Bogart and Bacall—there was art inTinsel Town. But Hollywoodland lost its luster a long time ago. The boulevards are no longer shiny and electric; they smell of urine and defecation. Drunken girls pleasure fellas in the front seats of cars, as they sit parked in the deck of the Kodak Theater, once the clubs let out. Street hustlers outfitted as Batman, Spider-man, and Pee-wee Herman shuck and jive for spare change in front of Mann’s Chinese, and what used to be a town of glitz and glamour is now a freak show. In an interview with Tavis Smiley, L.A.’s own James Ellroy bucked at the idea of driving down Sunset Boulevard; instead, opting for the dark surface streets because the billboards along Sunset made him cringe.

And maybe I cringe just a little when I see Patterson pimping a device that is likely to put book printing out of business one day. I’m not naïve; I realize writers have to be business savvy. I spent enough time in Hollywoodto know art is secondary to revenue, and in the case of the film industry, it’s a word that’s only used on Oscar night. And with the onslaught of social networking, budding and established authors are connecting with fans and other like-minded folks because it’s good business. But like Ellroy, don’t most authors just want to drive in the dark? Isn’t that why we became writers in the first place? Sure, it’s probably bad for sales not to have some kind of online presence. I just miss the good ole’ days when authors like Fran Lebowitz made appearances on David Letterman to promote their books, cracked a few jokes, and then returned to anonymity. When Cormac McCarthy was interviewed by Oprah, he was probably her most difficult nut to crack. He seemed uninterested; he answered her questions, which had less to do with his craft and more to do with his personal life, but never really dipped into the platitudes—and it only made me respect him even more. After all, we’re not celebrities; we’re authors. We’re the last vestige of intellectual sheik—in our world being smart is still cool. We’re the children of “The Vicious Circle”—the Algonquin Round Table. We write, we devour books and soak up knowledge—we blog and post, and we maintain discourse. We’re the original outsiders; the ones who weren’t invited to the party, only to peak in from a window while the “cool kids” got hammered and high. And it made us tough—it made us one of the most important fixtures in popular culture—the observers and commentators. We asked questions, we tried to make sense out of the chaos; we processed that chaos and then fed it back to the people in a more digestible form, and we mattered.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve got nothing against wild success. I’m a capitalist—American through and through. It’s why I don’t give away free books because it implies that what we do as writers is somehow less than, and not worthy of payment. But writers as celebrities, as rock stars, as spokes models seems to be oxymoronic. Or maybe Patterson is just ahead of the curve? One day maintaining a book library might be the equivalent of owning a stamp collection; it’ll be a hobby of sorts, and the digital reader will be the standard. And though I’m tragically prone to nostalgia, the only option is to adapt and hope the book industry doesn’t go from half-classy dame to Sunset skeez—a three-ring circus where authors will do anything to turn a buck.

No Rules: DANI AMORE

DANI AMORE has been prolific this year. Spearheaded by a terrifically witty and fun mystery novel called DEATH BY SARCASM, she's launched a full-on assault on the world of crime fiction, turning out one compelling read after another. Both DEATH BY SARCASM and DEADWOOD are Amazon best-sellers. Her most recent is a WWII drama called TO FIND A MOUNTAIN, so make no mistake: Dani is as versatile as she is driven.

For a complete list of all Dani's work, see here, or visit her webpage.

So to start off the week with some blood and thunder, here's is DANI AMORE...



For The Love Of Guns

I’m a bit of a gun nut.

In fact, Heath and I have chatted about our favorite weapons, which sort of prompted me to write this post.

For me, my love of “shooting irons” all started with a left-handed six shooter with a fast-draw holster including the leather braids to tie the holster to your leg – gunfighter style.

It looked a lot like this (though mine was a left-handed version…).

The gun and gunbelt had been my grandfather’s. He had been the black sheep of his family – the son of a university president, a dropout, and an NCAA Division II champion tennis player. (He won his title even though he wasn’t enrolled in college.)

My grandfather went on to play jazz trumpet in bands in Chicago, and develop a massive drinking problem that he never kicked.

But when my great-grandfather sent his juvenile delinquent son to Oklahoma, where a rancher friend was going to help “break” my grandfather, it only accomplished two things. One, the return of my grandfather with a message from the rancher that he never wanted to see this young man again. And two, it fostered within my grandfather a love of the Old West, cowboys, and guns.

That passion was passed down to my father, and then to me.

When I was around nine or ten years old, I convinced my father to let me practice my quick draw. (Of course, the gun was unloaded and my father swore he didn’t even have any ammo for it.) By then, I’d read every Louis L’Amour and Zane Grey novel ever written.

When my left hand got tired, I’d slide the belt around, with the holster backward, and practice my right-handed quick draw.

I got pretty good at it. I even worked on my border switch – exchanging an empty gun in your right hand with a loaded gun in your left by simultaneously flipping them to the opposite hand. A lot of time, too, went to the art of spinning the gun on your finger and timing the barrel spin to go back into the holster in one fluid motion.

Eventually, though, I went to college and moved on with my life. One of my siblings inherited the gun and gunbelt when my father died, so when it came time to buy my own gun, I decided to go modern.

I bought a Para Ordnance .45 hi-cap, just like the one Mary Cooper uses in my novel DEATH BY SARCASM.

I love it. It’s a lot of gun.

It holds 14 rounds of .45 ACP in the magazine, and one in the chamber. It’s heavy when it’s fully loaded. My favorite thing about it? When I’m at the range, and the brass is flying and an ejected shell bounces off the wall and drops between my neck and the collar of my shirt, burning my skin. Badges of honor.

I know there are a lot of issues with guns and gun control, none of which I’m going to get into here. I will tell you, though, that target shooting is my passion. I don’t hunt, and don’t think I could shoot anything like a deer (it would remind me of my panty stealing dog Vinnie).

But go out into the woods, line up a dozen empty beer bottles and blast away?

I’m there, baby.

You bring the beer, I’ll bring the guns.

Deal?


You can follow Dani on Twitter: @authordaniamore
Or send her an email: dani@daniamore.com

No Rules: R. THOMAS BROWN

R. THOMAS BROWN exploded on to e-book scene this year with several very strong releases, among them the seriously creepy novella "Merciless Pact", two short story collections, and two e-shorts from Trestle Press (you can find them all on Amazon, right here).

He's a great writer who, bit by bit, is gaining the audience he deserves. That audience is only likely to get bigger still early next year, when Snubnose Press releases his first full-length novel, HILL COUNTRY.

He's also a voracious reader, and when he's not writing fiction (or working the ole' day job), R. Thomas Brown keeps a terrific blog, Criminal Thoughts, devoted primarily to reviewing new releases from other writers.

Which leads us quite nicely into his topic for this "No Rules". I'm very pleased to give you.. R. THOMAS BROWN...

Why am I here?
So, when Heath asked me to do this I was flattered that he asked, but also had no idea what to write about. I thought about something about reviews, or short fiction, or my writing. None of it felt right. Probably because I still wonder why someone might care what I have to say.
Not that I feel I don’t have worthwhile opinions. I’m actually a pompous blowhard who pontificates on a variety of subjects to any family member or friend who hasn’t left the room yet to avoid the verbal onslaught. (That’s not entirely true. I follow them if they leave.) But it’s different in a world where I don’t personally know the people.
I’m also fine giving lectures, teaching (did for years at community colleges) or other defined public speaking. This didn’t feel like that either.
I shrink in public gathering of a less formal nature. I have to force myself to speak in any social gathering. This felt like a social gathering. People I don’t know, coming around to see if there was interesting conversation. Not my best setting.
So, what is this all about, then? Other than two hundred words about me not knowing what it’s about. Well, I think the discomfort I felt about this is the same I feel when I submit a story, or self-pub something, or write a review. I worry, constantly, that someone won’t like it. That they’ll think ill of me for having written it.
When I don’t love a book I review, I cringe at the thought of the author reading it. I don’t want to hurt their feelings. Of course, I also believe that my opinion means nothing (we covered that earlier about my arrogance with friends, and sheepishness with strangers, remember, It’s just like four paragraphs ago. Are you paying attention? Have I already bored you? Oh, no. There I go again.)
The thing is, of course someone will. I don’t like everything I read or hear. So, some people will hate my review, story, book, blog post, whatever it is. I should accept that, and just hope that people care enough to hate it or love it. Just as long as it’s not ignored, right?
Right? Yes, dammit!
(Oh, I hope I didn’t offend anyone there. Crap, did it again.)

No Rules: JENNIFER THOMSON

JENNIFER THOMSON'S first novella HOW KIRSTY GETS HER KICKS, will be published by Pulp Press in the UK in March 2012. It’s about, according to Jennifer, "a gutsy Glasgow barmaid who goes on the run with a safe load of gangster’s cash and a hot gun after embedding her stiletto heel in the head of one of his goons who has the crass eejitery to touch her up."

Jennifer says, "I love the ethos and energy of Pulp Press and their tales of violent comeuppance without the meandering pish where some flouncy author takes ten bloody pages to describe a bloody tree. The covers are fantastic too."

Yep, well said, Ms. Thomson.

She's currently writing DEID BASTARDS: a zombie novel with a Scottish twist where bagpipes and midges play an important part and VILE CITY, her first detective novel featuring DI Waddell and his comatose sidekick.

Jennifer blogs at Ramblings of a Frustrated Crime Writer where she insists she is normally much more polite.

I'm very pleased to introduce you to the immensely talented JENNIFER THOMSON...


Literary Snobbery Be Damned

To me the most important thing about any book is that it entertains. It doesn’t have to be a piece of great literature or be up for one of the major prizes that always go to someone hardly anybody reads until the book wins it and every person up for a bit of fakery, who wants to appear well read goes out and buys it then leaves it on their art deco coffee table for visitors to see. (Do you notice how these books are always in pristine, unread condition?)

Sadly, there are people who don’t see it that way. Hey you literary snobs, you know who you are.

I have done one writing course in my entire life. After two decades of working as a freelance writer (okay plodding away) and living on porridge and stale bread in my freezing garret (you try living on a windy Scottish island with a leaky window) I finally did an online course with Strathclyde University where over 6 weeks you critiqued each others work.

On the first week we were asked to introduce ourselves, say what authors we liked to read. When I said I was a big fan of Stephen King (if The Stand was a man I’d marry him and that’s more than I can say for my partner of eleven years), out came the wee digs.

‘I used to like him when I was younger,’ said one person.

‘His stuff’s a bit childish,’ said another.

The general consensus amongst my fellow students was that Stephen King was for weans. Why because his books weren’t entertaining enough? Nah, because they weren’t considered literary enough.

And, what exactly is literary fiction? To my mind its writing that take ages to get to the bloody point. Often its flowery and laden with unnecessary metaphors with bugger all happening.

Literary fiction is an arrogant beast that thinks it’s too good to be read by you and me and make you feel stupid because you can’t concentrate on them for longer than five minutes. Then there’s those words you’re convinced the author has made up that you need to look up because you haven’t the foggiest idea what it means.

Me? When I come across a word like that ‘I say screw this, the author’s up his own backside’ and go off and read something else.

Hey, my time’s precious. I don’t have time to indulge some author’s ego because he or she’s trying to show how smart they are and what a dumb eejit I am.

Worst of all, ‘literary fiction’ puts folk off reading anything at all and that is the most damning indictment of all. Because reading takes you to places you’ve never been, introduces you to people you’ll never meet yet who seem so alive they might as well be in the same room as you.

In my loneliest hours when I have battled depression, desperation and agoraphobia that has crippled me, books have made sure I have never felt alone. I have yet to come across a drug that does that.

The thing that really pisses me off most about these literary works that win all the major prizes where glum faced judges parade themselves on the TV making reading seem like such a bloody chore when it should be a pleasure, is that crime the biggest selling genre, doesn’t even get a look in.

I suspect that if Agatha Christie and Arthur Conan Doyle were up for prizes they’d lose out too.

Crime is considered too common, apparently because it’s read by the masses. What a crime that would be to give books that masses of people actually read the big awards.

Christ, you’d need to start giving the literary awards to books people actually read.

No Rules: MATTHEW C. FUNK

MATTHEW C. FUNK writes some of the tightest, most colorful stories in crime fiction these days, and a great deal of that is due to the very intimate sense of place in his work. Yes, he's a great plotter, and his characters are all vivid and memorable, but if you had to cite just one aspect of his body of work that stands above the rest, it would be his ability to make the setting seem as vital to the story as everything else. Like Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha County, Funk's Desire is a living breathing character in and of itself, informing all the events and shaping the characters.

Here's Matthew C. Funk, then, with a few words on his relationship with Desire...


I have to write about Desire.

Not just because of the name. There’s a lot of fertile ground there, though. Could grow a lot of layers of meaning from that name.

And I don’t mean that I have to write about New Orleans.

I’ve already written plenty on that subject. About how New Orleans is America’s loveliest, ugliest, kindest, cruelest, proudest place. About how that means I can’t imagine writing elsewhere.

No, this is about me being unable to escape Desire.

My stories roam other areas. I dropped by Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop in the French Quarter to give the Beat Generation a send-off in Black Heart Noir. I got a glimpse of the high-rise lifestyle of the Port Authority in I Ain’t Gonna. I mix plenty of places together, from the famous like Tipitina’s and Mother’s, to the not-so-famous like Verti Marte and Cosimo’s.

I always end up back home in Desire, though.

I’ve got to, there’s no getting out. There’s too much pain and pride there for the stories ever to end. The human extremes stretch across the whole spectrum, raw as a rainbow, and I have to draw attention to them.

They are right next door, after all.

The soaring crime. The abysmal poverty. The art, dance, song and religion. Desire has the most churches, per capita, next to the worst homelessness.

And that is just a short plane flight away, if you’re in America. Not even a full day.

Whatever you’re doing, wherever you are right now, in a few hours, you could be in a place where the gangs can hardly afford colors, the church volunteers are everywhere and the graffiti can’t be beat for surreal beauty.

And it may feel like a dream when you’re there, but there is no wall separating it from the strip malls across the freeway, or from New Orleans, or from your life.

It is as beautiful as a dream, though.

I’ve been from Bel Air to the Bronx, and I’ve never seen so much ruin decorated so beautifully.

A place like that has to be written about just like it has to be named Desire.

That’s crime writing for me: Taking something broken and showing how it’s beautiful.

It began with Jari. I was smitten with Jari Jurgis, with her infected fractures and glorious strength, from first we met. I had to place her in Desire.

Where better for a bad cop with butterflies on her jeans and an endless bad attitude to do her best work off the clock?

Clean Hands and Tipped Scales in ThugLit was the seed, but Desire had already been well tilled by my imagination. I explored it in Ava, my horror manuscript.

Ava’s desire is to help people. She cares so much. So, so much. As much as we all should care.

And yes, Ava wants to be wanted. She has her own selfish desires—for love, recognition, companionship. Who doesn’t? But above all, she wants to help everyone. She wants to make their pain stop.

All of it. Everywhere. Starting in Desire.

I often wonder whether y’all will ever meet Ava, or whether she’ll just spend eternity roaming Desire like the ghost she is, while the lives of my other characters form and fight and make love in her shadow.

The cast of Desire is getting considerable: The red-Irish embodiment of all things bad about cops, the Mahoney family, first seen in Good Night Durham. The she-wolf survivor of stories I get fevered with and write about the 2000-2003 gang war, Bebe. The kid growing up pained and hard, Rabid, Desire’s Tom Sawyer. The role of fatherhood, heated and distilled down to explosive compound, Parnell.

They all have anti-hero followings. I like that my readership is divided between loving and hating them. I am too.

Everybody loves Stagger Lee, though.

He’s my Dixieland Hercules. I’ve got big plans for Stagger, as he’s big enough to wander wherever he needs to and make some myths happen.

Desire is myth and reality, so as much as I may ramble with Stagger, I’ll always be coming home to that place in the Upper Ninth. That place that reaches right up to the Interstate, huddled forgotten between the Lower Ninth Ward and Bywater, that has so little and so has so much life.

Ask Buddha, ask Freud, ask me—ask anybody who knows—life is about appetite. Suffering. Desire.

Desire’s where my writing has to live.

No Rules: MIKE DENNIS

The first thing I ever read by MIKE DENNIS was a sort of love letter to rockabilly and blues called CADILLAC'S COMING. It was a solid piece of work, full of the sort of understanding of popular music that only a musician is capable of (and Mike IS a musician; he tickles the ivories, natch).

I've never heard Mike play, so I can't tell you if he's any good. I wouldn't be a bit surprised if he was, though. I can tell you this much with certainty: he's a Killer when it comes to writing fiction. Aside from CADILLAC'S COMING, his other books include THE TAKE, BLOODSTAINS ON THE WALL, and the first two volumes of his Key West noirs, SET-UP ON FRONT STREET and THE GHOSTS OF HAVANA.

And apparently, writing and music aren't all there is to the man. Here's MIKE DENNIS, with a great piece on the leading men of film noir.

THE MEN OF FILM NOIR

A few months back, Heath put out a list of his favorite films noir. After reading it, I was inspired to do the same. Then he suggested we do a "Who's The King Of Noir?" post. Since I'm not really sure any one actor could hold down the top spot, I'm going to throw a few of them at you and see what you think.
ROBERT MITCHUM: Even if no one actor can be number 1, Mitchum would certainly come very close. His performance in The Friends Of Eddie Coyle (1973) was, without a doubt, the finest of his career and perhaps the greatest single performance of any film noir actor ever. He crawls inside Coyle's skin and drags the viewer with him to all the seedy bars and parking lots where he reveals his desperation through dialogue. His hand gestures, body language, voice inflections—all pitch-perfect in his portrayal of this world-weary street criminal.
You can't talk about Mitchum and noir without mentioning Out Of The Past (1947), a classic directed by Jacques Tourneur. True to the traditions of noir, Mitchum's Jeff Bailey is all trenchcoat and cigarettes, the everyman drawn into a situation he can't control. And of course, his downward spiral is greased by a smokin' hot babe, in this case, the deadly Jane Greer.
ROBERT RYAN: Part average Joe and part psychopath, Robert Ryan always makes you nervous everytime he walks onscreen. You never know if (or more likely, when) he's going to come unhinged. In An Act Of Violence (1948), he's terrific as the creepy ex-POW thirsting for revenge against his former commanding officer. His Oscar-nominated turn as a violent anti-Semite in Crossfire (1947) is probably his greatest role. Over and over, throughout his career, Ryan shows you how long he can dance on the very lip of the abyss before plunging in. You just have to be careful you're not too close to him when he jumps. He might take you with him.
RICHARD WIDMARK: Two words: Harry Fabian. Night And The City (1950) is one of my top three personal film noir favorites, maybe even number one. Fabian is without question the quintessential film noir character, a dreamer whose reach far exceeded his grasp. Widmark's complex performance in director Jules Dassin's masterpiece far outweighs anything he ever did at any other point in his long career, but few actors get the chance to play a character like Fabian. Widmark never got such an opportunity again, often being relegated to standard leading man roles and later, ordinary character parts. The excellent Road House (1948) was his only other film noir performance worth mentioning. I deliberately omit Kiss Of Death (1947), where he played the snickering Tommy Udo, because I consider it a cops-vs-gangsters movie, not film noir.
DAN DURYEA: Anyone who can be as consistently slimy as Duryea was throughout his career deserves inclusion in this list. From Criss Cross (1949) to Woman In The Window (1944) to Too Late For Tears (1949), he's there to remind you that film noir is not for sissies. They play for keeps in these movies and you know from the moment he walks onto the screen that someone's going to wind up at the bottom of the river.
Duryea and Hollywood endings weren't really meant for each other, and his turn as pimp Johnny Prince in Scarlet Street (1945) drove that point home. The little-known and very underrated Too Late For Tears (1949) is another great example. Black Angel (1946), One Way Street (1950), even Anthony Mann's noirish western, Winchester 73 (1950)...I could go on and on with Duryea. He was one of a kind.
ELISHA COOK JR: Whenever you saw Elisha Cook Jr's name in the credits of a film noir, you knew things were going to fall apart for the central character. Cook could do that to you. Come on with those raised eyebrows and his diminutive (but compelling) presence, and presto! You're in deep shit. A lot of noir characters paid the price for associating with Cook. Sterling Hayden in The Killing (1956) comes to mind, not to mention Marie Windsor, Cook's "creamy dish" in the same movie. Gene Raymond learned the hard way in the superb Plunder Road (1957) and Lawrence Tierney certainly could have done without him in Born To Kill (1947). Cook had his mojo working at all times. One of the greatest character actors in movie history.
Which reminds me, LAWRENCE TIERNEY: If ever there was an actor whose personal life played out like a film noir, it was Tierney. Way better-looking and a far better actor than his brother Scott Brady, it rankled him that Brady was more successful. After setting the screen on fire in Dillinger (1945), and in the aforementioned Born To Kill (1947), he was on his way to major stardom. The New York Times even said that Born To Kill was "not only morally disgusting but is an offense to a normal intellect." That alone should've cemented Tierney's place in film noir history. Unfortunately, however, his hard-drinking lifestyle prevented him from fulfilling his potential. A true, real-life tough guy, he got into plenty of barroom brawls, got thrown in jail numerous times, saw his career take a southward dive, and wound up in the 1960s in New York City, tending bar and driving horse carriages for Central Park tourists. His career never recovered, although he made a slight comeback in the 1990s, topping out with Quentin Tarantino's great film noir, Reservoir Dogs (1992).
RICHARD CONTE: Probably the most exciting news I heard in 1971 was that Richard Conte was tapped to play Don Barzini in The Godfather (1972). Although that movie was more opera than film noir, Conte oozed noir every time he stepped in front of the camera. He made you realize they were making a real gangster movie. And I mean a real gangster movie like The Big Combo (1955), where he's the gangland subject of a police investigation that is going nowhere. As the ice-cold Mr Brown, he lets you know in no uncertain terms that he doesn't like being investigated. Thieves Highway (1949), directed by the great Jules Dassin, while not exactly noir, is close enough, and Conte makes his way through this tale of revenge in his usual top form. Cry Of The City (1948) shows him in tangled relationships as an accused cop-killer on the run.
CHARLES McGRAW: You can't say "trenchcoat" without thinking of Charles McGraw. He should've gotten a piece of the action for every one sold in this country because God knows he helped to sell a shitload of them. Nobody could wear one with more authority. Brutal films like The Killers, The Narrow Margin, and Border Incident helped solidify McGraw's hold on the cinematic realism that was film noir. You knew guys like him in your own town, real hardasses, and you didn't fuck with them. Even when McGraw was on the right side of the law, you still were never sure he wouldn't break your face if you didn't tell him what he wanted to know.
≈≈≈
McGraw, like the rest of these guys, had the presence, the look, the swagger, that was meant to be photographed in black and white. You know, at night against a backdrop of wet city streets. Sultry alto sax lines slithering through the soundtrack as guns slide in and out of oiled shoulder rigs.
Gimme a cigarette and pour me some whiskey, then bring in the femme fatale and let my world collapse around me. You know what? I don't give a shit.
It's noir, baby.

No Rules: TROY LAMBERT

TROY LAMBERT is a writer I suggest keeping an eye on. He's got a very good collection of short stories under his belt, called BROKEN BONES (which I reviewed here) and is currently working to bring the world more. He has a solid, professional work ethic, which I admire, and is a genuinely kind person. Those qualities, along with his constantly improving skills as a writer, will eventually take him far.

Rumor has it Troy is working on his first novel as we speak, tentatively titled THE VALLEY OF DEATH.

I give you TROY LAMBERT...


Broken Bones

Under an “s” shaped scar on my right hand is what used to be broken bones. Actually they were shattered as a result of a motorcycle accident in 2000. After three surgeries and a great deal of physical therapy, I have about 90% use of my right thumb. Most people don’t notice the scar or any lack of ability with that hand.

Not all broken bones leave a scar that you can see. Most never puncture your skin and there is no visible wound. But there are scars on your bones. You don’t truly feel them until you get older. Then changes in temperature and humidity cause those scars to ache. In Some cases the joints around those scars will develop arthritis. You may not see the scar and you may push the memory far from your mind, but you will never forget a broken bone. It won’t let you. Every change of season and every time I overuse my right hand, it swells, it aches, and it lets me know that once it was shattered.

Throughout life we get emotional broken bones and scars as well. People hurt us and often that hurt is hidden far below our skin. Our hearts are often shattered and require emotional surgery. Sometimes this leaves a visible scar but most of the time it does not. People do not see the scar and don’t even notice any emotional lack of ability. But you never truly forget. It makes you more cautious and changes your reactions and who you are. As we endure changes in our lives the pain becomes more real to us and we remember.

Sometimes the way to sooth those broken bones and those scars is to write about them. I did that with my collection of short stories aptly named Broken Bones and I do it with my blog (I am just saying. . . .) fairly often. It sometimes offends those close to me, but it almost always evokes a reaction from a reader. It touches something inside them: a broken bone, a scar, an emotion they have buried deep within.

So if you dare to face your scars and your broken bones take a journey with me. Read, heal, and if it sooths your soul, write your own stories. Share your scars and your broken bones. You will be amazed how much it helps you heal.

NO RULES: Nigel Bird

It's been a banner year for NIGEL BIRD. He started it with the critically lauded story collection DIRTY OLD TOWN, followed it about mid-year with his next set of tales, BEAT ON THE BRAT, and wraps the year up with a third collection called WITH LOVE AND SQUALOR. As if three volumes of short stories wasn't enough, he also released several e-shorts, a book of poetry for children, and a remarkable novella called SMOKE.

When he's not writing fiction, he puts himself at the service of other writers and readers with the excellent blog, Sea Minor.

No matter how awful or violent the events become in a Nigel Bird story (and they can get pretty grim sometimes) the characteristic that really defines them is the strong sense of compassion and decency. Bird can show you the worst traits humans are capable of, and at the same time make you sympathetic to the whole human race. I don't know how he does it, man.

But I've said all this about Nigel Bird before and I don't need to say it again. He's one of my favorite people in this strange and cool Noir Underground, a good friend and a good human being. I'm proud to give you NIGEL BIRD.



Smoke Gets in Your Eyes

In my teaching recently, I’ve been working with a group of children who struggle with literacy on their mind-mapping. In essence, that’s about recording information in visual form rather than in words.

Our first lesson was on emotions, based upon the range of ‘smileys’ out there. It’s amazing what a difference the repositioning of a line can make, or an adjustment to its position. At its simplest, take the smile and the frown – draw the curve one way there’s sadness, turn it upside down it’s happy. A straight line will give a serious face and a couple of wavy lines over the eyes and you have anxiety.

Easily done.

Then take the idea of shading a picture in places to suggest a whole – not every brick on a building needs to be sketched in to make it look like it’s made of stone.

Hints, well-handled impressions, can lead the eye to create an altogether bigger picture.
The same can be said of writing.

Scene setting isn’t one of my strengths; I go to great lengths to avoid it when I’m being lazy.
With ‘Smoke’ though, I was looking at making the story as good as I could. It was this weakness that I began with during the edits.

Thing is, I happen to work in the town where the story is set.

Tranent is a town just outside of Edinburgh. Founded on the mining industry, it has less of a clear identity now that the coal is no longer economical to dig.

There are council estates where things can be very tough indeed for those who live there, and there are the new houses which home the professionals who work in the city, only a short drive away.

It gave me a problem I manage to get away from on the whole – the need to paint an accurate picture without making it one of replication. Apart from anything, some of the residents would be up in arms if they thought I was suggesting their home is as rough as the place I’ve painted, even though another section of the community would wave such a story with pride or even claim things had been diluted.

My first approach on setting came through the characters. The families I have created have difficult lives. Things tend not to go right for them. Leaving town rarely happens. They stick closely together. School is an inconvenience, literacy derided as it has nothing to do with football, fighting or beer.

Next I put in the things I know:

the High Street and all the little alleyways leading from it, perfect for hit and runs or stealthy attacks.

the Firth Of Forth, a strip of water that separates the Lothians from the Kingdom of Fife.

the power station, chimneys pointing high and proud.

one of the many pubs.

a High School.

council estates.

newly built houses.

the weather.

decay.

an old statue.

a hill.

a couple of historical points.

So far so good.

I remember hearing a writer recommending the keeping of a weather diary as a tip so that at any point in time the weather can be described in detail. I mentioned that I’m lazy, so I didn’t have such a diary to check on (you might want to try it, though, as you do always need weather). My solution was to mention it as little as possible. I think when I do describe it, it’s either through the actions of the characters or I use fog (fog’s a great type of weather in which to hide a town’s features).

I guess the final aspect of the setting is the dialogue. I’ve made it close to local in some ways, yet to do so accurately would mean it would be virtually unreadable. I’d like to think I’ve captured some of that essence without making it difficult. Think of it as an impressionistic attempt at Tranent Scottish.

Would a Belter (Tranent resident) recognise their town through my novella? I think they could.
Would a guided tour based on the novel get you round an easily planned route? No way. There’ll be no ‘Smoke tours’ after this one.

In the end, it’s a story about three groups of people whose lives intertwine. As is often the case, when people interact there are misunderstandings and when there are misunderstandings there are stories to tell. It’s a caricature of people and place, but the whiffs of truth should hit the reader strongly from time to time, otherwise I haven’t written the novella I think I have – don’t be shy to let me know.

Final shot.

The same children went to see Kes at the theatre recently, a play based upon ‘A Kestrel For A Knave’. Featuring heavily in the story is a bird of prey (Kes). I wondered how they’d deal with this in an enclosed space. Answer: A leather glove and a lure and a lot left to the imagination. And they loved it.

No Rules: BENOIT LELIEVRE

Back in March, BENOIT LELIEVRE did a guest post here, and this is what I said about him at the time: "Benoit Lelievre is one of the most talented young unpublished writers I know. He has a keen mind, and a unique perspective on the world and knows how to verbalize it. His blog, Dead End Follies, is one of the few that I check on a regular basis, because it never fails to be relevant and entertaining."

All of that is still true, except for one key point-- Ben is no longer unpublished. Recent months have seen his work appearing at Shotgun Honey, the Lost Children anthology, and the upcoming OFF THE RECORD. He's also taken on the mantle of film reviewer for Spinetingler, doing exactly what he does at his blog, but to a wider audience.

Kid's come a long way in a short period of time. Do I need to remind you that I predicted as much?

I'm pleased to present, once again, BENOIT LELIEVRE...

I was thirteen when the Backstreet Boys released their first single “We’ve Got It Going On”. Looking back, it was a defining event in my life because it was the first time I caught on to a sales pattern. Six or seven years before, I had bought into the New Kids On The Block mania pretty hard and after their lame ending I refused to buy into repackaged bullshit. Unfortunately I was pretty much alone in understanding this, so I didn’t get laid for most of my high school days.

But point is, I’m twenty-eight years old now, about to turn twenty-nine. If I could tell something to my thirteen year old self today it would be “You’re smart kid. Don’t listen to anybody, because you can figure things out on your own”. But I didn’t do that. I went to school for way too long, got way too many useless diplomas and all that, because I kept putting my destiny in other people’s hands because I didn’t have the courage and the confidence in myself to make my own way.

But I see the way now. I think.

Everybody will try and tell you what to do. It’s very flattering for the self to think your own wisdom is a wanted commodity. “Study under me and I will show you everything”, “Put your savings in my hands, I will make you rich”, “Work for me and accomplish your dreams”. You know what I mean? Don’t think, just work, pay and be productive, leave the rest to us.

We live in a world like this now.

Trusting has taken the place of thinking and it’s not because the world is a safer place. It’s not because we’re lazy either. OK, maybe we have gotten a little bit, but think back to the days of our parents and our grandparents and let’s play a comparison game. They didn’t have any money and most of them didn’t go to school very long. They have learned to survive, doing odd jobs, managing money, planning, trying to be smart about the very little they had. The past generations had learned to learn. We were given learning 101 in the face from the time we’re six years old and what have we learned?

Fuck all.

We are a generation of people with one area of expertise and who defer the responsibility of everything outside of work (and often at work too) to other people. We’re not responsible for ourselves anymore. We are afraid to think because we don’t trust ourselves. I’m not saying we should all be lone wolves, vowing for our own interest only. No, what I’m talking about here is what Ralph Waldo Emerson called self-reliance.

You don’t know something? It’s up to you to learn it. Don’t depend on somebody else. You’re poor? Do something. Get a second job, spend less, trust yourself to ensure you get by. Maybe if you put your shoulder into it you can have a promotion or even start your own business. If you limit your contribution to the world to a forty hours a week schedule, the world is going to give you back what you put in it.

I have never learned anything in school but what my martial arts teacher (you might know him) resumed in one sentence about ten years ago: “Be your own coach”. Go after what you want, take responsibility for it. Don’t wait for people to feed you off opportunities, because you will die alone unless you are Michael Jordan, Celine Dion or somebody that can make them a lot of money. When I moved in to Montreal ten years ago, I was desperately looking for a young driven martial arts teacher who would help me turn my life around and I found him because I was looking. The most important thing he taught me is those four words: “Be your own coach”.

I’m going to turn thirty soon and every people I went to school with and had dreams of being professional athletes, television personalities or to have any form of fulfilling career have all buried their dreams because they preferred debts and comfort. They are the prime audience for Jersey Shore and they go to U2 concerts, thinking it’s a spiritual moment. I discussed the issue with several of them and you know what they told me? “When I clock off work, I turn my brain off. I don’t want to think anymore”.

I’m sad that thinking has become something so frowned upon. I love thinking and when I go home, I just want to build things, master patterns and get the exhilarating flow of dopamine from understanding things. I’m not trying to say I’m better than anybody here. I’m saying we all have the capacity to do this and enjoy it. You just have to take responsibility for who you are, have a little faith in your abilities and don’t buy Backstreet Boys records.

No Rules: DAVID CRANMER

If you don't know who DAVID CRANMER is by now, I don't know what to do with you. You are clearly someone who doesn't pay attention. Listen this time, okay? Cranmer is the editor and publisher of one of the most consistent and entertaining crime zines around these days, BEAT TO A PULP. He's also a writer of tight and clever crime fiction that's appeared all over the webs and in print. And-- most importantly for our purposes today-- he is the alter-ego of one EDWARD A. GRAINGER, author of the best-selling ADVENTURES OF CASH LARAMIE & GIDEON MILES, VOLUME ONE and VOLUME TWO.

I wrote reviews of both volumes when they came out, you can find them here and here, and I don't have much to add except that, having read a whole lotta Westerns since then, the stories of Laramie and Miles STILL stand up as some of the most fun short stories I've read in a long time, regardless of genre.

I'm please to have Cranmer here at Psycho-Noir today, talking about the genesis of his Grainger pseudonym.

The Original Edward A. Grainger and His Influence

This picture is of the original Edward A. Grainger. He died twenty-eight years before I was born and what little I know of him comes from fragmented stories from my mom. He owned an import/export business in Georgetown, Guyana. He wrote two religious books, Wither Are We Drifting and Messages of Love and Light. He died in Trinidad at the age of 40 from alcoholism.

He wrote two books. My grandfather, the author.

My mom has told me many times of when she was a little girl, she wrote a story, Tula of the Jungle, and my grandfather took it to work with him one day, typed it out on the typewriter, and brought it back to her. Typing out that story was probably an insignificant moment to Grandpa Grainger, but it was an act of love that made his daughter very happy one afternoon, one that paid forward through the years and down the line as she passed along her joy to me.

My mom never mentioned writing anything again, but it was all I needed to spark the fire in me. I tried my hand at it in my teen years and then again more seriously in my mid-thirties. And here I am now, writing noir westerns and crime fiction, editing and publishing a webzine, and enjoying every minute of it.

Thanks, Grandpa.

No Rules: PETE RISLEY

PETE RISLEY is the author of RABID CHILD, one of the most disturbing but compulsively readable books written in the last couple of years. We started getting to know each other because of our mutual connection through New Pulp Press, and it didn't take long before I realized we had an awful lot of interests in common-- Crime fiction, of course, but also exploitation movies and garage rock.
The difference being, Pete's knowledge of these subjects dwarfs my own. Honestly, I thought I knew a thing or two, but Pete is a treasure trove of fascinating information about obscure stuff...
Following is a great example. Pete latches on to a writer I'd never heard of, a sort of rival of Mickey Spillane, and turns it into an amazingly interesting essay.
Here's PETE RISLEY.



David Karp’s HARDMAN And The Spillane Scare of the 1950’s


I’m certainly no spring chicken at this point, but I wasn’t around reading crime fiction in the 1950’s. Like a fair number of present-day devotees of what we now call noir, I first learned about writers like Jim Thompson, David Goodis and Harry Whittington mainly from critical works like Geoffrey O'Brien’s HARDBOILED AMERICA : THE LURID YEARS OF PAPERBACKS (1981) and from the eye-opening mid-'80's reprints offered by Black Lizard Books in the US and Zomba Books' Black Box Thrillers series in the UK. Thus, like many other readers, in the 1980’s I took up part-time residence on the wrong side of the tracks in mid-century America, doting over the work of writers of that era who were not well-known to the general public during their productive years.
Even so, for those of us who were around even as kids in the later 1950's or '60's, an earlier taste of something like noir fiction, though never identified under that term, came courtesy of mega-popular novelist Mickey Spillane. Unlike Thompson or Goodis, everyone had heard of him. For myself as a pre-teen in the mid-'60's, Spillane was one of the few authors whose books I'd be attracted to because the cover bore a familiar name, along with the sexy unclothed girl pictured there; otherwise, that type of cover art was usually the thing that would inspire me to leaf-through a paperback book, and sometimes actually try to read one, in hopes of finding the girl inside the book as well.
Of course, Spillane’s work was ultra-hardboiled for its time, and often for our time too. His protagonists, mainly P.I. Mike Hammer, were unrepentantly brutal in the way they dealt with miscreants – and frequently, in dealings with women, trod a dangerously alluring crossroads between violence and sex. His novels proved to be wildly popular in the ‘50’s, selling extraordinarily well in mass market paperback editions, especially in the US but also abroad. Indeed, Spillane's phenomenal popularity, beginning with his first novel I, THE JURY in 1949, though initially published in hardcover as were all his early works, virtually created the mass-market paperback-original crime fiction field, inspiring the launch of now-esteemed publishing ventures like Gold Medal and Lion Books, that gave us so much great noir back in the day.

Lion Books has a special place in the history of the noir fiction category. Founded in 1949 and edited by a man named Arnold Hano, and operated on a lower budget than some of its competitors, Lion published works by Jim Thompson, David Goodis and Day Keene that are now key titles in the noir canon. Thompson especially was associated with Lion, publishing ten of his paperback originals there, including his best-known novel, THE KILLER INSIDE ME (1953). Many noir enthusiasts today are inclined to dig deeper into Lion’s old ‘50’s list, finding great and/or fascinating stuff like Richard Prather’s THE PEDDLER, Fletcher Flora’s STRANGE SISTERS, THE LUSTFUL APE by Russell Gray (Bruno Fischer) and Curtis Lucas’ SO LOW, SO LONELY.

Another Lion author, who published four novels with them in the early ‘50’s, was David Karp. Karp’s name often turns up in surveys of the noir field, though to my knowledge, none of his novels in the category have been reprinted since the 1960’s. Karp, in fact, is most associated with a novel titled ONE, also published in 1953, which is said to be about a near-future dystopian society rather similar to what’s found in George Orwell’s NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR. That novel, which has been returned to print in recent years, was first published not as genre Science Fiction, but in hardcover from a mainstream press. An article about an interview with Lion Books editor Arnold Hano, by George Tuttle and included in THE BIG BOOK OF NOIR (1998, ed. By Ed Gorman, Lee Server and Martin H. Greenburg), quotes Hano as saying that, in contrast to the alienated and idiosyncratic Thompson, “Karp was more of a traditional writer and knew he could make it elsewhere and really wanted out from our publishing logo.” In a section about Karp in Paul Duncan’s study NOIR FICTION: DARK HIGHWAYS (2003), the author is quoted as saying in 1972, long after he’d gone mainstream, “if there’s such a thing as a moralist novelist, I am in that class or genre. I am a didactic writer.” Both these comments suggest that Karp is a very different deal than Thompson or Goodis.

Which brings me to the focus of my essay here, David Karp's Lion original HARDMAN (1953). The central character of the novel is himself a novelist, named Jack Hardman, who’s depicted as a very tough, mean, thuggish guy with no respect whatsoever for social niceties. He takes what he wants, and gives you a shove on the beezer for good measure. He grew up hard in urban backstreets, and began writing under the advice of a well-meaning judge after getting in serious trouble with the law as a young man. Hardman’s published works soon prove phenomenally popular and make him a celebrity, despite great disdain for his work among some, especially the supposed literati. Much guilty soul-searching is done by the agent who brings Hardman’s works to the public, as he frets over their baleful influence on society. An encounter with a flirtatious and neurotic heiress leads eventually to the unsurprising revelation that Hardman’s brutal attitudes are rooted in an aberrant and violent sexuality, and that proves his undoing.

It doesn’t take great insight to see the character Jack Hardman as an altered version of Mickey Spillane – and a quite unfair portrayal, if taken as that. As is well known, Spillane's work was very controversial and widely condemned in its ‘50’s heyday. Revered literary critic Malcolm Cowley, for one, denounced Spillane as a “homicidal paranoic.” Lee Server, in the entry for Spillane in his ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PULP WRITERS (2002), says “some of these attacks made it seem as though Spillane was the architect of the nation’s destruction.” In keeping with this judgment, near the end of HARDMAN, taglined in its original edition as “a novel of the evil workings of sadism,” the repentant agent says:

“This evil Hardman’s turned loose in the world is going to be hurting us for a long, long time. You can’t take the printed word and dirty it. You can’t take a thing as holy as a book and use it for your own illness and not expect to do something evil and mean and crippling to every person who’s ever written or dreamed or found the printed dreams of others something precious and valuable.”

While this passage reads like it could be a laughing-up-his-sleeve parody of earnest do-gooder claptrap, my impression overall is that Karp did have a beef with Spillane’s work, and with some other social trends reflected in his portrayal of Jack Hardman that don’t have to do directly with Spillane. One of these may have been with the rise of popular fiction about Juvenile Delinquency, at the same time as Spillane’s heyday. Jack Hardman, unlike Spillane to my knowledge, gets in bad trouble with the law in his youth, and his writing efforts begin with that sympathetic judge who thinks self-expression may somehow bring insight that would reform him. I find this a little reminiscent of Dr. Fredric Wertheim’s introduction to the first paperback edition (1950) of Hall Elson’s TOMBOY, a key work in the J.D. fiction category, and also a best-seller. Wertheim, notorious today for his influential stuffed-shirt-egghead attack on the vile social influence of comic books in a tome titled THE SEDUCTION OF THE INNOCENT (1954), says of Elson’s work:

“Ask the average reader what is the central theme of this novel and he will speak of complexes, psychopathic personalities and aggressive instincts. But the underlying theme of this book is fear. Not naked fear, but fear disguised as bravado, cruelty, brutality, hate and sadism. Even the daring exploits of Tomboy, the adolescent who sometimes seems to be afraid of nothing and is tougher than the rest of the boys and girls in the gang, are only a veneer.”

As for a popular or noted novelist having a criminal background, I don’t think there really was anyone fitting the bill in the U.S at the time of HARDMAN’S publication. I doubt that Karp was thinking of Jean Genet over in France, whom he surely knew about, but that’s a rather different deal. Chester Himes was around, but his work wasn’t on the best-seller list by any means. There were convict and ex-convict novelists to come years later in the crime fiction field, including E. Richard Johnson, Malcolm Braly and Edward Bunker, but they weren’t publishing in 1953, and anyway, while their works are valued today by noir enthusiasts, none of them were ever widely popular. Also, Norman Mailer didn’t stab his wife until 1960.

It appears to me that with HARDMAN, Lion Books and author Karp were rather hypocritically and ungratefully jumping onto the Spillane-bashing bandwagon, when it was Spillane and his work that had put down the ground beneath their feet. Thus, circa 1953, even a publishing venture generally seen as offering fare cheaper and sleazier than Spillane’s work sought to make hay out of the strait-laced fervor. Doing so is a standard ‘exploiteer’ move, as with the work of a number of culturally-incorrect writers and filmmakers whom I admire, so I won’t condemn it. Beyond that, I found HARDMAN to be an enjoyable and intriguing novel, in part for what I see as its faint but persistent ambiguities about the author’s own attitudes, despite his later claim of didacticism. After all, this is a work of fiction, and none of the characters can assuredly be said to speak for the author.

In fact, I think that at some points in his narrative Karp seems to sympathize perversely with his twisted bad-boy creation. An impressive passage comes late in the novel, after the psycho-sexual debacle in which Hardman has wrecked his own life and career, in which he vents his noirish spleen at shelves of presumably respectable books in the stacks of a public library:

“Hardman yanked books out, spilling them unto the floor. “What goes on behind the calm, reasoning brains? What goes on behind the buttery talk about honor and pride and justice and tenderness? The worm, gentlemen,” Hardman laughed and lurched down an aisle, his finger, crooked, swooping up and down past the title faces of the books, “the worm that works inside your heads – the worm that makes you want to rape your sister, kill your father, rob your brother, and spit in God’s eye. The worm you hide, you pious, pompous frauds!” … “The worm! Did you tell them about the worm? Did you turn him loose so that he could grow into a full-sized snake? Brother snake,” Hardman murmured, “dear brother snake, shake yourself loose and come out into the sun, and turn those yellow eyes up, the world’s yours. It’s his world, you bastards!” Hardman wheeled in a complete circle. “His world, you lily-white cruds!”



Pete Risley is the author of the novel RABID CHILD, published in 2010 by New Pulp Press.

No Rules: LUCA VESTE

In just a few short months, LUCA VESTE has garnered a very solid rep as a writer worth watching. His collection LIVERPOOL 5 got enough well-deserved good press that Veste followed it up almost immediately with, yes, MORE LIVERPOOL 5.
He runs the always-fun blog Guilty Conscience, where he's become quite the champion of independent writers. In the last couple of months, Luca has gathered together almost forty different writers for a new charity project called OFF THE RECORD-- an anthology of genre fiction, with all proceeds going to children's literacy charities on both sides of the Atlantic. It's due out in December.
I'm quite pleased to have this fresh voice here at Psycho-Noir.
Meet Luca Veste.


Death. It’s not the most light of topics, but it’s a subject which fascinates me. An inordinate amount of my time is spent thinking about my mortality, and not just my own, but everyone I care about also. It can get in the way of things to be honest. If you spend most of your time worrying about dying, you end up forgetting about the living part.

I turned 28 this year, not a milestone really, but this year did mark the first funeral I’ve been too, for someone I knew. My wife’s Nan passed away in June, after a long battle with Parkinson’s Disease. Before this, a few people I kind of knew had died, people I knew from work etc. but I hadn’t gone to their funerals. My own grandfather, Salvatore Veste, died when I was 10, too young to go to his funeral.

Sat in the church, surrounded by grief, it was a humbling experience. When a member of the family gave a eulogy, it suddenly struck me what I’d been doing with my life up to that point. Reading from a piece of paper, she gave the life story of my wife’s nan. From birth to her final years, I listened as every major event was covered. And it was all contained on one side of a piece of paper. Just an A4 sized piece of paper.

And it hit me. That’s all life is. A long (or if you’re unlucky, unfortunately short) journey, which leads to a loved one telling some people about your life from a piece of paper. It’s up to you how you fill it.

Now, anyone who’s already read my collection of short stories ‘Liverpool 5’ will recognise those paper related thoughts from the story ‘Dreams’. Also members of my family will recognise the man who relates this bit of pseudo philosophy. Because that’s what I do. I take real life people and situations, and make them kind of interesting, I hope. Another writer once said to me, ‘don’t write what you know, write what you can imagine…because what you know is probably pretty boring.’ And I heed that advice. Liverpool is a great city, with so much character. A lot more to it than just The Beatles, it’s steeped in history. Every street, every building, has its own story to tell. Every person you pass in town has their own story. I just try to tell a few of them.

I’ve been extremely lucky in my life. Hit by a car at six years old, I probably shouldn’t even be here right now. Yet, I’m married to a wonderfully complicated woman, with two beautiful daughters. I’m studying two subjects in Criminology and Psychology at University which fascinate me, and I also write in my spare time as well. I’m a lucky man.

I’ve been described by the writer and now my friend Darren Sant as exploding onto the writing scene like a ‘Scouse Gazelle’ these past few months. He’s right in a way. I was always on the periphery, bothering Steve Mosby or Neil White with inane questions about writing. But that funeral changed my outlook. To be that close to grief and death caused me to create a blog reviewing books. Reviewing books led me into a conversation with the excellent writer Charlie Williams, which ended with him kind of daring me to write a story entitled ‘Jeff: The Uninspired Vampire’. Writing that story, and making Charlie laugh, made me write another story. Col Burypublishing that second story on the fantastic website ‘Thrillers, Killers ‘n’ Chillers’ gave me the confidence to go on. Talking to writers of the calibre of Nick Quantrill and Julie Morrigan, giving up their time to give me advice and guidance, led me to approaching the publishers Trestle Press with five stories, and asking if they were interested.

In four short months, I have had one Ebook released, a follow-up written and ready for release, a story being published in Paul D. Brazill’s Brit Grit 2, and a project called Off The Record coming shortly, involving 37 of the best short story writers out there.
And it all came from death. My fear and fascination of it. It comes from being a staunch atheist (the need for evidence, of any sort, being of importance to me) and the knowing that this is it. Like the Eminem “song”, you got one shot, one chance, that’s all you got. So, even if you believe there’s more than just this life, that there’s something on the other side, why not give this life the best shot you can. That’s my goal now.

I’m just filling my piece of paper.