You’ve seen the movie. Now read the story on which it is based. Illustrations are from the movie
Big Shot
By Vicki Baum
BRANDT, THE SHARPSHOOTER, sat in his van, playing a game of checkers with himself. That was how he always spent the half-hour preceding his appearance. The game soothed him and steadied his hands. He raised his head irritably as the door was pulled open, and the stable smell and circus noises came surging in.
"What's wrong?" he asked, unfriendly.
"An accident," stammered the stable master. "They want you."
Brandt jumped up.
"Rodini—" the stable master said.
"A fall—?" asked Brandt.
"Broke his neck. Killed on the spot. Please come—"
I HAD the most enjoyable author talk ever today before technical-college students who were disabled or immigrants studying English as a Second Language (ESL).
The teacher who invited me said the 25 disabled students each had some measure of intellectual impairment while some had physical disabilities as well. But they seemed to follow what I was saying as I explained the differences between paperback, hardback, eBook and audiobook.
Collectively they were able to tell me the word ‘genre’ meant kind, noir meant black as in night, and ‘e’ as in eBook stood for electronic. They were able to explain to me fiction, non-fiction, and back story.
I received the usual question on how long it took to write a book. I explained about re-writing or self-editing a dozen times before passing it on to a professional editor if you could afford one.
I received an unusual question about what was my favourite book and I thought the questioner meant my favorite book I had read. But he meant the favorite I had written.
I had to think about it but I I answered truthfully my novel Iraqi Icicle. I then thought how some friends have said I should concentrate on “more serious” non-fiction.
I explained why there was a clown on the front cover of my novel. I asked how many students were afraid of clowns. As I suspected about a half-dozen hands went up. But they were outnumbered by the hands which went up for those finding clowns funny. In this way I was able to explain comedy noir.
An ESL student from Serbia asked me whether I found an idea for a book or the idea found me. I have never been asked that question before but it struck me as a brilliant one. I literally had to think on my feet and I replied I leaned towards the idea finding me.
I thought these ESL students might struggle with my novel as Iraqi Icicle is in part written in Australian-English as a Third Language (AETL), Still it does have a glossary and, if they listen to the audiobook, I think they will follow my drift and get a giggle or two.
I WAS enjoying a soy latte in the canteen when a couple of the students sat beside me. “It’s good that you write books for people,” one said.
That might have been the best compliment I have ever received and a compliment received on behalf of the tens of thousands of authors throughout the world who struggle to make writing pay. The bottom line is it is good we write books for people.
HERE is our song about quaint writing. I love this clip so much.
Check out organ player John Evans making fun of the pre-recording. Pre-recorded or live, it is a two-minute minimalist rock gem.
General Manuel Antonio Noriega, former military leader of Panama, died aged 83, on Monday, May 29, 2017.
Although my novel Iraqi Icicle Third Editionis set in Australia, my novel explores the exploits of Manny Noriega in Panama and the U.S. Here is an excerpt.
Me at Pine Rivers Art Gallery, a fantasticplace in all meanings of the word
I USUALLY don’t prepare anything for my book launches. I just wing it. But I did prepare a speech for the launch of Iraqi Icicle Third Edition at Pine Rivers Art Gallery on April 1. I even gave what was a verbal essay a title . . .
GORE Vidal biographer Jay Parini reckons Hard Case Crime has done the world a disservice by publishing this 1953 pulp novel written under a pseudonym. Hard Case claims to have discovered a lost novel by Vidal but that’s a bit of a stretch because the author expressly forbade its reprint during his lifetime. Wisely so,
Like Phillip Marlowe’s manners, Thieves Fall Out is pretty bad. Bland is the best word to describe the finished product which even the publisher concedes was cobbled together from the pages of tabloid newspapers. Vidal biographer Parini, writing in theGuardian, says the author would have turned this novel out in a few weeks. It shows.
FOR PETE'S SAKE
THE main protagonist Peter Wells is not seedy nor desperate nor quippish enough for good noir. For Pete’s sake, Vidal calls him Pete for most of the novel. A Pete does not have his life constantly in jeopardy and does not win the femme fatale. Speaking of femme fatale, Helene with accents above the first two e’s does not evoke Bacall or Ida Lupino and her English henchman fails to channel a sinister whisper of Sidney Greenstreet.
OF course you could pay $60 for one of the second-hand copies of the pulp original. What I do not understand is why the original would have the words “not a reprint” on the front cover. As always, buyer beware.
GORE VIDAL BLACKLISTED
Vidal in 1948
THE background to Vidal writing Thieves Fall Out was his effective blacklisting by publishers and critics after his 1948 novel The City and the Pillar had a central homosexual relationship, not portrayed with the homophobia required of mainstream literature.
Spurned by the literary establishment, Vidal put out three crime pulps under the name Edgar Box and they proved quite lucrative. Vidal thought enough of them to lend his real name to reprints (1978, as a box set actually.)
VIDAL thought little enough of Thieves Fall Out to suppress its reprint under any name.
Given the hostility to The City and the Pillar, you have to wonder why Vidal chose to make one of the deadliest villains a homosexual. The man tries to rape Pete who also learns that homosexuality was rife in the Arab world. I doubt if Vidal researched this. It certainly presents in the novel as stereotyping, an essential element of homophobia.
WITH the release of the Jay Parini biography, there will be comment on whether Vidal was a self-loathing gay though such discussions, whether based on race, religion or sexuality, soon become entangled. It is quite feasible that Vidal, knowing that homophobia was a staple of pulp fiction, cast his nemesis in that role as an acerbic reflection of the establishment reaction against The City and the Pillar.
Vidal appears respectful of the Moslem (sic in the novel) religion.
The ban on alcohol and the use of hashish are both mentioned. Vidal uses the word courier in reference to drugs. I wonder if this was in the 1953 original or whether it was a re-edit. The book could have done with a preface explaining if there were re-edits. An epilogue explaining the genesis of the novel and the politics in Egypt would also have been handy.
DOWNFALL OF FAROUK
Hedonist King Farouk 1948
THE novel is set in the time (1952) of the military overthrow, with the help of the CIA, of the Egyptian ruler King Farouk. Vidal depicts Farouk as a womaniser and a Nazi sympathiser both of which were undoubtedly true. He also paints him as a tyrant which is less provable but he only vaguely alludes to his extravagant lifestyle which led to Farouk's loss of popularity.
I was hoping Farouk would re-enter the novel towards the end. Alas not, we only see the King in a cameo at the beginning when he struts his stuff on the dance floor.
Vidal will be remembered for his historical novels Julian, Washington D.C., Burr and Lincoln among a body of work which included essays, plays and screenplays. Thieves Fall Out is not among his serious historical-fiction.
I would certainly encourage anyone interested to buy the eBook. To my mind further expense to read this pulp novella of seven chapters would be foolish.
Like Oliver Twist, we are asking the question, only we will not be turned away with a clip across the ear.
Today we will go to the land of Charles Dickens to continue our feast of noir.
As we now know, classic noir refers to Hollywood films from the early 1940s to the late 1950s. But that is just an easy definition to cover many noirs because Gaslight is a British film made in 1940.
If Hollywood had had its way, we would not be watching Gaslight later today.
Gaslight started life as the 1938 play Gas Light by Patrick Hamilton. Theatre buffs can imagine how astounding the play would have been with the central gaslight icon and the glorious role-reversal scene towards the end.
The play made it to Broadway with a strange name change to Angel Street. If anyone knows the story behind the name change I would love to hear it.
Anyway, the British movie and the Broadway play, both called Angel Street were successful and the Hollywood studio MGM paid its respects. It bought the remake rights. But - and some like big buts in Hollywood – MGM demanded all existing prints of the British version be destroyed. The studio further demanded the negatives be obliterated as well. Luckily this outrageous caveat was not met.
Do you have to hand in your hipster card if you love
film noir? This is the serious love affair my protagonist Steele Hill confesses
to in the short story Lady Madonna Meets
the Martians. http://amzn.to/1H0fPdf
In the 1990s, 20-something Hill
scours video shops for noir classics and when caught watching the vids at home
has to explain his abnormal behaviour.
Twenty years on, are we noir
lovers to be even more pitied or have the hipsters caught up with the joys of
black and white crime films?
WE all know what the expression "the tables are turned" means. It says roles are reversed. But why isn't it "the table is turned".
I can think about stuff like this intermittently over a week or a month. I usually give up after a year if I have not figured it out.
Anyway the table is turned here because I an giving an interview rather than taking one.
Possible cover for my work-in-progress The Life of D
I wish I
could write a life-affirming novel like The Life of Pi. It is just not my
voice.
I would like Barack Obama writing to me as he did to Pi author Yann
Martel. The president could take quill to paper to write about my novel Iraqi Icicle. He could write something
like ‘…an elegant proof of the existence of Good and Evil and bloody good read,
mate.’ But presidents really like to endorse life-affirming books not a sardonic
neo-noir wild ride like Iraqi Icicle.
Why is that goody-two-shoes constant Pi getting all the attention, anyway,
with people making songs, books and movies about it. I believe I am safe ground
in presuming Marten’s title has some
reference to that circular thingy pi.
Pi is a very pushy number always putting itself first, as in 2πr
and πd. The speed of light is happily last in mc2. In mynovel the life ofD,the eponymous D struggles
against the evil warlord Pi. Chapters 5-107 will metaphorically reference the
injustice of the circumference of a circle not being universally accepted as dπ.
If it were not for us writers, these important issues would pass by
un-noticed.
It is like Sammy Beckett wrote in Waiting
for Godot
‘How is it that of the four Evangelists only one speaks of a thief being
saved. The four of them were there-or therabouts-and only one speaks of a thief
being saved.’
Exactly, what is
going on here? Is someone trying to pull the wool over our eyes? And to what
purpose?
Or what about Alfred
Doolittle’s rant in Pygmalion?
‘I'm one of the undeserving poor:
that's what I am. …
I don't need less than a deserving man: I need
more. I don't eat less hearty than him; and I drink a lot more.’
You can’t argue with that splendid logic, but it took George Bernard Shaw
to right it up for us all to see.
Barack Obama need not encourage these life-affirming novelists. Martel
conceded writing The Life of Pi was its own rewards – the hefty royalty checks
probably helped too. Let’s support us writers, shining our sardonic flashlights on the
noir crawl spaces of life.
