The Washington Times ran my On Crime column on Loren D. Estlman’s novel Paperback Jack.
You can read the column via the below link or the below text:
BOOK REVIEW: 'Paperback Jack' - Washington Times
Loren D. Estleman (seen in the bottom photo), the award-winning author of the Amos Walker
crime series as well as other detective and Western novels, has published
“Paperback Jack,” an interesting and well-written novel about the birth of
paperback novels.
I contacted Mr. Estleman and asked him why he wrote “Paperback
Jack.” I also asked him to describe the novel.
“The rapid changes that took place in our society during the
postwar period were exciting, stimulating, and frightening, and the men and
women who created this literature saw that and put it into words that shocked
at the time and still resonate now that the rest of us have caught up to their
worldview,” Mr. Estleman wrote in reply.
“I wanted to showcase and celebrate these unsung prophets before
our frantic society leaves them in the dust. ‘Paperback Jack’ tells the story
of the most important decade of the twentieth century through the point of view
of a writer who in his efforts simply to make a living doing the only thing he
knows how to do has no idea of their significance until his career is coming to
an end. He just can’t write about things the way he did before war opened his
eyes, and so finds himself opening the eyes of those who weren’t there.”
Was Jacob Heppleman/Jack Holly, the protagonist, based on an
actual writer?
“No one in particular. A handful of relatively well-adjusted
artists who managed to put their wartime nightmares into perspective sort of
dictated their memoirs to me through their fiction.”
Were any of the other characters in the novel based on real
people? I thought I saw Mickey Spillane in one character.
“I know who you mean. He’s an arch version of the Mickey
Spillane of popular conception. I enjoy Spillane’s books, and found him kind,
cheerful, and an entertaining storyteller the one time we met; nothing like the
brute some critics thought him, confusing him as they did with his detective,
Mike Hammer. I transferred that confusion to the character himself, adding to
the fun,” Mr. Estleman said.
“The troubled writer of science fiction was suggested by David
Goodis, best remembered for such hard-boiled crime novels as ‘Dark Passage’ and
‘Shoot the Piano Player.’ By many accounts he was an odd duck, a disturbed
loner who led the life of a derelict even when he was rolling in Hollywood
money. I took his example to the extreme of serious mental illness, making him
a victim of that time of radical change.
“The collaborative detective-story writers working under a
single pseudonym were suggested by the Ellery Queen partnership. I sweetened
(or perhaps soured) that pot by borrowing from the example of Gilbert and
Sullivan, who gave the world so many beloved operettas while carrying on a
lifelong campaign of mutual hatred for each other. Cliff Cutter was a personal
indulgence. I based him on the late Max Evans and Elmer Kelton, close friends
of mine and real-life cowboys who wrote terrific Westerns based on genuine
experience. Phoebe Sternwalter stands in for the slim cadre of female writers
who (often using male pseudonyms) contributed so much to pulp-magazine and
paperback fiction.”
Why did paperback novels become so popular?
“America grew up during World War II. These stories, written for
the most part by veterans, served up real-life experience earned through
hardship and despair, and their words rang with truth. Even readers who’d been
sheltered from such harsh realities instinctively recognized that they were
being told how things were, by writers who respected their intelligence and
willingness to be enlightened,” Mr. Estleman explained. “Also, the books were
cheap; that’s crucial. At two bits a pop, anyone could carry a month’s worth of
reading out of a drugstore in return for pocket change. That led to their wide
dissemination and consequently their influence. Everyone profited, from
publishers to writers to booksellers to an audience that simply wanted to be
entertained without straining the household budget. And they were exceedingly
well-written. Pick one at random and read the opening. Seven of the writers on
the current national best-selling lists couldn’t write a line like that on
their best day.”
Did paperback novels influence future crime fiction?
“Completely. Before they came along, the concept of official
corruption and human depravity was absent from the gangster novels of
Prohibition and the Great Depression. The lessons of that era, and of the
horrors of mechanized warfare and organized inhumanity, made that kind of
naivete obsolete. Those writers braved critical ruin and enormous pressure from
the church and Congress, taking the heat from an authority determined to
silence dissent, so that the generation that followed had the freedom to express
itself without fear of censorship or ostracization. Without “I, The Jury,”
“Badge of Evil,” and “Cotton Comes to Harlem,” there could be no “Shawshank
Redemption,” no “To Kill a Mockingbird.”
• Paul Davis’ On Crime column covers true crime, crime fiction and thrillers.
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