Re: RARA-AVIS: Eugene Izzi anyone?
BaxDeal@aol.com
Sat, 12 Sep 1998 20:23:06 EDT
thought I had read most of the Izzis, but recently saw in a
store what I
believe to be the book he was working on when he hung himself.
it listed at
least another book that I wasn't aware of. didn't pick the book
up because of
the size of my stack and also because frankly, after you've
read about 3
Izzis, they all begin to sound the same. personally, I feel
that Izzi,
despondent over his lack of huge commercial success and
acclaim, committed
suicide in a desperate and cynical attempt at the literary
immortality that
eluded him in life.
that said, he did write genuinely tough material. met him once
and he seemed
like he had first hand knowledge of the boys from the Patch. as
for
recommendations, his early works THE TAKE and BAD GUYS are
pretty indicative
of the territory he would stake out for himself (and never
wander far afield
from.) his masterpiece IMHO is THE PRIME ROLL. it never got
better than
that, and after awhile his work stopped appearing in print in
Los Angeles.
if you like Izzi, by all means STAY AWAY FROM his early THE
EIGHTH VICTIM,
which Guy himself has dissed in public. I own it and it's
almost unreadable.
(Izzi's name may have been Eugene, but his k.a.'s called him
Guy.)
I seriously doubt if there's a crime fiction writer dead or
alive out there
that SOMEONE on this list hasn't read.
John Lau
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