Craig Rice was a fun, as opposed to serious, hard-boiled
writer for the most
part. Her Malone books are fun to read, and the collection of
his short
stories (whose name I do not recall) is very good. Some are
serious in
nature and perhaps among the best of "soft-hard" bolied ss.
The one
collected in many places, His Heart Could Break has a truly
noirish ending
and is an all-time personal favorite crime ss.
The collaboration with Stuart Palmer, titled The People vs.
Withers and
Malone is another fun collection, joining Rice's hardboiled
John J. Malone
with Palmer's cozy Hildergade Withers. It is thought to have
been mostly
written by Palmer.
Enrique Bird
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Greg Swan [SMTP:greg@swans.org]
> Sent: Sunday, April 04, 1999 12:55 PM
> To: rara-avis@icomm.ca
> Subject: Re: RARA-AVIS: Women Writing
Pulps?
>
>
>
> Bill Hagen wrote:
>
> > My short history of the pulps (Dime Detectives)
doesn't mention her; the
> > 1946 anthology, The Art of the Mystery Story,
ed. by Howard Haycraft,
> and,
> > later, Julian Symons characterized her as
writing "crime comedy." But
> I'd
> > be the first to admit that these are not
extensive sources.
> >
> > So far, then, she and Leigh Brackett are on my
list to check.
>
> A few more thoughts. It may be difficult to decide
whether to dismiss her
> work as neither noir nor harboiled. Mario would
probably term the stuff
> I've read and liked "medium-boiled."
>
> While crime comedy is also probably a fitting label
for some of her work,
> I
> think it misses a point. Craig Rice was apparently a
deeply troubled
> woman
> who tried to make her pain go away through drink. She
reportedly was
> good-natured and possessed a brilliant
sense-of-humor, perhaps another way
> to hide her inner suffering. Reportedly, she twice
attempted suicide.
> I've
> felt for some years that it's hard for tortured souls
like Rice to write a
> breezy novel. The pain, shame and desperation they
feel can't help but
> leak
> into the story. It's this subtle, dark undertone that
made Rice's work
> interesting for me to read. Her darkness isn't as
easy to spot as, say,
> David Goodis'. But, I think it's there.
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