Have to weigh in on "Shark Infested ..."
I read in the biography that when Willeford finished it, he
was convinced it was his greatest work, yet. Then he was
blown away to discover that no one would publish the goddamn
thing. And after that, he quit writing for a while. It was
brutal blow for him.
You have to realize that all these books are written as BLACK
COMEDIES. And
"Custard" is the blackest of all of them, riffing on the
swinging bachelor scene of the seventies. I love it.
Dave
Mbdlevin@aol.com wrote:
> Martha:
> << the willeford book i recently bought (for
my
> first) is the burnt orange heresy, which no
one
> has mentioned as a good one-- have i made a
horrible
> choice? >>
> Teri:
> <>
>
> A few quick thoughts. I am a big fan of the Hoke
Moseleys and many here have
> directed readers to them. They are great books and
probably more accessible
> (for lack of a better word) crime novels than
Willeford's other writing.
> They have good guys and bad, and crimes are solved.
As Teri saw in Shark,
> crime plays a part, but (re)solution (or a clean
balance of justice/morality)
> does not. Without Moseley, however, we might not be
reading much
> Willeford--everything was out of print when Miami
Blues came out. Willeford
> shopped Shark in the 70s and got nowhere; the book
was published posthumously.
>
> Most of the non-Hoke are quite strong. Burnt Orange
was, incidentally, his
> first hardback and it garnered reviews in The New
York Times, The New Yorker,
> Harpers, etc. It is very good, though some readers
may tire at moments. My
> favorite is The Woman Chaser (which was also called
his masterpiece by
> Richard Gehr in the Village Voice); look for the new
movie if it gets a
> distributor (or at your local film fest). In the
Washington Post, Barry
> Gifford, sometime acquiring editor at Black Lizard
when it was run by
> Creative Arts in Berkeley, and writer in his own
right of course, called The
> Black Mass of Brother Springer Willeford's
masterpiece. The Library of
> America made Pick-Up its Willeford
choice.
>
> Doug
> --
> # To unsubscribe, say "unsubscribe rara-avis" to
majordomo@icomm.ca.
> # The web pages for the list are at http://www.miskatonic.org/rara-avis/
.
-- # To unsubscribe, say "unsubscribe rara-avis" to majordomo@icomm.ca. # The web pages for the list are at http://www.miskatonic.org/rara-avis/ .
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 12 Jan 2000 EST