The mentions of Bogie's Restaurant in a Warren Murphy novel
are not surprising as my memory is of seeing Murphy in the
restaurant. Also Paperjacks published LEONARDO'S LAW but I
don't have a copy here to confirm that it was one of the
Paperjacks with the Bogie's imprint, edited by restaurant
owners Bill and Karen Palmer. I also remember that there were
several Paperjack reprints of Bill Pronzini's Nameless novels
that I think were Bogie imprints.
Paperjacks also did a reprint of Jack Early's RAZZAMATAZZ.
Early was a pseudonym of Sandra Scoppettone that she kept
very secret for several years. Sandra was a friend in those
days and told me that her Jack Early novels always received
better reviews than those under her own name. She was active
in the formation of Sisters in Crime and my memory is that
she told me about the Michael Avallone incident. I know I
also heard about it from Avallone.
I say this because after my last post I began to wonder if
the Avallone incident happened at Bogie's. I wasn't there but
heard about it from both SiC people and Mike and goodness
knows where those letters are. I think it was at Bogie's but
it may have been at another location.
One Paperjack's Bogie imprint PBO that I am sure of was the
last published Ed Noon novel (number 38, I think) by Michael
Avallone--HIGH NOON AT MIDNIGHT. Now I know Avallone earned a
full chapter in Pronzini's GUN IN CHEEK with his offbeat
prose. I have been at parties where quoting Avallonisms
became a contest. I also know how obnoxious he could be in
his last years with his paranoia coming out in angry
letters.
Yet I will say that HIGH NOON AT MIDNIGHT, a very hard to
find novel, is worth tracking down. This is especially true
if you are familiar with a reasonable number of the earlier
37 Ed Noon novels. Avallone was a Hollywood movie fan and
very often reprised movie plots in the Noon novels as in
SHOOT IT AGAIN SAM. So here Mike was near the end of the
trail in the late 80s and no publisher would touch him. He
was an outcast and some of that was due to his own anger and
feuds and some was due to his out-of-fashion writing. More
than out-of-fashion, his writing had crossed boundaries into
the very strange. HIGH NOON AT MIDNIGHT features Avallone's
private eye Ed Noon but it also has Gary Cooper as a major
character and there are aliens and...well, it is one of the
most surreal things I have ever read. No one should have
published it. I can't imagine anyone not rejecting it. But
the Palmers had the guts to buy it and publish it. Is it a
work of great literary merit? No. But it is more interesting,
fascinating really, than 90 percent of the crap that is
published. The Palmers recognized that and made the great
leap.
HIGH NOON AT MIDNIGHT ended up being nominated for an Anthony
Award. He didn't win but that was okay. Mike, who didn't have
the money to buy a ticket for the awards banquet, hung around
at the back of the room for the announcement. But I know he
didn't expect to win. He was so proud of being nominated. It
must have been his 250th novel at least. It turned out to be
his last published. I did a lot of drinking with him that
night to celebrate. Mike could be a royal pain in the ass but
I kind of liked him. Bless his memory.
So when I think of Bogie's, I think of good times at a nice
restaurant but I also think of the Palmers, Karen and Bill.
Hyperactive, on the go people. Both were martial arts experts
with the belts and several books on the subject in print to
prove it. They were pioneers in interactive mystery plays and
whodunnit nights and weekends. But most of all I remember
them as two people with courage...courage to do what they
wanted to do, always, and that included publishing a very
strange but fascinating novel by a guy who had become
untouchable to the rest of the world.
Richard Moore
-- # To unsubscribe from the regular list, say "unsubscribe rara-avis" to # majordomo@icomm.ca. This will not work for the digest version. # The web pages for the list are at http://www.miskatonic.org/rara-avis/ .
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 06 Dec 2001 EST