What's most interesting about KISS TOMORROW GOODBYE is
McCoy's presentation of the protagonist, a criminal with a
privileged background who makes no excuses for who he
is.
Page 235 of my Midnight Classic edition:
"I didn't grow up in the slums with a drunk for a father and
whore for a mother and come into crime that way. I hate
society, too, but I don't hate it because it mistreated me
and warped my soul. Every other criminal I know--who's
engaged in violent crime--is a two-bit coward who blames his
career on society. I need no apologist or crusader to finally
hold my lifeless body up to the world and shout for them to
come and observe what they have wrought. Do you know one of
the first things I'm going to do when I get some money? I'm
going to have Cartier make me a little solid gold thing for
my wrist, you know, that identification thing the army guys
wear, on a solid gold chain and do you know what I'm going to
have inscribed on it? Just this: 'Use me not as a preachment
in your literature and your movies. This I have wrought, I
and I alone'."
Brilliant.
THE BURGLAR, by David Goodis, is my favorite noir novel, bar
none. The last chapter is both shocking and beautiful. Trust
me, you will never forget this book.
Geoffrey O'Brien on Goodis:
"Nothing so downbeat, so wedded to the reiteration of
personal and social failure, would be likely to find a mass
market publisher at present. The absolutely personal voice of
David Goodis seems almost to have escaped by accident. It
emanated from the heart of an efficient entertainment
industry, startlingly, like the wail of an outcast."
George Pelecanos
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