<Rene asked:
> I found a copy of "The John Franklin
> Bardin Omnibus", which contains "Devil Take
the
Blue-Tail Fly", "The
> Deadly Percheron" & "The Last of Philip Banter",
at
a little stand
> selling 2nd hand books. I've been wanting to
read
these books, which
> have quite a rep in certain circles, for a
long
time. My impression is
> that this guy inhabits territory somewhere
between
Fredric Brown &
> Cornell Woolrich, not your standard HB,
more
psychological suspense Anyone out there read these books
& have any comments
(sans spoilers,
> please)?
Your impression is quite correct, Rene. I've recommended this
omnibus to a number of folks and have rarely gotten a
negative feedback. The somewhat surreal plotting/storylines
and offkilter dark reality of the novels meshes impressively
- almost amazingly so - with the ordinary, often desperate
characters that populate these strange, extra-ordinary
novels. Brown and Woolrich? Yeah, I can see that...>
I read the entire omnibus last year and was very impressed -
although, interestingly, the novel of the three that I found
least satisfactory (Devil Take the Blue-Tail Fly) is the one
Julian Symons touts as a masterpiece in the Introduction. My
take is that The Last of Philip Banter is a
*near*-masterpiece, only marred by a not-quite-convincing
denouement, and that The Deadly Percheron runs it very close
(the set-up of Percheron is dazzling, the denouement again
less so). Ultimately I think that Bardin was a
literary/surrealist novelist who found a haven in crime
fiction (which is to say, their genre status made the novels
publishable), but who also chafed against the boundaries of
the form. (A couple of his later titles are apparently
straight mainstream fiction; there are ten novels altogether,
including four pseudonymous.) He is a writer of the second
rank, perhaps, but one who shouldn't be missed. Here is an
interesting Bardin website:
http://www.johnfranklinbardin.com/shome.html
Mark Harris
===== Mark Harris Educational Consulting College Admissions
Strategies 773-914-3472 http://admissionsplus.blogspot.com/
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