Doug,
Re your comment below:
> As for ONE LONELY NIGHT, my pet theory about
that
> book
> is that the first chapter is brilliant, maybe
the
> best
> piece of writing Spillane ever did. (The
whole
> "walking across the bridge in the rain" bit.)
It
> should have been published as a stand-alone
short
> story. Unfortunately the rest of the novel is
pretty
> lame and dated, the worst of Spillane's first
run.
> But
> that first chapter is a killer.
Here I have to disagree. I think Spillane sustained the mood
in ONE LONELY NIGHT throughout the whole book extraordinarily
well. Far from being the worst of the first run, I think it's
the best, not only of the first run, but of the whole
corpus.
Oddly, I had something similar to your reaction
("great opening chapter - lousy book") to I, THE JURY.
I think the first chapter is great; I think the closing
chapter is the best rewrite of the last chapter of THE
MALTESE FALCON ever done. But what goes on in-between is
pretty hard going.
Different strokes.
JIM DOHERTY
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