Re: RARA-AVIS: James Loftus

From: Rene Ribic ( reneribic@bigpond.com)
Date: 14 Apr 2004

I'm sorry folks but the O'Connell article is indeed a hoax, even if it wasn't published on April 1. "James Loftus" was in reality the Australian poet Ern O'Malley, who wrote many ersatz hardboiled novels set in the US, although O'Malley himself had never left Australia at that time. These books were published by the Cleveland Press and Horwitz, (publishers, respectively, of the "Carter Brown" and "Larry Kent" novels) mostly under the name "Pete Collins". Later, he sold some PBO's to the US but none to Gold Medal, rather more down market lines like Midwood. One of these was made into the never-released post-noir film, Dark is the Night. The (very) few critics who read his work in the 50's and 60's said things like - "don't bother - stick to Mickey Spillane". He gave up writing in the 60's to become firstly, a wrestling announcer, then later a used car salesman and then finally a Liberal Party senator of the NSW state parliament. While in office he was involved in a bribery scandal and died while serving his prison sentence. I hope this has clarified things.

Rene
----- Original Message ----- From: "William Denton" < buff@pobox.com> To: "RARA-AVIS" < rara-avis@icomm.ca> Sent: Wednesday, April 14, 2004 1:13 PM Subject: RE: RARA-AVIS: James Loftus

> On 13 April 2004, Mario Taboada wrote:
>
> : Ah, Loftus, a cult classic like Cedric Titus, Herbert Quain
> : and Pierre Menard.
>
> Didn't he hang out with Jacques Debierue in Paris, back when?
>
>
> Bill
> --
> William Denton : Toronto, Canada : http://www.miskatonic.org/ : Caveat
lector.
>
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