RARA-AVIS: Eyeing the Flash

From: Jeff Vorzimmer ( jvorzimmer@austin.rr.com)
Date: 08 May 2005


Just finished the book Eyeing the Flash by Peter Fenton. It's non-fiction, a biography in fact, of a guy who worked summers through high school (1963-67) as a carnival huckster and con artist. The reason I mention it here is that it reminded me of Jim Thompson's autobiographical novels, Roughneck and Bad Boy and also of The Grifters. I ran across it in the True Crime section of my local bookstore and the jacket blurbs sounded interesting and it was a great read. It definitely read like a Jim Thompson novel and having just finished reading all 30 of his novels I was eager for anything similar.

I've also started Luc Sante's Library of Larceny series with The Telephone Booth Indian, which would mostly be of interest to New Yorkers in that it's a collection of essays on different fringe subcultures of old Broadway. There is also an essay on world fair hucksters of the 30s and 40s.

Jeff

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