> First Slot-Machine, then Dan. What is it with you
and one-winged eyes?
> As a gimp myself, I'm curious....
There is really only one one-armed
detective. Kelly simply evolved into Fortune, inevitable
considering who I am and what I wanted to do with my writing.
Where the one-armed character came from in the first place
I've explained many times. It's all laid out in the
SLOT-MACHINE KELLY collection from Crippen and Landru, and I
don't want to spoil that book for you!!
>
> The Playboy Press paperback editions of the Dan
Fortune books featured
> some very attractive women in some pretty beat up
positions.
> Considering the fuss even just the cover of
Stansberry's THE CONFESSION
> received from some members of SinC, I was wondering:
Were you the first
> male member to rise from the ranks of
Sisters-in-Crime, and did they
> see those covers before they let you in?
Hey, I loved those covers, and always
wondered how they were going to handle the one book that
doesn't have ANY dead woman in it. They did it neatly, by
putting a dead man on that cover---and then doing another
with a dead man so they could deny they were exploiting
women.
I never heard any complaints from
Sisters in Crime, or women in general, since I'm not sure
SinC existed at that time. There are usually a lot more dead
men in any hardboiled novel. And, let's face it, sexual
conflict has always been a prime motive for murder by both
sexes.
> I was a charter member of SinC, one of the few men
who were, until,
frankly, I realized I was cutting my own throat. SinC has not
been good for male authors.
> I think one of the reasons you're a mystery to
younger readers is that
> your later books are not widely available in
paperback. And you persist
> in writing intelligent books that demand your
readers meet you at least
> halfway and accept the currently unfashionable
theory that everything
> is not black and white.
Only the last four were not in
paperback, but I suppose the four BIG paperbacks from
Worldwide and Leisure were not as widely distributed as my
earlier books. The last four are still not published in
paper, mass or trade. Maybe PointBlank will correct this and
get me out there more.
>
> John Shannon, a writer who shares many of your
political sensibilities,
> is currently in much the same position as you. Are
publishers perhaps
> shying away from any fiction with a political edge
that isn't
> dumbed-down enough to be pigeon-holed?
I'll have to read Shannon, and thanks
for letting me know about him. (I have a feeling you and
maybe others hjave mentioned him to me before.) As for
publishers and fiction with a political, social, or
philosphical edge, I think they avoid it or dumb it down as
much as they can. From their point of view even one offended
potential reader is to be avoided, and they will allow it
through only when the book is so good in every other way they
have to let it past. In general I they seem to prefer mildly
right wing politics, particularly nationalistic American, but
even then, dumbing down is the goal. They are after a happy
medium, that is somewhere between the so-called liberal elite
who read for understanding of the human condition, and those
who never read at all.
>
They are after the mass of all those who CAN read, not just
those who do read.
Dennis
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