I don't know what a tough guy is in this context.
Edward Bunker is an example of a hard boiled writer who did time.
James Ellroy also.
I spent many years living in that environment. Never got caught. Never
did time.
Nobody with any brains goes into that world acting out the macho tough
guy bit.
First of all, everyone would laugh at you and eventually someone would
throw you in a dumpster just for fun.
Mostly, my experience was a lot of crazy humor, a lot of drinking and
also people trying to help each other out in lean times.
Calmness, I believe is respected more than phony macho tough.
Just my thoughts.
f
On May 31, 2009, at 6:27 PM, Kevin Burton Smith wrote:
>
>
> > Somehow I think if Child ever got his wish things wouldn't go too
> > well for him.
>
> Maybe he'd be tougher if he posed in a leather jacket or brandished a
> pool cue.
>
> I dunno. This whole notion that you have to be "tough" to write hard-
> boiled fiction is a little hard to take too seriously. Usually it's
> just harmless posing, a sort of wink-wink, but some people really fall
> for it. It's silly.
>
> Not as silly, perhaps, as the book I'm reading now, which goes out of
> its way to sound totally tough all the time ("red as a used tampon,"
> etc.), but still, ultimately, pretty silly.
>
> Anyone trying that hard is probably trying to over-compensate.
>
> Kevin Burton Smith
> www.thrillingdetective.com
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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