Tag Archives: Shakedown

Six lesser-known pulp writers of the revolution and counterculture era

I am over at the Criminal Element site with a list of six pulp, crime, and popular fiction writers from the counterculture era who may have slipped your radar, but are ripe for rediscovery. These are some of the writers and their books are featured in the new book I have coedited, Sticking It To The Man: Revolution and Counterculture in Pulp and Popular Fiction, 1950 to 1980.

Melbourne folk, Sticking it to the Man is available at Brunswick Bound on Sydney Road, Lulu’s in Melbourne and, by next week, they’ll also be in the New International, Paperback Books, Metropolis and other stores. Or, if you’re in Australia and are keen for a physical copy, I can send you a copy for $40 plus postage. Let me know. 

Also, PM Press is having an end of year sale and all the material, including Sticking it to the Man, is 50% off with the coupon code: GIFT (this includes people in Australia if you order from the US site here).… Read more

Summer reading report back 2013

As the summer holiday’s draw to an end and the business part of 2013 kicks off, it’s time for a little run down of what I’ve read over the Christmas/New Year period and how I’m going to approach my reading in the year ahead.

fc3I’ve seen the 1972 movie Fat City, directed by John Huston, many times but never read the 1969 book of the same name by Leonard Gardner. It was hands down my read of the summer. Indeed, I’ll go as far as saying it’s one of the most beautifully written novels I can remember reading in a while.

Set in the fifties, Fat City is the story of two amateur boxers, Ernie Munger and Billy Tully. Tully is the older of the two, a former fighter who wants another shot at the big time. The fact he’s an alcoholic means he’s got no chance. Munger is a young man with potential, but you know from the first time we meet him, he’s not going to amount to much. The book follows the hopes, dreams and most of all, anxieties of these two men through a series of bars, flop houses and dead end jobs. As I said, there’s never any doubt the two won’t amount to much, the question is just how far they’ll slide.… Read more