The Blood Ogre: The Hellish Menace Beneath the House Doc Savage Built by Craig McDonald – Review
There are few figures in American literary life who know more about the history of pulp fiction than Craig McDonald. In his series of novels featuring Hector Lassiter, McDonald created an extraordinary pulp history of the twentieth century, mixing fictional characters with historical events and real-life figures in the world of literature, showbiz and politics.
In his new novel The Blood Ogre, McDonald is on familiar territory, but he adds a supernatural twist and the results are devilishly good. Indeed, there are moments here that evoke vintage Clive Barker.
The story revolves around the reputation of two remarkably prolific writers, Lester Dent and Walter B. Gibson. Dent suffered a nervous breakdown and early death in 1959, perhaps brought on by the impossible schedule of churning out Doc Savage novels by the dozen and averaging two million words a year on his typewriter. In his final days, Dent had hallucinations in which he would see and interact with Doc Savage characters. In 1965, Doc Savage and The Shadow novels are enjoying renewed popularity. The Shadow author Walter B. Gibson has a knack for publicity rooted in his parallel career as a magician. People start witnessing a black-clad figure looming around the Greenwich Village house where Gibson penned the final Shadow novel in 1949. Gibson claims it is a ‘living mind-projection’ of The Shadow. But if a hero can rise from the pages of an authors literary output, then what other, more sinister, characters will follow him?
McDonald’s knowledge of this material is unsurpassed, and he seamlessly merges Doc Savage and The Shadow-like narratives into The Blood Ogre, in a story that still feels bracingly original. As a metafictional text, there is some discussion of the mechanics of a pulp story. But it is never done in a dry or distant manner. Rather, McDonald invites the reader to ponder why we love these stories. How they remind us of childhood dreams and fading generations, and how the stories evolved over the decades to reflect changes in American culture.
The Blood Ogre is an affectionate tribute to a bygone era which might just earn a place in readers’ hearts so that is talked about long after the present generation has gone. No author can ask for more.
Highbrow Lowbrow
The latest episode of Highbrow Lowbrow is now available. My podcast co-host Dan Slattery and I look at two very different war films. Dan’s pick is Rogue One, possibly the best film in the Star Wars franchise. I discuss the World War Two murder mystery The Night of the Generals. An underrated gem.
You can listen here. Enjoy!
A James Ellroy Playlist: Death of a Composer
In the following post I am going to look at how James Ellroy portrays both real-life and fictional composers in his writing. Buckle up for some tales of talent and tragedy…
Requiem for Danny
The Big Nowhere contains many musical references. Towards the end of the novel, the dying Dr Saul Lesnick is being interrogated by Buzz Meeks about his patient, the recently deceased jazz musician Coleman Healy. Through his description of Coleman’s music, the reader gets a glimpse of how Ellroy might compose. Healy had been working on a piece titled “The Big Nowhere”, the same title as Ellroy’s novel:
Coleman was fighting his urges inchoately, with music. He was working on a long solo piece filled with eerie silences to signify lies and duplicities. The riffs would spotlight the unique high sounds he got with his sax, loud at first, then getting softer, with longer intervals of silence. The piece would end on a scale of diminishing notes, then unbroken quiet – which Coleman saw as being louder than any noise he could produce. He wanted to call his composition The Big Nowhere.
With such an aura of death hanging over these characters, it’s not surprising that Ellroy views music as elegiac. But this can be both solemn and exhilarating, as expressed in the stark high and low sounds that Coleman, a killer himself, produces with his sax. However, Coleman’s Big Nowhere is forever unfinished and deliberately meaningless. Ellroy’s sense of music is more closely tied to a narrative: crime fiction resolves mysteries and answers questions. Of course, the meaninglessness itself might be the answer, as Ellroy views Coleman’s murderous personality to be devoid of morality, empathy and ultimately just empty.
Jean-Louis Marchand and Delphine Baudet composed the album Requiem for Danny based on The Big Nowhere. In November 2019, while Ellroy was touring France, Marchand and Baudet pulled off a major coup when Ellroy agreed to read from the novel while the orchestra was performing Requiem for Danny onstage. Marchand and Baudet captured the brilliance of Ellroy’s prose and, at times, the bleakness of Coleman’s existence.
The track below is titled ‘Suicide’ and concerns the death scene of Danny Upshaw. Once again, music and death merge seamlessly in Ellroy’s world. May the Blues Sing Thee to Thy Rest…
Uptown Blues
In an essay titled ‘Ellroy’s History – Then and Now’ Ellroy describes the setting of his novel Perfidia, ‘rogue cops screw movie stars. Jimmie Lunceford is gigging at the Trocadero. Dig his eerie “Uptown Blues”‘. Ellroy had previously spoken of his love for Jimmie Lunceford’s music and “Uptown Blues” in particular on the BBC Radio 4 programme Inheritance Tracks. The concept of the show is that the guest picks one track they inherited from their parents and one track they want their children, loved ones or future generations to inherit from them.
Ellroy speaks knowledgeably about both the creative and technical aspects of the music which makes “Uptown Blues” such a powerful piece, ‘It has a haunting alto sax solo by Willie Smith, a haunting trumpet solo, and it’s almost a primer on the quiet elegiac mournful power of the Blues’
Ellroy chose “Uptown Blues” as the piece he hoped the children of his then partner would inherit from him. Lunceford died of a heart attack, shortly before a scheduled performance at The Bungalow Dance Hall in Seaside, Oregon. He was only 45. ‘He had a bum ticker’ Ellroy rued in Inheritance Tracks.
The composer dies. His music lives on.
Love Me Fierce in Danger: The Life of James Ellroy is available to pre-order from Bloomsbury. You can also pre-order a copy from all good booksellers.
An Interview with Larry Beinhart: Author of The Deal Goes Down
The Deal Goes Down marks the return of Tony Casella, an ex-private eye who first appeared in Larry Beinhart’s Edgar Award winning novel No One Rides For Free in 1986, and reappeared in the follow-up novels You Get What You Pay For (1988) and Foreign Exchange (1992). This is the first Casella novel in thirty years and the character begins the story at a very low ebb. Estranged from his family, in financial trouble and on the brink of having his home repossessed, Casella is thrown a lifeline when he meets a woman named Maddie who offers him a well-paid assignment – murder her abusive husband. Things get complicated when Maddie, backed by a financier who funds “good causes”, compiles an array of dangerous assignments for Casella.
The Deal Goes Down is a gripping read, both thrilling and amusing in equal measure. It can be read as a standalone novel or as part of the Casella series. I strongly recommend that you jump on this narrative rollercoaster that begins in Woodstock NY and climaxes at an Austrian resort where Casella faces off against a Russian billionaire named God.
I had the pleasure of interviewing Larry Beinhart about The Deal Goes Down. Talking to Larry is like reading one his novels. He is witty, clever and, like all good books, very companionable.
Just don’t mention Hollywood…
Interviewer: The Deal Goes Down marks the return of Tony Cassella. Could you tell us a little about the character and why you decided to bring him back after a thirty year hiatus.
Beinhart: I thought it might be a good idea for me to go back to my roots. Fundamentals. He doesn’t care. Unless I make him do so. If I was going to bring him back I thought it was interesting to make him 30 years older. A real 30 years. It’s a significant change, especially if it takes someone – anyone – into their seventies.
Once I started, it was just a matter of going with it as if it was real.
If you go back to the first book, you see he was a guy who started as an idealist. It was the time of Serpico and Bob Leuci (Prince of the City), if you remember all that, and like them his idealism hurt him. There’s also a very New York if you fuck with me, I’ll fuck with you reflex that we were taught in our school yards. One more layer is that he was smart enough to get into Yale law school (but left because he had to make a living when his father died.)
All those things allow him to act effectively and to let him get himself into trouble. When we last saw him, at the end of Foreign Exchange, he was actually happy and optimistic. Newly married to the mother of his first child, ready to reconcile those conflicting impulses.
Interviewer: Part of the genius of Casella is that, when he is being roped into various serious crimes, he can anticipate how the police will investigate, and therefore wrongfoot them. Do you do a lot of research into modern detection methods?
Beinhart: The “modern” elements of modern detection methods are, for the most part, matters of common knowledge.
Most important, the electronic footprints of our e-devices, computers and phones.
I’ve seen and read lots of crime/thriller dramas where those elements play an important part. Except for the Dragon Tattoo girl, it always the genius sidekick or super-tech-wiz that the hero knows who does the e-wizardry. The hero asks, that person delivers. We never see it done.
I want to see it done. Or, if I were to use a wizard, I’d want to at least see how one is found, contacted, operates.
So, I stick with matters that are in reach or easily researched.
An auto accident? Definitely a mechanical analysis, likely a tox screen. What do tox screens reveal? Look on the net or ask your friends who use a lot of mood elevators.
It’s more that he thinks through what they’re certain to do.
Interviewer: The novel covers a lot of serious topics, everything from domestic abuse and murder to international intrigue, but always with a terrific sense of humour. How important is it for you to have a comedic element to your writing and who were your influences?
Beinhart: There’s a scene in the book in which Tony goes into the local coffee shop.
“Beinhart [yes, that’s me] was at Bread Alone, as usual, in his regular corner, the NY Times open in front of him. He claims to read it for the comedy and sure enough he broke out cackling.
Jay Samoff, a retired local lawyer, sitting beside him, said, “You know the rules, no snickering unless you share.”
That’s literal reportage of a real scene. Except for Tony being there, since he’s not real. That’s my mentality. To some degree my culture, classic post-war New York City. Also, a lot of life is really quite funny.
Interviewer: You reference yourself in the novel and make some satiric digs at Hollywood, including the shocking Buchwald Vs Paramount case. What would your advice be to writers in Hollywood to help them avoid being exploited?
Beinhart: Hah! Hahaha.
I have no idea how to avoid it. Some small amounts can be fought by a good agent (if you have one, if they care) or lawyer (if they’re good, well positioned, and you can afford one). If you have more power than the person you’re up against. If you’re lucky. If you’re so successful with other things – books or whatever – that you can turn down offers for years and figure you’ll be happy if there’s never a deal.
Most of the time the writer needs the deal more than the deal-makers need the writer. Then calculate if it still works for you.
Interviewer: The novel is timely as a subplot examines Putin’s inner circle. Do you enjoy writing about contemporary politics in fiction and does the current state of the world worry you, or do you have optimism for our future?
Beinhart: I write about politics and economics a lot.
Actually, I was trying to make this book not be explicitly political. Certainly not in the sense that Wag the Dog and The Librarian were. But we live in a political world. Our lives are constantly shaped by economic policies. So, it’s there.
The current state of the world, compared to what? The Great Depression? World War II? Segregation in the US and apartheid in South Africa? Putin compared to Stalin? COVID v. pre-vaccination polio?
Optimism would be based on prediction. Will it get better? Will it get worse? If I had to guess, I’d say clearly on the road to better – better science, technology, material production, nutrition, medicine, education, involving more and more people – unless something manages to blow it up. All that positive stuff is happening, relentlessly, no matter how many politicians, theologians, pundit-entertainers, want to dig us down into the mud of our illiterate histories.
Highbrow Lowbrow: Theatre of Blood vs Event Horizon
In this special horror-themed episode of Highbrow Lowbrow, I discuss one of my favourite horror films Theatre of Blood starring the great Vincent Price. My podcast co-host Dan Slattery argues that Event Horizon is an unjustly forgotten nineties classic. Expect good-natured banter as we discuss two horror films dripping in gore and go on diversions that take in everything from Hellraiser to Classical theatre.
You can listen here.
Highbrow Lowbrow: Lisztomania vs Xanadu
The latest episode of Highbrow Lowbrow is a Musical special. I discuss Lisztomania, Ken Russell’s surreal biopic of Franz Liszt starring Roger Daltrey as the eponymous composer. My podcast co-host Dan Slattery defends the much maligned but cult classic Xanadu, starring Olivia Newton-John and Gene Kelly.
You can listen here. Enjoy!
A James Ellroy Playlist: Obsession
‘Since I Don’t Have You’ is one of James Ellroy’s greatest short stories. Turner “Buzz” Meeks is hired by Howard Hughes to locate one of his favourite “actresses” (a polite euphemism for Casting Couch victim). Her name is Gretchen Rae Shoftel. Hughes has lost track of her and is suffering from a severe case of absence makes the heart grow fonder. Things get complicated when Meeks is also hired by Mickey Cohen to find Gretchen. Cohen had a one night stand with Gretchen and has grown obsessed with her since she disappeared. Another associate of Meeks is RKO Film Producer Sid Weinberg. Weinberg is described as a ‘Filthy rich purveyor of monster cheapies’. He completes the trinity of men obsessed with women who have vanished, ‘he was known to be in love with a dazzling blonde starlet named Glenda Jensen, who hotfooted it off into the sunset, never to be seen again’. Meeks notes that Glenda ‘looked suspiciously like (Gretchen)’. Meeks locates the troubled Gretchen, and in order to keep her out of the clutches of Hughes and Cohen he introduces her to Sid Weinberg, and the actress and producer begin a happy partnership making ultra-cheap but profitable films together.
Gilda, Amado Mio
In his study of Ellroy, Peter Wolfe notes that a ‘possible source for Glenda’s name is the title character of the 1946 movie, Gilda, played by redhaired Rita Hayworth, whose income taxes Ellroy’s father prepared.’ Glenda Jensen may be a forerunner to Glenda Bledsoe in Ellroy’s White Jazz, who is also an actress Howard Hughes is trying to obtain information on. It’s worth noting that Ellroy often loosely based his female characters on his partners, and The Big Nowhere was dedicated to a woman named Glenda he was in a relationship with at the time. However, in White Jazz there is a reference to Gilda which suggests the film may have been a source of inspiration to the author. Lieutenant Dave Klein is reading a file on a suspect who is a paedophile named ‘Rita Hayworth’
‘Panty sniffers, sink shitters, masturbators – lingerie jackoffs only. Faggot burglars, transvestite break-ins, ‘Rita Hayworth’ – Gilda gown, dyed bush hair, caught blowing a chloroformed toddler. The right age – but a jocker cut his dick off, he killed himself, a full-drag San Quentin burial.’
In the film Gilda, the titular character performs two songs. The most famous is “Put the Blame on Mame”, a sexy number in which she wears the ‘Gilda gown’, a strapless black dress which helped to cement the image of the femme fatale. All of Hayworth’s singing in Gilda was dubbed by Anita Ellis. The more tender love song is “Amado Mio”, in which the dubbed Hayworth gets to showcase her dancing which was how her career began as a member of “The Dancing Cansinos”.
In “Since I Don’t Have You”:
Gretch also starred in the only Sid Weinberg vehicle ever to lose money, a tear jerker called Glenda about a movie producer who falls in love with a starlet who disappears off the face of the earth. The critical consensus was that Gretchen Rae Shoftel was a lousy actress, but had great lungs. Howard Hughes was rumoured to have seen the movie over a hundred times.
Since I Don’t Have You
Rewatching a film endlessly isn’t the only manifestation of Howard Hughes’s obsession. Meeks narrates:
A biography I read said that he (Hughes) carried a torch for the blonde whore straight off into the deep end. He’d spend hours at the Bel Air Hotel looking at her picture, playing a torchy rendition of “Since I Don’t Have You” over and over.
“Since I Don’t Have You” was a hit for The Skyliners in 1958. It has been covered many times since, and one might argue that by adopting the title and its pining for lost love themes Ellroy has covered it himself. There are chronology issues here. Ellroy’s “Since I Don’t Have You” is set in the 1949, and in LA Confidential Meeks is killed by Dudley Smith in February 1951. But the Meeks of this short story is an old man, perhaps a little ghostly, and is prone to some pining himself, ‘I miss Howard and Mickey, and writing this story has only made it worse.’
Below is a video of The Skyliners performing “Since I Don’t Have You”. The choreography isn’t great, but there’s something about its cheap B-Movie Western look that makes me a little nostalgic. It strikes me as something Sid Weinberg would produce starring his beloved Glenda.
Listen to this song and pine for your own Glenda/Gilda/Gretchen:
Highbrow Lowbrow: Licence to Kill vs Moonraker
The latest episode of Highbrow Lowbrow is a James Bond-themed special. My podcast co-host Dan Slattery and I have always loved debating the pros and cons of the different eras of the James Bond film series and the actors who have portrayed 007. In this episode, Dan defends Timothy Dalton’s gritty, serious performance as Bond in Licence to Kill. Whereas I argue for Roger Moore’s lighter more comedic approach in Moonraker.
Hope you enjoy listening, and let us know where you stand on the great Bond debate.
Rear Window by Cornell Woolrich Lives Again
The following post is written by guest author Jacklyn Saferstein-Hansen. Jacklyn Saferstein-Hansen is an agent at Renaissance Literary & Talent, the agency that represents Cornell Woolrich’s literary estate. She personally curates these brand new Woolrich collections in an effort to revitalize his work.
Rear Window. The title conjures the names Alfred Hitchcock, James Stewart, Grace
Kelly. But few know the writer to whom the 1954 film’s underlying story is attributed: Cornell
Woolrich.
One of the most famed crime and suspense writers of the 20th century, Woolrich penned
more than two dozen novels and over two hundred novellas and short stories throughout his
lifetime. Though his first suspense novel, The Bride Wore Black, published in 1940 to critical
acclaim, is perhaps his most renowned work, no Woolrich tale has had more prolonged success
and recognition than the short story “Rear Window.” Submitted to his editor under the title
“Murder from a Fixed Viewpoint,” it was published in 1942 under the name “It Had to be
Murder,” a much snappier and more fitting title for Dime Detective, the pulp magazine in which
it appeared. The name changed again when, two years later, the story appeared as “Rear
Window” in the 1944 fiction collection After-Dinner Story, and that’s the name that stuck. A
decade later, Hitchcock adapted it into the wildly successful thriller film whose nerve-shredding
sequences and questions of voyeurism still resonate today. The film is a marvelous adaptation of
the source material, but Woolrich’s original story offers a magic all its own that is best
experienced on the page.
For the first time in years, “Rear Window” helms a brand new short fiction collection,
this one with a murderous bent. Rear Window and Other Murderous Tales features eight more of
Woolrich’s best suspense tales, stories that “Rear Window” has never appeared with in previous
collections put out by other publishers. Many of these stories have not been in print for several
decades, so this collection will come as a treat for those looking to discover new Woolrich tales.
Each story within Rear Window and Other Murderous Tales has a murder at its center. The
reader experiences the psychological repercussions of this most gruesome crime through a
variety of perspectives: the murderer himself, the investigating detective, a witness, an amateur
sleuth, the falsely accused, and an innocent spouse. This is Woolrich at his best, using the
unspeakable act of murder to drive his characters to desperate ends in an unflinching
examination of human nature.
This new collection has just been released by Villa Romana Books, the publishing arm of Renaissance Literary & Talent, the agency that represents the various parties who control Woolrich’s literary estate. They’ve been nearly as prolific as Woolrich himself, recently putting out eight other fantastic volumes of his short fiction, creatively curated by theme: Women in Noir (three volumes), An Obsession with Death and Dying (two volumes), and Literary Noir: A Series of Suspense (three volumes). It’s thanks to the Renaissance team that Woolrich’s work lives again. They’ve sorted out complicated rights issues to the hundreds of stories and dozens of novels he wrote, and have pored through the canon to create these brand new collections for crime, suspense and noir fiction fans old and new. Renaissance’s robust ebook and paperback publishing platform has made available a vast array of Woolrich’s work, individually as well as in collections, and it is not to be missed. Gorgeous cover illustrations by talented artist Abigail Larson breathe colorful new life into each edition.
Rear Window and Other Murderous Tales, along with many other Woolrich works, is
available on Amazon in both ebook and paperback.
Highbrow Lowbrow Episode 3
The latest episode of Highbrow Lowbrow is now available. The theme is Eighties classics. My co-host, Dan Slattery, defends Electric Dreams and I argue the merits of The Cook, The Thief, His Wife & Her Lover.
Sadly, only hours after we had recorded the episode it was reported in the press that Electric Dreams star Lenny Von Dohlen had died.
You can listen to the full episode here.
