One of the well-thumbed books on my shelf is The Black Mask Boys, edited by William F. Nolan. Any reader of crime and mystery fiction needs this book. Nolan not only covers the rich history of Black Mask, the pulp magazine (and who knew the mag also published romance stories!), but several of its most important authors.
Nolan sketches a vivid picture of the movers and shakers involved in the magazine's history, from the original owners, who used the cash flow to shore up other so-so selling magazines, to the original editors (one of whom was a woman), to ultimately Phil Cody and Captain Joseph T. Shaw, who shaped the magazine as we know it. He highlights some of the authors who regularly contributed, and provides a description of whatever series character or recurring themes they used. It’s the kind of history that makes a writer wish he had been there.
Then we move on to the meat of the book, bios and accompanying stories from major Black Mask contributors. Carroll John Daly leads the pack with a detailed bio and the FIRST private eye story EVER: Three Gun Terry. It’s a terrible story and has more continuity holes than The Big Sleep (I kid!), but without it, as Nolan points out, the private eye as we know him wouldn’t exist.
Dashiell Hammett, Erle Stanley Gardner, Raoul Whitfield, Frederick Nebel, Horace McCoy, Paul Cain, and Raymond Chandler continue the flow. Millions and millions of words have been written about Hammett and Chandler, and what Nolan shows is that their contemporaries were sometimes just as talented and deserving of attention of their own. I was particularly impressed with Frederick Nebel, and continue to track down stories of his and read them with great pleasure.
The biographies are short but Nolan packs into them a ton of information; the other benefit is the emotional impact Nolan creates. You feel as if you’re succeeding, failing, coming back a winner, and dying, along with these writers.
The book is long out of print but worth the hunt. I found my copy on eBay. It took a few months, but it turned up and I grabbed it. Pretty soon I'll need another copy because the one I have will someday fall apart!
In the BIG BOOK OF PULPS, there are similar pithy bios that leave you craving for more. Required reading for certain and it sounds like THE BLACK MASK BOYS is too.
ReplyDeleteThe tiny bios in BIG BOOK are nothing compared to what Nolan wrote, David. I heartily recommend the book. Never mind the stories, as good as they are. The details of the writers' lives make that book unique.
ReplyDeleteOh, I almost missed this. Thanks, Brian. I will add it in if that's okay.
ReplyDeleteWell, I knew BLACK MASK did romances and westerns, but because I read this and similar books some years back...and have always found it amusing that both Dashiell Hammett and Cornell Woolrich were publishing in THE SMART SET first, before finding their metier in the magazine founded to help keep that TSS alive. And that Mencken and Nathan would go from the folded THE SMART SET to AMERICAN MERCURY...which would diversify its portfolio with a number of fiction magazines over the next decade or so, notably ELLERY QUEEN'S MYSTERY MAGAZINE and THE MAGAZINE OF FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION...
ReplyDeleteDaly's was the first hardboiled private eye...there were mannered PIs of sorts beforehand...as Nolan and others note, including Spillane himself, the Mick took a few cues from Daly, and improved upon the model...
ReplyDeleteI have a copy of this, I just know it. I can't find it, dammit, but I have it. Somewhere. And yes, it's good, too good to have lost or misplaced. Now I want to read it again, since it's been a long time (20 years? When was this published?) and I'll have to figure where it might have gone. Meanwhile this review will have to do, and it does pretty darn good. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteThis is indeed a great book, and I think it was the first time I got my name in one (somewhere in the list of sources).
ReplyDeletePatti, Feel free to add this to your list, no problem.
ReplyDeleteEvan, Where might one find your name in the book? Now I'm curious....
Richard, The Black Mask Boys was published in 1985. I was ten years old! I'm much older now, so it has indeed been quite a few years and that's why I thought it would make a good post.
Thank you, everybody, for your comments.
When Nolan was putting the book together he asked if I'd write the intro for Frederick Nebel. Then he wrote back and said the publisher decided they wanted him to do all the writing instead. So he credited my Nebel article (by Dave Lewis) in the back. I don't have the book handy, so can't point you right to it.
ReplyDeleteEvan, Found it on page 272!
ReplyDeleteWilliam F. Nolan will be the guest of honor this year at PulpFest.
ReplyDelete