Showing posts with label Fredric Brown. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fredric Brown. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 04, 2026
Jerry's House of Everything: SHORT STORY WEDNESDAY: THE MOON FOR A NICKEL
Jerry's House of Everything: SHORT STORY WEDNESDAY: THE MOON FOR A NICKEL: "The Moon for a Nickel" by Fredric Brown (first published in Street & Smith's Detective Story Magazine , March 1938; repr...
Thursday, January 29, 2026
Beneath the Stains of Time: The Stars Spell Murder: "Handbook for Homicide" (1943) by Fredric Brown
Beneath the Stains of Time: The Stars Spell Murder: "Handbook for Homicide" (1...: Fredric Brown 's "Handbook for Homicide," originally published in the March, 1943, issue of Detective Tales , can be described...
Wednesday, January 14, 2026
Jerry's House of Everything: SHORT STORY WEDNESDAY: MR. SMITH KICKS THE BUCKET
Jerry's House of Everything: SHORT STORY WEDNESDAY: MR. SMITH KICKS THE BUCKET: "Mr. Smith Kicks the Bucket" by Fredric Brown (first published in Street & smith's Detective Story Magazine , August 194...
Wednesday, March 01, 2023
Beneath the Stains of Time: The Burglar Who Met Fredric Brown (2022) by Lawrence Block
Beneath the Stains of Time: The Burglar Who Met Fredric Brown (2022) by Lawren...: Once upon a time, I was quite the priggish, fundamentally-minded purist who viewed the post-WWII landscape of the crime-and detective genre ...
Sunday, July 24, 2022
Jerry's House of Everything: SUPER DETECTIVE LIBRARY #17: THE PHANTOM OF THE FUN FAIR (DECEMBER 3, 1953)
Jerry's House of Everything: SUPER DETECTIVE LIBRARY #17: THE PHANTOM OF THE F...: Yesterday I posted the French comic book adaptation of Murray Leinster's The Brain Stealers , pulp science fiction adventure that wowed...
Wednesday, April 27, 2022
Bitter Tea and Mystery: Short Story Wednesday: "Stranger Station" by Damon Knight
Bitter Tea and Mystery: Short Story Wednesday: "Stranger Station" by Damon...: Last year I featured a book of mostly science fiction short stories, Bug-Eyed Monsters , edited by Bill Pronzini and Barry N. Malzberg. Afte...
Saturday, January 11, 2020
Beneath the Stains of Time: There's No Such Animal: "Miracle on Vine Street" (...
Beneath the Stains of Time: There's No Such Animal: "Miracle on Vine Street" (...: Fredric Brown was a wildly imaginative pulp writer of science-fiction and detective stories who was not averse to cross pollinating seemin...
Sunday, April 07, 2019
Beneath the Stains of Time: The Bloody Moonlight (1949) by Fredric Brown
Beneath the Stains of Time: The Bloody Moonlight (1949) by Fredric Brown: Fredric Brown was an American pulp writer who " crossed genres like a demon, plotted like a madman " and " continually st...
Friday, December 13, 2013
FFB Review: "The Fabulous Clipjoint" by Fredric Brown --reviewed By Barry Ergang
Friday means Friday’s Forgotten
Books hosted by Patti Abbott here. Please welcome back Barry Ergang who
contributes his review of The Fabulous Clipjoint by Fredric Brown.
THE FABULOUS CLIPJOINT (1947)
by Fredric Brown
Reviewed by Barry
Ergang
I’m tempted to call this novel mystery fiction’s version
of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. It’s not a wholly accurate
description, and I’m sure there are a lot of folks who’d take me to task for
it, but The Fabulous Clipjoint may be the closest thing in spirit —
though without the comedy — to Mark Twain’s masterwork that the genre has.
At eighteen, Ed Hunter is older than Huck and a good deal more worldly. When his father is beaten to death, the apparent victim of a random mugging, he wants answers but knows he‘s out of his depth when it comes to getting them. He therefore enlists the help of his father’s brother Ambrose, a carnival barker savvy in the ways of the mean streets. In teaming up with Uncle Am to solve what they eventually determine is a deliberate murder rather than an impersonal mugging, Ed undertakes his own Huck-like voyages of discovery through the streets of Chicago and thus performs his rite of passage.
The characters, with perhaps one or two exceptions, are neither all good nor all bad. Most exhibit morally gray behaviors and attitudes. The story itself is as “naturalistic” as any I’ve ever read in the genre, a superb example of the kind Raymond Chandler alluded to when he wrote about Dashiell Hammett (and by extension other good pulp writers) giving “murder back to the kind of people that commit it for reasons, not just to provide a corpse.” Anthony Boucher called it “a singularly effective job of portraying people as they are and murder as it is — a solidly compelling story.” But while it contains its share of dark moments and situations, and has a strong sense of place, Brown’s style — though eminently readable — is relatively pedestrian, lacks the brooding lyricism that infuses, for instance, a David Goodis novel.
The Fabulous Clipjoint has been marginalized as a minor classic for many years. Recently, an article by Dick Adler argued for the elevation of its stature. Read it for yourself to decide if Fredric Brown merits being ranked with Dashiell Hammett, Ross Macdonald, and Jim Thompson.
At eighteen, Ed Hunter is older than Huck and a good deal more worldly. When his father is beaten to death, the apparent victim of a random mugging, he wants answers but knows he‘s out of his depth when it comes to getting them. He therefore enlists the help of his father’s brother Ambrose, a carnival barker savvy in the ways of the mean streets. In teaming up with Uncle Am to solve what they eventually determine is a deliberate murder rather than an impersonal mugging, Ed undertakes his own Huck-like voyages of discovery through the streets of Chicago and thus performs his rite of passage.
The characters, with perhaps one or two exceptions, are neither all good nor all bad. Most exhibit morally gray behaviors and attitudes. The story itself is as “naturalistic” as any I’ve ever read in the genre, a superb example of the kind Raymond Chandler alluded to when he wrote about Dashiell Hammett (and by extension other good pulp writers) giving “murder back to the kind of people that commit it for reasons, not just to provide a corpse.” Anthony Boucher called it “a singularly effective job of portraying people as they are and murder as it is — a solidly compelling story.” But while it contains its share of dark moments and situations, and has a strong sense of place, Brown’s style — though eminently readable — is relatively pedestrian, lacks the brooding lyricism that infuses, for instance, a David Goodis novel.
The Fabulous Clipjoint has been marginalized as a minor classic for many years. Recently, an article by Dick Adler argued for the elevation of its stature. Read it for yourself to decide if Fredric Brown merits being ranked with Dashiell Hammett, Ross Macdonald, and Jim Thompson.
Barry Ergang ©2009, 2013
Derringer Award-winner Barry Ergang's fiction, poetry and non-fiction have appeared in numerous publications, print and electronic. Visit his website: http://www.writetrack.yolasite.com/ Some of his work is available at Amazon and at Smashwords.
Friday, February 03, 2012
FFB Review: "THE FABULOUS CLIPJOINT" (1947) by Fredric Brown--Reviewed by Barry Ergang
THE FABULOUS CLIPJOINT (1947) by Fredric Brown
Reviewed by Barry Ergang
I’m tempted to call this novel mystery fiction’s version of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. It’s not a wholly accurate description, and I’m sure there are a lot of folks who’d take me to task for it, but The Fabulous Clipjoint may be the closest thing in spirit — though without the comedy — to Mark Twain’s masterwork that the genre has.
At eighteen, Ed Hunter is older than Huck and a good deal more worldly. When his father is beaten to death, the apparent victim of a random mugging, he wants answers but knows he‘s out of his depth when it comes to getting them. He therefore enlists the help of his father’s brother Ambrose, a carnival barker savvy in the ways of the mean streets. In teaming up with Uncle Am to solve what they eventually determine is a deliberate murder rather than an impersonal mugging, Ed undertakes his own Huck-like voyages of discovery through the streets of Chicago and thus performs his rite of passage.
The characters, with perhaps one or two exceptions, are neither all good nor all bad. Most exhibit morally gray behaviors and attitudes. The story itself is as “naturalistic” as any I’ve ever read in the genre, a superb example of the kind Raymond Chandler alluded to when he wrote about Dashiell Hammett (and by extension other good pulp writers) giving “murder back to the kind of people that commit it for reasons, not just to provide a corpse.” Anthony Boucher called it “a singularly effective job of portraying people as they are and murder as it is — a solidly compelling story.” But while it contains its share of dark moments and situations, and has a strong sense of place, Brown’s style — though eminently readable — is relatively pedestrian, lacks the brooding lyricism that infuses, for instance, a David Goodis novel.
The Fabulous Clipjoint has been marginalized as a minor classic for many years. An article by Dick Adler argued for the elevation of its stature. Read it for yourself to decide if Fredric Brown merits being ranked with Dashiell Hammett, Ross Macdonald, and Jim Thompson.
Barry Ergang (c) 2012
At eighteen, Ed Hunter is older than Huck and a good deal more worldly. When his father is beaten to death, the apparent victim of a random mugging, he wants answers but knows he‘s out of his depth when it comes to getting them. He therefore enlists the help of his father’s brother Ambrose, a carnival barker savvy in the ways of the mean streets. In teaming up with Uncle Am to solve what they eventually determine is a deliberate murder rather than an impersonal mugging, Ed undertakes his own Huck-like voyages of discovery through the streets of Chicago and thus performs his rite of passage.
The characters, with perhaps one or two exceptions, are neither all good nor all bad. Most exhibit morally gray behaviors and attitudes. The story itself is as “naturalistic” as any I’ve ever read in the genre, a superb example of the kind Raymond Chandler alluded to when he wrote about Dashiell Hammett (and by extension other good pulp writers) giving “murder back to the kind of people that commit it for reasons, not just to provide a corpse.” Anthony Boucher called it “a singularly effective job of portraying people as they are and murder as it is — a solidly compelling story.” But while it contains its share of dark moments and situations, and has a strong sense of place, Brown’s style — though eminently readable — is relatively pedestrian, lacks the brooding lyricism that infuses, for instance, a David Goodis novel.
The Fabulous Clipjoint has been marginalized as a minor classic for many years. An article by Dick Adler argued for the elevation of its stature. Read it for yourself to decide if Fredric Brown merits being ranked with Dashiell Hammett, Ross Macdonald, and Jim Thompson.
Barry Ergang (c) 2012
*****
Formerly the Managing Editor of Futures Mystery Anthology Magazine and First Senior Editor of Mysterical-E, winner of the Short Mystery Fiction Society’s Derringer Award for the best flash fiction story of 2006, his written work has appeared in numerous publications, print and electronic. For links to material available online, and fiction available for e-readers, see Barry’s webpages. Remember, too, that he has books from his personal collection for sale at http://barryergangbooksforsale.yolasite.com/ He'll contribute 20% of the purchase price of the books to our fund, so please have a look at his lists.
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