Gravetapping: 2018 Reissues Roundup: Some of the Best Books to H...

Gravetapping: 2018 Reissues Roundup: Some of the Best Books to H...: I have a review article up and running at Mystery Scene’s website. As the title suggests it’s a look at older novels that were reprinted...

FFB Review: "THE BRAT" (1957) by Gil Brewer--Reviewed by Barry Ergang

Barry is back this week with his review of THE BRAT by Gill Brewer. After you read his review make sure you head over to Patti Abbott’s blog here where the focus for Friday's Forgotten Books today is on “Crime Fiction of the 1950s.” I was born in 61 so I have to leave this topic to my elders.

THE BRAT (1957) by Gil Brewer

Reviewed by Barry Ergang

It’s giving nothing away in the form of a spoiler to report that this is a story of theft, murder, betrayal and pursuit. Readers of the Fawcett Gold Medal edition will realize that by the fourth page, which is the end of the first chapter.

We learn in a flashback that after his fiancée was killed in an automobile accident, Lee Sullivan was a man adrift: “After that my life was a hollow beating back and forth across the country, away from my home in Florida, seeking nothing, slowly spending what money I had.” It was on a trip to the Everglades where he met and became instantly and obsessively smitten with the appropriately surnamed Evis Helling. She was equally taken with him, and was eager to get out of the Glades and away from her nuclear family and a dangerous, literally kissin’ cousin named Berk Kaylor. And so he took her away to the St, Petersburg area, and they moved into an apartment together. Evis got a job at a loan company and Sullivan went to work for a print shop. Evis talked him into buying a house, and still later on into opening his own printing business. She also concocted a scheme to steal a hundred thousand dollars from the loan company.

When the novel opens, a hungover Sullivan comes home to an empty house. Earlier that day he’d told Evis they weren’t going through with the robbery, but now his gut instinct tells him he must get to the loan company to try to stop her. When he does, he finds the slain body of her coworker Ray Jefferies. Evis—and the money—are gone. Sullivan also finds items she planted to frame him for Jefferies’ murder and the theft.

And so Sullivan pursues Evis to try to recover the money and clear himself. Aware that her hubris will take her back to the Glades long enough to let her family know of her new opulent lifestyle before she shuns them again, Sullivan heads there. His pursuit, of course, is not without obstacles, physical and emotional, and some surprises. Among the obstacles is an especially zealous sheriff named Hugo DeGreef. I’ll leave readers to discover the surprises for themselves.  

In his outstanding article about Gil Brewer in Mystery*File, Bill Pronzini writes that Brewer originally aspired to write literary fiction: “…he understood and loved fine writing and hungered to create it himself, to just once write something of depth and beauty and meaning.” There are descriptive sentences and paragraphs in The Brat that substantiate Pronzini’s contention, but there are also some that seem pulpy, overwrought, as though they’re straining for effect, or are downright nebulous. Take, for example, the book’s opening sentence: “When I called her name, it was as if only the faint odor of her perfume occupied the urgent darkness of the house.” Is there a poetic quality to it that creates an atmospheric effect? Perhaps. But at the same time, it stopped me cold for a moment while I tried—futilely, I confess—to make sense of it. Much later on, describing Hugo DeGreef, Brewer writes: “When he spoke, it was as if the sound of his voice was scraped off the edge of thick meat….” A little Raymond Chandler influence? Possibly, but the simile doesn’t work—for me, at least—because I have no idea what such a voice is supposed to sound like.

The aforementioned are, however, quibbles about what is otherwise a brief, tense, and eminently readable novel of action and suspense by one of the acknowledged masters of noir fiction who came out of the era of paperback originals. Probably the worst thing about The Brat is its title, because Evis is a great deal more than bratty.

Barry Ergang ©2014

Former Managing Editor of Futures Mystery Anthology Magazine and Senior Editor at Mysterical-E, Derringer Award-winner Barry Ergang’s work has appeared in a variety of publications, print and electronic. Some if it can be found at Amazon, Smashwords, and Scribd. 

Ed Gorman's blog: from Stark House Press Gil Brewer’s Glands by David Rachels

Ed Gorman's blog: from Stark House Press Gil Brewer’s Glands by David Rachels

Via Paul Brazill: Guest Blog: Gil Brewer’s Sexual Obsession; or, Why You Should Read Noir Short Stories by David Rachels

Guest Blog: Gil Brewer’s Sexual Obsession; or, Why You Should Read Noir Short Stories by David Rachels

Via Barry---- The Brutalist: A Gil Brewer Retrospective by Chris Morgan

Suggested reading here from Barry: "The Brutalist: A Gil Brewer Retrospective" by Chris Morgan.

Red Scarf Review Amended

On Friday, August 10, 2012, Kevin posted my review of The Red Scarf by Gil Brewer. Although I praised the novel as an excellent example of the noir fiction that came along in the 1950s and praised the publisher, New Pulp Press, for resurrecting it, I also took them to task for releasing an e-book edition riddled with various types of errors. I contacted them about it and editor Jon Bassoff got back to me promptly, thanking me for pointing out the problem and assuring me it would be corrected.

Today, September 8, 2012, Jon sent me the corrected e-version of the novel. (I don't believe the paperback edition had the same problems.) Therefore, I want to assure everyone who might be interested in reading it--and it's definitely worth reading--that you can disregard reader-reviewer complaints you'll find at Amazon and possibly at other sellers' sites about the errors. The publisher's responsiveness is commendable. 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     

--Barry Ergang

FFB REVIEW: "THE RED SCARF" (1952) by Gil Brewer---Reviewed by Barry Ergang

Make sure you check out the entire Friday’s Forgotten Books list over at Patti Abbott’s blog at http://pattinase.blogspot.com/

See the update note from Barry at the end of the review....

THE RED SCARF (1952) by Gil Brewer

Reviewed by Barry Ergang

Roy Nichols is a man in dire need of money. He and his wife Bess own a motel in St. Petersburg, Florida, a purchase they made because a new highway was supposed to be built that would run past it and virtually assure them business. But now there’s a chance the highway might be routed elsewhere. They’re behind on the repayments to the bank on the loan they took out to buy the place. They’ve been refused an extension as well as an additional loan. Thus, Nichols  has journeyed to Chicago to try to borrow money from his well-to-do-brother Albert, figuring a face-to-face appeal would be more effective than a phone call. “You must learn to hoe your own row,” Albert tells him, “I’d gladly help you if I thought it would really be helping you. But you seem to have forgotten that I warned you not to attempt this foolish motel business.”

Thus, when The Red Scarf opens, Roy Nichols is on his way back to St. Petersburg, having hitched rides from Chicago to Georgia. A trucker drops him off on a Georgia back road on a snowy, blustery night, and he makes his way to a seedy roadhouse populated by its owner and a drunk. He isn’t there long when he hears a car pull up outside and then a man and woman arguing. A moment later they enter, and Nichols gets his first look at the very attractive Vivian Rise and the big but unattractive Noel Teece. They’re arguing because Vivian is determined to get something to eat and Teece is in a hurry to get back on the road. Vivian wins out and orders a plate of barbecue. Teece tells the roadhouse owner he wants to put gas in his car, and he and the owner go outside. Seeing their absence as an opportunity to violently paw Vivian, the drunk begins to do just that—until Nichols intervenes.

Although Teece is opposed to the idea, a grateful Vivian agrees to give Nichols a ride. Despite the poor weather conditions, Teece has a lead foot on the accelerator, and all three of them are drinking liberally from a bottle of whiskey. The inevitable happens:

“The car was down there. Not too far, about fifteen feet, lying crumpled on its side, smashed to junk, in a rocky glen with the water splashing and sparkling in the moonlight.”

Nichols awakens sore, bleeding, and somewhat dazed, to find Vivian frantically searching for a briefcase. As for Teece, “The guy was spread out on the rocks, his feet jammed in the car by the steering wheel. The bright moonlight showed blood all over his face and his suitcoat was gone and his left arm had two elbows. He was more than just dead. He was a mess.”

The briefcase Vivian seeks and soon finds is full of money—a great deal of money that belongs to the mob for which Teece was a courier. Vivian is determined to keep it and get herself out of the country. She tells Nichols she’ll pay him generously if he’ll help her.

And so things really get underway as Nichols is confronted with an existential dilemma.  He knows that aiding Vivian is wrong, but his need for money that will bail him and Bess out of their financial straitjacket overwhelms his scruples. In classic noir manner, he compounds his difficulties via his actions and decisions. At the same time, he tries to protect Bess by not letting her know what he’s mixed up in and feels guilty about having to deceive her. He and Vivian experience some major shocks, one of which is in the form of visits from a contract killer whose suave civility underscores his implacable determination to recover the money. Nichols is also dogged by a police detective named Gant.

Saying any more about the storyline of this brief, fast-paced novel would spoil it for the reader. Its prose style is a lean, straightforward one, and often so intimate that the reader will feel as though Nichols is seated across a table from him recounting what happened. The tension he generates is often palpable.   

The prolific Gil Brewer began his career in the 1950s during the heyday of original paperback novels (see Bill Pronzini’s excellent article about him at Mystery*File: http://www.mysteryfile.com/GBrewer/FW.html), and has come to be regarded as one of the more important authors who emerged in that era. The folks at New Pulp Press who reissued The Red Scarf merit commendation for making the novel, generally considered among Brewer’s best, available once again to the general public. That said, they also merit condemnation for deplorable proofreading—at least in the e-book version I read; I can’t speak to their paperback edition. The e-book is riddled with poor punctuation; typos (“I had to hand onto my hat” appears on the opening page, “And I hadn’t killer her, so I was all right” appears much later); sentence repetitions in the same paragraph (“She came up to the door and stepped out on the porch. She came up to the door and stood there, scratching her fingernails on the screen”); and missing letters (“I kept looking toward the all doorway, the area drew my gaze”). Most of the time what’s meant is obvious, but one sentence contains a word that’s missing letters, and thus the whole thing is unclear: “It was ad, but she had it straight, anyway.” New Pulp Press would do well to make the corrections. If they develop a reputation for sloppy proofreading, they’re likely to alienate a lot of potential buyers.


Barry's Update:

On Friday, August 10, 2012, Kevin posted my review of The Red Scarf by Gil Brewer. Although I praised the novel as an excellent example of the noir fiction that came along in the 1950s and praised the publisher, New Pulp Press, for resurrecting it, I also took them to task for releasing an e-book edition riddled with various types of errors. I contacted them about it and editor Jon Bassoff got back to me promptly, thanking me for pointing out the problem and assuring me it would be corrected.

Today, September 8, 2012, Jon sent me the corrected e-version of the novel. (I don't believe the paperback edition had the same problems.) Therefore, I want to assure everyone who might be interested in reading it--and it's definitely worth reading--that you can disregard reader-reviewer complaints you'll find at Amazon and possibly at other sellers' sites about the errors. The publisher's responsiveness is commendable. 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    

Barry Ergang © 2012

Some of Barry’s fiction is available at Smashwords and Amazon.com, and Amazon also has available a couple of his poetry collections. His personal collection of books for sale are at  http://www.barryergangbooksforsale.yolasite.com/.