The new edition of Canadian Notes & Queries lands, and with it comes another Dusty Bookcase sur papier. This time the spotlight plays upon Ted Allan's Love is a Long Shot. Not the Love is a Long Shot for which he was awarded the 1984 Stephen Leacock Medal, but a cheap, pseudonymous pulp novel from a quarter-century earlier.
Published by News Stand Library in September 1949, two months before newspaperman Al Palmer’s Sugar-Puss on Dorchester Street, this Love is a Long Shot holds the distinction of being the first pulp noir novel set in Montreal. As I write in CNQ, it ain't that pretty at all. The cover depicts, but doesn't quite capture, one of the darkest, most horrific scenes in any Canadian novel.
There's more to the issue, of course, including new fiction by Nathan Whitlock, new poetry by Nyla Matuck and – ahem – praise for A Gentleman of Pleasure from George Fetherling.
Not really pulp unless published in a pulp magazine...paperbacks were their own "disreputable" format at the time and for years afterward, hence that obscure band and their ditty "Paperback Writer"...
ReplyDeleteI hear what you're saying, Todd, but I much prefer the more broad definition of "pulp novel": like the magazines, books that were cheap, printed on sub-grade paper, published one month and gone the next and, of course, sensationalistic. Good money for folks such as myself, so long as you could knock 'em off fast.
ReplyDeleteOddly enough, though, the books weren't published on the kind of rough blotter paper that the pulp magazines were...those wouldn't hold together too well in standard paperback sizes. The widespread abuse of the term "pulp" to mean infra dig is one of my bugbears, though clearly hardboiled and noir fiction were certainly birthed in large part in the better pulp crime-fiction magazines, even as other forms of fiction had important development in other magazines. Pulps, however, were considerably more diverse than the current hipster abuse of the term would imply...and certainly not all the fiction published in them was transient, even though as issues of magazines they were, even as nearly All paperbacks were here today, gone by next week, up through the '70s and the spread of chain bookstores that might actually stock them for several months.
ReplyDeleteAgain, I hear you, Todd, but I don't think my use of the word "pulp" can in any way be considered an abuse. True, my definition is more broad than yours, but it is not unusual and is much more narrow than that provided by my thirty-year-old edition of the OED. Whether it follows "current hipster abuse" depends, I suppose, on what you mean by the term. I like to think not.
ReplyDeleteIt does. But I'm definitely prescriptive in my use here...I want the word to mean what it means, rather than what sloppy misappropriation has been common for some decades now. Demotic abuse is still abuse. The OED is, in turn, not prescriptive...too many words drift. This one has drifted because of a pinpointable lack of understanding and knowledge (attempting celebration at times, but resulting in distortion), and thus needn't be coddled.
ReplyDeletezzzzzzz...
DeleteThanks for your thoughtful contribution. How helpful and clever, to go out of your way to express boredom with someone else's conversation...I hope you randomly wander the streets and instruct the passers-by how dull their chats might be, as well.
Deletewell what more could I say, you are dead right Todd
DeleteWhere can one find a bibliography of Al Palmer novels? Thanks!
ReplyDeleteAl Palmer wrote only two books, Montreal Confidential and Sugar-Puss on Dorchester Street, both published in 1949 by News Stand Library. The good news is that both have been reissued by Véhicule Press. They should be available from the usual online sources and in better Montreal bookstores. Enjoy!
DeleteThanks!
DeleteI'm really enjoying the ricochet press reissues. I was wondering if there is a comprehensive list of mysteries/pulp novels set in Montreal? I love these books! Thanks!
Inspired by your request, I've just posted a revised list of Montreal's post-war pulps and related titles, Howard. You can find it here: A List of Montreal's Post-War Pulps: Second Shot.
DeleteI don't really know of a list focussing specifically on mysteries set in Montreal. That said, I've reviewed a couple: Murder Without Regret by E. Louise Cushing (1954) and The Watching Cat by Pamela Fry (1960).
That list has sent me scouring the city looking for books. I haven't had much luck. I guess a lot of these paperbacks have succumbed to time. Just picked up The Pyx. I'd love to check out E. Louise Cushing's books. Trying to find affordable copies on ebay!
ReplyDeleteI too have been on the hunt. After all this time, Murder Without Regret is my lone Cushing. The prices I see online seem very high considering the lack of interest in her work (apart from ours, of course).
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