Arthur Mayse's Perilous Passage is now arriving in better bookstores. Its publication comes after a long search. Post-war Canadian noir is expansive, but not in terms of geography. Most novels are set in Montreal; add in Toronto and you've pretty much covered the waterfront.
Pun intended.
For years I looked for a worthwhile novel set on the West Coast; one, two, three were read and rejected before I came upon Perilous Passage.
It more than made the cut. You'll find my thoughts here in in this 2020 blog post.
Perilous Passage was Arthur Mayse's first novel. It garnered attention before publication when the Saturday Evening Post paid US$15,000 (roughly US$176,000 today) for the serial rights. The novel appeared in seven instalments running from May 14 to June 25, 1949.
That autumn, Morrow published Perilous Passage in hardcover; it was soon reprinted.
Other editions followed, the first being a 1950 Pocket paperback with cover by sometime Post illustrator James R. Bingham.
In 1952, London publisher Frederick Muller brought out a UK edition.
The Ricochet edition is the first since Frederick Muller's.
Seventy years!
There was never any question as which cover we would use in its return to print.
The new edition features a fifteen-page introduction by Susan Mayse, the author's daughter.
Again, Perilous Passage is arriving on our better bookstores. It can also be purchased online from the usual sources. Better still, you can get it directly from the publisher through this link.
Any East Coast post-war noir out there?
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Sold. Just hit the order button over at Vehicule Press. This reader thanks you again, Brian, for your intriguing finds and your efforts to get them back into circulation.
ReplyDeleteYou're very kind, Barb. I'm looking forward to hearing what you think.
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