Friday's "Forgotten" Books - Special Edition

As I noted in a blog post earlier this month, editor Charles Ardai of Hard Case Crime is publishing a long-lost novel by the late Donald Westlake, titled The Comedy is Finished. Thanks to the efforts of author Max Allan Collins, Westlake's book will finally see the light of day in less than a week. In celebration of the occasion, Patti Abbott designated today's edition of FFB "Donald Westlake Day."

Several Westlake books have already been featured on previous FFB installments (under both Westlake's name and his pen name Richard Stark), so you can search for those on Patti's blog and also check out the other titles folks are reviewing today:

The Juggers, Richard Stark
Lemons Never Lie, Donald Westlake
I Gave at the Office, Donald Westlake
The Handle by Richard Stark
Anarchaos by Curt Clark (a rare pen name)
The Hot Rock by Donald Westlake
Honey Girls, Lawrence Block and Donald Westlake
The Score, Richard Stark 
Ask the Parrot, Richard Stark
Plunder Squad, Richard Stark
The Green Eagle Score, Richard Stark
The Sour Lemon Score, Richard Stark
"Call Me a Cab" Redbook magazine story, June 1979
The Hunter, Richard Stark 
361 by Donald Westlake

Westlake was not only a prolific novelist, he also penned enough stories to fill seven story collections, some 138 stories in all. Many were included in highly-regarded anthologies, others in magazines like Playboy, The New York Times Magazine, Cosmopolitan, Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine and several sadly defunct 'zines. I thought I'd mention two of his collections, A Good Story and Other Stories (1999); and Thieves' Dozen (2004).

A Good Story is a actually a good representative sampling of Westlake's writing, since it covers 40 years of his career. It includes "Once on a Desert Island," about the fantasy life of a lone marooned bookkeeper, a murder and an imaginary lover; "Sinner or Saint," which finds a con man impersonating a minister hustling a wealthy parishioner for her famous heirloom diamond; "Never Shake a Family Tree" about a woman doing a little geneology by placing an ad in the paper who learns how far rotten apples fall from the family tree; and in "Skeeks," a tabloid journalist must solve a murder for his story on the death of a major television star—who happens to be a dog. The New York Times Book Review noted "Trickery reins: the good, the bad and the obnoxious alike are prey as well as predator. A Good Story earns its title with twists worthy of O. Henry."

Thieves' Dozen features stories with Westlake's comedic professional thief, John Dortmunder, actually 11 Dortmunder stories, not 12, a little bit of additional humor on the author's part. Just as A Good Story makes for a general overview of Westlake's writing in general, Thieves' Dozen is a good introduction to Dortmunder and his capers. In "Horse Laugh," Dortmunder and his gang are in New Jersey, stealing a racehorse, only Dortmunder soon finds himself holding on for dear life to the runaway steed while sirens wail around him; "Now What?" finds Dortmunder riding the New York subway with a ham sandwich in a paper bag—only the sandwich happens to have a $300K brooch inside; a crooked artist named Three Finger Gillie wants Dortmunder to steal his own paintings in "Art and Craft"; and in "Too Many Crooks," the gang tunnels into a bank vault only to find it packed with hostages from an armed robbery already in progress.

Westlake says of his popular literary creation in the Preface, "And I guess Dortmunder remains pecularliarly mine, at whatever length. Originally, he was just passing through. He wasn't expected to have legs, and yet here he is, still domitable but bowed, apprentice, it would appear, of both the extended romp and the quick-hit, the perhahps-not-exactly-surgical strike."

Comments

[George Kelley]

Westlake was an effective short story writer. These collections show off some of his best work.

[BVLawson]

I think Westlake was an effective everything writer, George! I enjoy writing in various genres and in both short and long forms, so I know how difficult it can be to be effective in all of them.

[Sergio (Tipping My Fedora)]

One of the great things to emerge from the FFB devoted to Westlake ishearing about so many of his books I haven't read. As I know very little of his short fiction this post was particularly welcome as you really make these two collections sounds worthwhile - I'll definitely seek them out.

Cheers,

Sergio

[Naomi Johnson]

What a terrific collection of short stories. Westlake was a master of every form of writing it seems. Except maybe -- poetry?

[BVLawson]

You know, I don't think I've seen any Westlake poetry, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if he didn't try his hand at it at least once. Probably would have done a fine job, too.

[Todd Mason]

Todd Mason passes around that:

TRUST ME ON THIS and BABY, WOULD I LIE? have a further sequel in "Come Again?" from THE MYSTERIOUS PRESS ANNIVERSARY ANTHOLOGY and the Westlake colletion A GOOD STORY.

The tabloid is THE WEEKLY GALAXY, as Richard Lupoff was quick to point out, as a further slap at GALAXY sf magazine, one of the targets of Westlake's vociferous "resignation" from science fiction, which he sent for publication in the Lupoff's amateur magazine XERO.