Black Friday: And Selected Stories

Black Friday: And Selected Stories

by David Goodis (Author)

Synopsis

It?s winter in Philadelphia. January cold coming in off two rivers. Hart is broke, freezing, looking for a place to lay low from the cops. If he can?t find somewhere soon he might do something rash ? like steal an overcoat and accept a wallet containing $11,000 from a man dying from gunshot wounds in the street. Whoever killed him might have a bed, though, even if that means hanging out with a bunch of thieves and drifters while the heat blows over. Lucky for Hart he?s handy with his fists. And if he can use his looks and smarts to get in with the gang, maybe he can ride this out and score big on his own. Originally published in 1954, Black Friday is one of David Goodis?s leanest, meanest melancholy thrillers. In the character of Hart, it features one of his classic, tortured romantic heroes, a man who becomes mired in circumstances from which there is no escape. In this edition, Black Friday is combined short stories, unpublished since they were first written for pulp magazines in America over 50 years ago.

$38.20

Quantity

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More Information

Format: Paperback
Pages: 320
Publisher: Serpent's Tail
Published: 22 Mar 2006

ISBN 10: 1852424699
ISBN 13: 9781852424695

Media Reviews
America's laureate of the low life... No-one does existential loners better -- The Herald ?The ne plus ultra of America?s cult poet of the gutter? Bookseller ?One of the truly great ?pulp fiction? writers? Birmingham Post ?One of the great unsung writers of American pulp fiction? The violence is slapstick grotesque * the pace fast and the use of irony masterful. I loved every word? Guardian *
Author Bio
One of the greatest yet least appreciated American post-war crime writers, David Goodis was born in Philadelphia in 1917, and wrote his first novel, Retreat from Oblivion, in 1938. His big break came in 1946 with the publication of Dark Passage, which was made into a film starring Bogart and Bacall. During his life he wrote many short stories, film treatments, scripts for radio serials such as Superman, and seventeen novels including Shoot the Pianist (filmed by Truffaut). He died in 1967.