It’s March, a month with a few birthdays to celebrate here at the Pulps. Matt’s birthday is in early March, John’s is later in the month, and one of American Pulps’s birthdays is March 5th. I say “one of,” because we re-branded as American Pulps on July 4, 2018, and consider the 4th as our birthday. But we started out as a zine called Shit Show Pulps, and made our debut with issue number 1 on March 5th at LA Zine Fest.
Anyway, on to the monthly reading list.
Pop. 1280 — Jim Thompson
While we’re taking trips down memory lane, talking about Shit Show, here’s a little story about when we decided we should start writing pulp fiction stories together. Matt arrived two weeks early for a party at John’s house. Instead of saying “learn how to read a calendar,” John invited Matt in to have some beers. We got to talking about pulp fiction; John was reading this book, while Matt was reading the Richard Stark novel below. After talking about how great these books were and how cool it would be to write something like them, American Pulps was born.
This book’s awesome, it’s about Nick Corey, a corrupt sheriff in a tiny corrupt town. Nick murders a couple of pimps, not because he’s the law and they’re flesh peddlers, but because they were making fun of him. Along with the murder, Nick has to juggle multiple affairs, his wife and brother-in-law potentially, eh, not doing what siblings should, more murders, and it’s an election year. The story is bonkers and hardboiled as hell.
The Hunter — Richard Stark
The book Matt was reading when we had some Voodoo Ranger IPAs in John’s back yard. We’ve written about Donald Westlake and his most famous nom de guerre in a few articles, the Parker series is his best-known series of books, it’s also the most hardboiled. The Hunter was supposed to be a one-off, luckily his agent said, “make this a three-book series and I can get it published.” The problem being Westlake originally had Parker dying at the end. If you read this book and you’re thinking “how the hell does he get out of this jam?” Westlake thought the same thing. This is book is hardboiled pulp fiction at its finest.
Clinch — Martin Holmén
The first of the Harry Kvist Stockholm series, Clinch takes place in 1930s Sweden. Harry is an ex-boxer, ex-convict, part-time private detective, and full-time drunk. He also lives above a funeral parlor and helps the director out. This series is great, my only issue is it makes me want to smoke cigars, Harry chain-smokes them throughout the series. It’s gritty, it involves Nazis (mostly in the later books), and boxing—which are all topics I love in a hardboiled pulp fiction book. Harry Kvist is like a Swedish Phillip Marlowe who likes men, it’s great.
Pollen’s Women: The Art of Samson Pollen — Robert Deis and Wyatt Doyle
Robert “Subtropic Bob” Deis and Wyatt Doyle are going to be fixtures on our monthly reading lists, because a) they have a lot of awesome books and b) without their website menspulpmags.com we wouldn’t have content to put on our social media, and if we didn’t have that you probably wouldn’t be here reading this. We owe a lot to these guys, we talked about the Men’s Adventure Artwork during that fateful backyard beer session where Matt arrived two weeks early for a Memorial Day Barbecue, and we will continue to promote their books.
When it comes to pulp art, Samson Pollen is one of our favorites. He has some amazing and fun pulp illustrations. If you like this:
or this:
You’ll love this collection of artwork.
The Boys in the Boat — Daniel James Brown
Our only non-fiction book on the list but it’s worth it. This is a great story about nine young middle-class men who worked on farms and as lumberjacks as kids to go to school and compete in the grueling sport of rowing. A sport where even though you’re sitting on your ass, you expel as much energy as you would playing two games of basketball back-to-back, in just six minutes. It’s mostly about Joe Rantz, who suffered setback after setback as a kid and learned to persevere and turn trials into triumph.
Each of the nine young men has remarkable backstories, growing up during the great depression and taking jobs logging or constructing the Grand Coulee Dam just to pay for tuition so they can row for Washington State and eventually for the US in the Berlin Olympics in 1936 and piss off Adolf Hitler. It’s a remarkable story about an incredible life, truly inspiring.
True Believer — Jack Carr
Jack Carr was on our previous reading list; spoiler: book three will be in next months as well. True Believer is book two of the James Reece saga and if you’re into Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan series, the Robert Ludlum Jason Bourne books, or any other espionage / CIA thrillers, this book’s for you. Like Clancy, Carr is a tech guy and his stuff is so spot-on the book has redactions from the Department of Defense censors. I know Jack gets annoyed that his books get censored, but I kind of feel like I’m reading some top secret shit and treat it as part of the experience.
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