In a back street in the rough end of Philadelphia, docker William Kerrigan obsesses over the mysterious suicide of his sister. Into a dive bar walks Lorretta Channing the beautiful, enigmatic socialite and sister of Newton the drunk. Loretta's the impossible dream, the escape route out of his hel...
Since embarking upon a marathon read of David Goodis (with the occasional interruption of reading lesser novels by more contemporary authors), I have been completely stunned by his unique narrative voice.But this one- oh, my sweet banana!NIGHTFALL might be my favorite Goodis so far. It would make...
Corey Bradford used to be a cop. A crooked cop, at that, which is why he lost his badge and his wife and has now come to rest at the bottom of a gutter, a drunken nobody not worth a second glance. But tonight, Corey changes all that by jumping two gunsels taking aim at local big-shot Walter Groga...
David Goodis' novel, "Cassidy's Girl" offers a portrayal of lost people in forgotten streets of Philadelphia in the years following WW II. The characters in the story are tormented and fallen. They struggle with alcohol and with their own demons. Goodis portrays them with rawness yet with sympath...
David Goodis' 1956 novel "Down There" inspired Francois Truffaut's 1960 film "Shoot the Piano Player" which in turn inspired this 1990 reissue of the book under the name of the movie. Goodis' (1917 -- 1967) reputation has grown with the years. His many noir novels were published in cheap paperbac...
Sentenced to life in San Quentin for the alleged murder of his wife, Vince Parry escapes in a desperate attempt to prove his innocence. A fugitive from justice, in the depths of despair, he finds refuge with a beautiful woman as he struggles to unravel a nightmarish plot. First published as a m...
“Surreal, disturbing, frequently brilliant. Nobody like him.”—Time Out “David Goodis is the mystery man of hardboiled fiction…he wrote of winos and bar-room piano players and small-time thieves in a vein of tortured lyricism all his own…He was the poet of the losers.”—Geoffrey O’Brien It’s wint...
James Bevan se encuentra sumido en una profunda depresión. Es un hombre de honor, casi un caballero andante, pero el mundo que le rodea lo empuja hacia el desastre, y su único refugio es el alcohol. En un último intento de salir de esa ciénaga, Bevan viaja con su esposa a Jamaica para salvar un m...
His brain snatched at ideas and found one that seemed plausible. The lazy smile came onto his lips and he said, "Got a cigarette?" It stopped them for just a moment. They looked at each other. The one with the knife was medium-sized and in his early twenties. He wore a bandage around his forehead...
He was telling himself to sit there and not move a muscle. Now she was pulling at his arm and he smiled dimly and let his arm go limp. She gave a hard pull but in that instant he stiffened it and she felt the resistance. She let go and stepped back and said, "What's the matter?" "Nothing." "Look ...
TWO little kids found the body. They found it in an alley. At first they thought the man was sleeping. Then they saw the blood. They started to yell and they ran down the alley. Elrick, the big cop, was on the corner. He was talking to Herbie, the newsboy. Herbie was a year over thirty....
The rat had scurried through a gap in the wall of the wooden shack, and the cat was inspecting all the narrow gaps and wondering how the rat had managed to squeeze itself in. In the sticky darkness of a July midnight the cat waited there for more than a half hour. As it walked away, it left its p...
Without sound she said, Go away, mon. Dis place not open for business tonight. She pressed her face deeper into the pillow, wishing she could get some sleep. For hours she’d been trying to fall asleep, but there were too many thoughts and all of them were worries. With her eyes shut tightly she’d...