Tuesday, January 15, 2008

“Anything Can Happen”

Bookseller, anthologist, and critic Otto Penzler appeared on National Public Radio’s Morning Edition show today to talk about The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps: The Best Crime Stories from the Pulps During Their Golden Age--the ’20s, ’30s & ’40s, one of January Magazine’s gift book choices for Christmas 2007. The segment provides a fine overview of this new collection, and Penzler gets to champion not only Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, and Carroll John Daly, but also the forgotten term “frail,” as it’s applied to women (“I love the word frail, it’s not a word that I would use, although I have used ‘doll,’ much to the disgust of my wife.”).

You can listen to the NPR segment here and also read all of the pulp crime story “Stag Party,” by Charles G. Booth, one of the tales that Penzler discusses with host Renee Montagne.

1 comment:

Peter Rozovsky said...

Raymond Chandler's story "Red Wind" was the subject of discussion on another blog, and I raised the point that citations of its oft-quoted opening paragraph often leave out the last line. I find this annoying and distracting.

In his NPR interview, Otto Penzler read the story's opening paragraph -- and left out the last line!
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