Street of No Return (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard)

Rating:
Summary: He returns.
Review: David Goodis is an aquired taste, no question. To appreciate him, it helps to have a sympathetic ear for the downtrodden, the lost and desperate, the tragic and the downright masochistic. If you look for an upbeat mood in your stories, don't come to these mean Philadelphia streets, where Goodis' winos and criminals live. Go elsewhere for your happiness pill, here lies misery and alcohol and lost dreams. Now, if you're still with me, then you can be sure that "Street of No Return" is Goddis' finest work, and well worth the search required to find a copy (I recommend the search services listed in the back of "The Armchair Detective"). The story concerns a down-and-outer who leaves his hobo buddies one night in search of liquor, takes us on a journey through his once-promising life and subsequent fall, his brutalization at the hands of the most god-awful band of scarred, obese, sadistic and cold-hearted criminals you could ever hope not to meet, in the coldest and bleakest of landscapes that ever came out of a downtrodden, brilliant mind. 175 pages later he returns to his buddies, his life as depressing and hopeless as ever, and it's just where he wants to be. Not a care. Not a care on the world. This character, this writer, just doesn't give a damn. David Goodis' writing is instantly recognizable, and that is the mark of genius -- when you write like absolutely no one else. Highly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: The best of Goodis
Review: David Goodis is an aquired taste, no question. To appreciate him, it helps to have a sympathetic ear for the downtrodden, the lost and desperate, the tragic and the downright masochistic. If you look for an upbeat mood in your stories, don't come to these mean Philadelphia streets, where Goodis' winos and criminals live. Go elsewhere for your happiness pill, here lies misery and alcohol and lost dreams. Now, if you're still with me, then you can be sure that "Street of No Return" is Goddis' finest work, and well worth the search required to find a copy (I recommend the search services listed in the back of "The Armchair Detective"). The story concerns a down-and-outer who leaves his hobo buddies one night in search of liquor, takes us on a journey through his once-promising life and subsequent fall, his brutalization at the hands of the most god-awful band of scarred, obese, sadistic and cold-hearted criminals you could ever hope not to meet, in the coldest and bleakest of landscapes that ever came out of a downtrodden, brilliant mind. 175 pages later he returns to his buddies, his life as depressing and hopeless as ever, and it's just where he wants to be. Not a care. Not a care on the world. This character, this writer, just doesn't give a damn. David Goodis' writing is instantly recognizable, and that is the mark of genius -- when you write like absolutely no one else. Highly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: He returns.
Review: Why was this pithy review of an entirely mediocre David Goodis novel published, while my legitimate review was not?