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A review by nickdleblanc
Borderline by Lawrence Block
3.0
I’m a sucker for pulp and @hard_case_crime is a great publisher for it. This is the second of their books I’ve read this year, the first being the Charles Willeford classic, “Understudy for Death.” Though Willeford is probably a better writer with a deeper grasp on character development and mood, Block here is a great time. Pulp stories are prime for intellectualization. It’s less than 200 pages, and the whole time I was craving deeper character insight. In most cases this would make an argument for a bad book, but with pulp, it’s sort of the point. You get sketches of characters that infect your mind and root around in there until you decide what to do with them. You fill in the missing pieces with your own psychology. It’s good stuff. This book follows a gambler, a divorcee, a sex worker, and a psycho killer and traces how their lives fatefully interact. It’s impossible to read without thinking about adapting it into a play or film. I deeply enjoy this type of stuff, but I acknowledge it isn’t for everyone. There’s an astonishing amount of sex and violence—especially given it was published in 1958. Even if you don’t check this one out, I’d definitely recommend checking out Hard Case Crime as they publish consistently good stuff.
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tl;dr—all book nerds should read at least a few pulp novels, they are the basis for so much of what our culture understands as entertainment and their influence is vast, from the Beat Generation to Tarantino to 50 Shades of Grey, it all has roots in pulp. Do the right thing and read some.
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tl;dr—all book nerds should read at least a few pulp novels, they are the basis for so much of what our culture understands as entertainment and their influence is vast, from the Beat Generation to Tarantino to 50 Shades of Grey, it all has roots in pulp. Do the right thing and read some.