Strange

by Charles Willeford

"The unlikely father of Miami crime fiction." --Atlantic Monthly

The question wasn't what is the best place to pick up women in Miami. It wasn't what was the easiest place either. The big question the three friends discussed was what was the most difficult place to pick up women in 1970's Miami. When the expert of the group, Hank, takes on the challenge his friends propose, things quickly go from bad to worse in this classic novella by Charles Willeford, dubbed "the Pope of Psychopulp" by The Village Voice.

"Quirky is the word that always comes to mind. Willeford wrote quirky books about quirky characters, and seems to have done so with a magnificent disregard for what anyone else thought." --Lawrence Block

"I'm not really breaking the genre, just bending it a bit." --Charles Willeford

Genres: Noir, Crime

43 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 6, 2011

About the author

Charles Willeford was a remarkably fine, talented and prolific writer who wrote everything from poetry to crime fiction to literary criticism throughout the course of his impressively long and diverse career. His crime novels are distinguished by a mean'n'lean sense of narrative economy and an admirable dearth of sentimentality. He was born as Charles Ray Willeford III on January 2, 1919 in Little Rock, Arkansas. Willeford's parents both died of tuberculosis when he was a little boy and he subsequently lived either with his grandmother or at boarding schools. Charles became a hobo in his early teens. He enlisted in the Army Air Corps at age sixteen and was stationed in the Philippines. Willeford served as a tank commander with the 10th Armored Division in Europe during World War II. He won several medals for his military service: the Silver Star, the Bronze Star, two Purple Hearts, and the Luxembourg Croix de Guerre. Charles retired from the army as a Master Sergeant. Willeford's first novel "High Priest of California" was published in 1953. This solid debut was followed by such equally excellent novels as "Pick-Up" (this book won a Beacon Fiction Award), "Wild Wives," "The Woman Chaser," "Cockfighter" (this particular book won the Mark Twain Award), and "The Burnt Orange Heresy." Charles achieved his greatest commercial and critical success with four outstanding novels about hapless Florida homicide detective Hoke Moseley: "Miami Blues," "New Hope for the Dead," "Sideswipe," and "The Way We Die Now." Outside of his novels, he also wrote the short story anthology "The Machine in Ward Eleven," the poetry collections "The Outcast Poets" and "Proletarian Laughter," and the nonfiction book "Something About A Soldier." Willeford attended both Palm Beach Junior College and the University of Miami. He taught a course in humanities at the University of Miami and was an associate professor who taught classes in both philosophy and English at Miami Dade Junior College. Charles was married three times and was an associate editor for "Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine." Three of Willeford's novels have been adapted into movies: Monte Hellman delivered a bleakly fascinating character study with "Cockfighter" (Charles wrote the script and has a sizable supporting role as the referee of a cockfighting tournament which climaxes the picture), George Armitage hit one out of the ballpark with the wonderfully quirky "Miami Blues," and Robinson Devor scored a bull's eye with the offbeat "The Woman Chaser." Charles popped up in a small part as a bartender in the fun redneck car chase romp "Thunder and Lightning." Charles Willeford died of a heart attack at age 69 on March 27, 1988.

Reviews

[Ron Zack · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Strange" may not be Willeford's best, but it is not bad. Classified as a novella, it is actually more of a long short story. And as such, it accomplishes quite a bit. Playing on the multiple meanings of the title word, the story covers one very strange evening in the lives of four strange young men who are friends and all live in a singles only apartment building in Miami. Many of the themes are universal - while successful, the men are still very much boys. They center their leisure time around shooting pool and chasing women, live superficial, materialistic lives, and go through the motions to pass the time.

Characters are explained, but not well-developed because of the short length. Not that much depth to any of them. One is a pilot, one a pharmaceutical salesman, another is a rep for a silverware company, and the narrator is a former cop, passed over for promotion, and now working in private security. All are charter members of the apartment complex. This strange combination gets briefly immersed in a cruel bet that involves sex and leads to drugs, death, and murder. And it's all over and wrapped up in one evening.

Willeford has a very broad range and always entertains. He is at home with anything strange and his wonderful sense of humor always prevails, even in these tight quarters. The story also has a subtlety that sneaks up and smacks the reader in the face. I liked it!

[Patrick Strickland · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a short one, and it clipped along at a very quick pace. It reads cleaner and tighter than some of his other earlier short work. Worth a read if you're a Willeford diehard.

[Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Strange was written in the '70s, but it has a decidedly '50s vibe. The quartet of single men living in a singles-only apartment building and swilling martinis by the pool have a swank vibe that must have seemed like a throwback, even when the book was written.

The men spend most of their conversation in talking about women and the procuring of them, and a good-natured argument about the best place to pick up women soon turns into one about the worst place to pick them up. After various suggestions are discarded (even church is deemed a good place to get lucky, at least to one bachelor), it's agreed that the drive-in is the worst. Women don't tend to go to one alone, and if one did, she'd probably not take kindly to being mashed on.

A bet ensues, and while one man attempts to score, the others hang around to witness what they think will be his failure.

This is noir, so of course they get more than they bargained for, and a sequence of events lands a dead, overdosed 14 year-old girl in their apartment.

What sets this cool story apart is the matter-of-factness with which it's told. It all seems so ordinary, yet there's a nasty streak that runs through it. The grime isn't hidden down some alley; it's right out in the open.

I didn't know when I read it that the book is actually the opening segment of The Shark-Infested Custard. It stands well on its own, but if you aim to read all things Willeford, skip this one, and go straight to Shark.

[WTD JR · Rating 1 out of 5]

Pretty shallow book. It was short so character development is not what one might expect in such text. The author succeeds in providing little.

The story is about a cast of miscreants whose goal is to hookup. One of them finds an underage girl and things go badly. In the author seems to put an 'Aesop's fable'-type spin on what happened. It fails.

From beginning to end, this was not an enjoyable book.

[Mike Oliveri · Rating 3 out of 5]

A decent, fast read. The tension kind of peters out at the end. I'm told this is part of a larger work, The Shark Infested Custard, and it may make more sense to just grab that book. The Kindle edition has several typos, and in a couple of spots they make it difficult to read.

[Katherine · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm deeply into Florida noir at the moment, and wanted to read some of this guy's work. This was the only one I could find on my Kindle so perhaps there are better examples of his work. It was OK, but nothing I'd go out of my way to read again.