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Harry Fannin #1-2
Epitaph for a Tramp & Epitaph for a Dead Beat: The Harry Fannin Detective Novels
Before achieving critical acclaim as a novelist, David Markson paid the rent by writing several crime novels, including two featuring the private detective Harry Fannin. Together here in one volume, these works are now available to a new generation of readers.
In Epitaph for a Tramp, Fannin isn't called out to investigate a murder — it happens on his doorstop. In the sweltering heat of a New York August night, he answers the buzzer at his door to find his promiscuous ex-wife dying from a knife wound. To find her killer, Fannin plies his trade with classic hard-boiled aplomb. In the second novel, Epitaph for a Dead Beat, Fannin finds himself knee-deep in murder among the beatniks and bohemians of the early 1960s, where blood seems to flow as readily as cheap Chianti.
Intricately plotted and rife with wisecracks, David Markson offers suspenseful and literary crime novels.
In Epitaph for a Tramp, Fannin isn't called out to investigate a murder — it happens on his doorstop. In the sweltering heat of a New York August night, he answers the buzzer at his door to find his promiscuous ex-wife dying from a knife wound. To find her killer, Fannin plies his trade with classic hard-boiled aplomb. In the second novel, Epitaph for a Dead Beat, Fannin finds himself knee-deep in murder among the beatniks and bohemians of the early 1960s, where blood seems to flow as readily as cheap Chianti.
Intricately plotted and rife with wisecracks, David Markson offers suspenseful and literary crime novels.
377 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1959
6 people are currently reading
228 people want to read
About the author
David Markson
31 books347 followersDavid Markson was an American novelist, born David Merrill Markson in Albany, New York. He is the author of several postmodern novels, including This is Not a Novel, Springer's Progress, and Wittgenstein's Mistress. His most recent work, The Last Novel, was published in 2007 and received a positive review in the New York Times, which called it "a real tour de force."
Markson's work is characterized by an unconventional approach to narration and plot. While his early works may draw on the modernist tradition of William Faulkner and Malcolm Lowry, Markson says his later novels are "literally crammed with literary and artistic anecdotes" and "nonlinear, discontinuous, collage-like, an assemblage."
Dalkey Archive Press has published several of his novels. In December 2006, publishers Shoemaker & Hoard republished two of Markson's early crime novels Epitaph for a Tramp and Epitaph for a Dead Beat in one volume.
In addition to his novels, he has published a book of poetry and a critical study of Malcolm Lowry.
The movie Dirty Dingus Magee, starring Frank Sinatra, is based on Markson's first novel, The Ballad of Dingus Magee, an anti-Western. He wrote three crime novels early in his career.
Educated at Union College and Columbia University, Markson began his writing career as a journalist and book editor, periodically taking up work as a college professor at Columbia University, Long Island University, and The New School.
Markson died in his New York City, West Village apartment.
Markson's work is characterized by an unconventional approach to narration and plot. While his early works may draw on the modernist tradition of William Faulkner and Malcolm Lowry, Markson says his later novels are "literally crammed with literary and artistic anecdotes" and "nonlinear, discontinuous, collage-like, an assemblage."
Dalkey Archive Press has published several of his novels. In December 2006, publishers Shoemaker & Hoard republished two of Markson's early crime novels Epitaph for a Tramp and Epitaph for a Dead Beat in one volume.
In addition to his novels, he has published a book of poetry and a critical study of Malcolm Lowry.
The movie Dirty Dingus Magee, starring Frank Sinatra, is based on Markson's first novel, The Ballad of Dingus Magee, an anti-Western. He wrote three crime novels early in his career.
Educated at Union College and Columbia University, Markson began his writing career as a journalist and book editor, periodically taking up work as a college professor at Columbia University, Long Island University, and The New School.
Markson died in his New York City, West Village apartment.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 46 reviews
October 3, 2014
For such a total square, Harry Fannin sure knows a lot of cool cats. He also has worse luck with the dames than any other fictional detective I know.
May 4, 2010
RATING: 4.0
This is truly a golden age for mystery readers. The popularity of the mystery is on the rise, as evidenced by seeing names such as Michael Connelly and T. Jefferson Parker on the best-seller lists. Recently, there have been several publishers who have reached back into the crime fiction archives to publish books that have long been out of print. Such is the case with the Harry Fannin detective novels by David Markson, which are being reprinted by Shoemaker & Hoard. Markson wrote two books featuring Fannin, and they are both included in this one volume.
I only read a few pages of EPITAPH FOR A TRAMP before I knew that I was going to really enjoy this book. The protagonist, Harry Fannin, is a down-and-out private investigator. He doesn't have a client; instead, he is driven to find the murderer of his ex-wife, Cathy, who dies in front of his eyes. She's been promiscuous ever since she reached adulthood, which makes finding a viable suspect complicated. Working with the police, Fannin follows a lot of dead ends before he finds the real killer, with surprising twists along the way. Throughout, Fannin issues a volley of wise cracks that are outrageously unique and entertaining. The only problem I had with this book was the dialog of several of the characters. Written in 1959, Markson used slang and jive talk that is almost like a foreign language in 2006.
EPITAPH FOR A DEAD BEAT was originally published in 1961. This time the death isn't as close to home. His client is an eccentric heir who is trying to find his daughter so that he can make amends for not being there for her as she grew up. Fannin is able to find her, but unfortunately, she is not long for the living at that point; and a few others join her in the great dead cat club in the sky. She's a call girl who's been hanging out with a variety of beatniks and bohemians; as such, the characters that we run across in this book are quite unusual. Again, Markson delights with his use of language, although he did get a bit carried away when Harry experienced a concussion and was delusional.
Despite the fact that TRAMP had too much "hep cat" dialog and Markson's word play in DEAD BEAT verged on being self-conscious, I enjoyed both of the books very much. They certainly did not feel like they were more than 40 years old. Harry Fannin is a very unique character, and I just loved his wise-cracking attitude. There are a lot of literary allusions in both books, and they are full of rich metaphors that are so unique that I found myself savoring them over and over again.
Thanks to Shoemaker & Hoard for bringing Harry back from the dead. It's just too bad that Markson moved on to other writing ventures and didn't continue the Fannin series. If he had, I bet that it would have been right up there with the other legends of the PI genre.
This is truly a golden age for mystery readers. The popularity of the mystery is on the rise, as evidenced by seeing names such as Michael Connelly and T. Jefferson Parker on the best-seller lists. Recently, there have been several publishers who have reached back into the crime fiction archives to publish books that have long been out of print. Such is the case with the Harry Fannin detective novels by David Markson, which are being reprinted by Shoemaker & Hoard. Markson wrote two books featuring Fannin, and they are both included in this one volume.
I only read a few pages of EPITAPH FOR A TRAMP before I knew that I was going to really enjoy this book. The protagonist, Harry Fannin, is a down-and-out private investigator. He doesn't have a client; instead, he is driven to find the murderer of his ex-wife, Cathy, who dies in front of his eyes. She's been promiscuous ever since she reached adulthood, which makes finding a viable suspect complicated. Working with the police, Fannin follows a lot of dead ends before he finds the real killer, with surprising twists along the way. Throughout, Fannin issues a volley of wise cracks that are outrageously unique and entertaining. The only problem I had with this book was the dialog of several of the characters. Written in 1959, Markson used slang and jive talk that is almost like a foreign language in 2006.
EPITAPH FOR A DEAD BEAT was originally published in 1961. This time the death isn't as close to home. His client is an eccentric heir who is trying to find his daughter so that he can make amends for not being there for her as she grew up. Fannin is able to find her, but unfortunately, she is not long for the living at that point; and a few others join her in the great dead cat club in the sky. She's a call girl who's been hanging out with a variety of beatniks and bohemians; as such, the characters that we run across in this book are quite unusual. Again, Markson delights with his use of language, although he did get a bit carried away when Harry experienced a concussion and was delusional.
Despite the fact that TRAMP had too much "hep cat" dialog and Markson's word play in DEAD BEAT verged on being self-conscious, I enjoyed both of the books very much. They certainly did not feel like they were more than 40 years old. Harry Fannin is a very unique character, and I just loved his wise-cracking attitude. There are a lot of literary allusions in both books, and they are full of rich metaphors that are so unique that I found myself savoring them over and over again.
Thanks to Shoemaker & Hoard for bringing Harry back from the dead. It's just too bad that Markson moved on to other writing ventures and didn't continue the Fannin series. If he had, I bet that it would have been right up there with the other legends of the PI genre.
October 4, 2016
Raymond Chandler lives! Or one might have thought so in 1959 when Markson wrote this remarkable novel (published the same year Chandler died, ironically). I've only read Epitaph for a Tramp. I'm saving the second one for dessert. Harry Fannin is a tough, sardonic, New York private eye. One night his ex-wife, a beauty and a beast (the tramp in the title), shows up knocking on his door. By the time he opens it, she lay dead, a trail of blood leading from the sidewalk. Harry calls Brannigan, an archetypal burly, cigar-chewing city cop. Together they set out into the night to chase leads until the murder is solved.
The style is classic 30's despite the two decade gap. Cigarettes, booze, and the crunch of fists on faces abound. Markson never uses a simple declarative sentence when he has a pithy metaphor or simile in his quiver. Or three. It's more noir than a black cat in a coal mine.
I thought this was absolutely terrific, but it is something of an acquired taste. Read at your own risk. If you become addicted, don't blame me.
The style is classic 30's despite the two decade gap. Cigarettes, booze, and the crunch of fists on faces abound. Markson never uses a simple declarative sentence when he has a pithy metaphor or simile in his quiver. Or three. It's more noir than a black cat in a coal mine.
I thought this was absolutely terrific, but it is something of an acquired taste. Read at your own risk. If you become addicted, don't blame me.
July 7, 2017
If you gobble up hardboiled tales like they are Halloween candy, you'll chomp this one to bits. Yes, it is purposefully filled with all the cliches about a down on his luck PI who is holding a torch for an ex who descended into a downward spiral of trampiness and chasing the next high. But, it is simply a terrific read. Fannin slings the one liners like any great PI and stays just friendly enough with the police to stay out of the clink - barely. Cathy is the one who slipped through his fingers, but she stumbled back into his life, desperately seeking his help. She's still so lovely that poor Harry can't even think straight. And now she's brought danger and knives and tough punks into Fannin's life.
This book is just plain old fashioned over the top hardboiled PI fun. Every page is an absolute joy to read.
"Epitaph For A Deadbeat" is the second novel in this double feature. It's the "B" side. It's a fun read, but not quite the story "Tramp" is. This one, too, features wisecracking PI Harry Fannin and some violent murders. Here, Fannin walks into the wrong bar and the trouble starts from there. This one is all about the beatniks and their crazy lifestyle in Greenwich Village. They are all nutty want-to-be poets and trampy women floating in a haze from bed to bed. Fannin doesn't exactly approve of the Beats and what goes on in the Village.
Together, the two stories are fun, good, and worthwhile.
This book is just plain old fashioned over the top hardboiled PI fun. Every page is an absolute joy to read.
"Epitaph For A Deadbeat" is the second novel in this double feature. It's the "B" side. It's a fun read, but not quite the story "Tramp" is. This one, too, features wisecracking PI Harry Fannin and some violent murders. Here, Fannin walks into the wrong bar and the trouble starts from there. This one is all about the beatniks and their crazy lifestyle in Greenwich Village. They are all nutty want-to-be poets and trampy women floating in a haze from bed to bed. Fannin doesn't exactly approve of the Beats and what goes on in the Village.
Together, the two stories are fun, good, and worthwhile.
June 28, 2007
How could I not love this? There is some particular hardboiled writer that Markson sounds just like. I guess I am thinking of Hammett. As in Hammett, the jokes really are devastatingly clever, thrown off a dozen to a page with that delicious nonchalance, but/and there is a certain campiness to them that adds an element of self-parody which just adds to the bleak tone of the genre. Which makes me realize how much I do love Hammett's style, even though I was all about Chandler in the noir class I took in college. Markson's novels promise to be especially sweet because they take this style into another, very apropos milieu, 1950s beatnik/hipster Greenwich Village.
December 27, 2010
Markson knew exactly what he was doing when he decided to pen a couple of hard-boiled detective novels, and he did so with flair and a wonderful literary eye. Fannin is probably one of the most erudite detectives to ever walk the streets of NYC.
July 19, 2020
Read the first novel earlier this year and made quick work of the second this weekend. After a torrid and unsuccessful affair, due to intellectual inconstancies of my own, with Wittgenstein's Mistress two years ago, I returned to Markson with some amount of reticence. I first attempted to read his earlier, proto-Faulknerian output Going Down, also without success. Here is a writer of elegant and frequently marvelous prose, whose highly allusive style and obvious wit were heretofore lost on me. Enter Harry Fannin.
After learning a while back that Markson had turned the conventional process of staying faithful to the literati on its head by selling out first, I became interested in reading his early work, and in this way removing whatever mental block has prevented me from enjoying the fruits of his critically acclaimed experimental period. I found this two-novel omnibus in a favorite bookshop of mine and went to work. Both are products of the era, gritty, high-style, hardboiled crime fiction with a sardonic lead, besotted in equal measure by women and booze. But what distinguishes them, if you've read other of Markson's work, are the echoes of the future. Almost every witticism brought to bear by Harry on a situation, romantic, criminal, or social, is accompanied by some intricate cultural reference. Sometimes more than one.
I should not have to explain the importance of this to experienced Markson readers. I'll only say that it made Harry Fannin into an exceptionally well-rounded, funny, and interesting lens through which one views the seedy underbelly of the bohemian Greenwich Village of the 60s. Both of these books thrill, charm, and entertain on all counts. Highly recommended.
After learning a while back that Markson had turned the conventional process of staying faithful to the literati on its head by selling out first, I became interested in reading his early work, and in this way removing whatever mental block has prevented me from enjoying the fruits of his critically acclaimed experimental period. I found this two-novel omnibus in a favorite bookshop of mine and went to work. Both are products of the era, gritty, high-style, hardboiled crime fiction with a sardonic lead, besotted in equal measure by women and booze. But what distinguishes them, if you've read other of Markson's work, are the echoes of the future. Almost every witticism brought to bear by Harry on a situation, romantic, criminal, or social, is accompanied by some intricate cultural reference. Sometimes more than one.
I should not have to explain the importance of this to experienced Markson readers. I'll only say that it made Harry Fannin into an exceptionally well-rounded, funny, and interesting lens through which one views the seedy underbelly of the bohemian Greenwich Village of the 60s. Both of these books thrill, charm, and entertain on all counts. Highly recommended.
December 3, 2018
Enjoyable, but similar and dated. I love reading about NYC in the late 50s and early 60s where every place smelled like cigarettes and desperation. Fast paced, violent, and sexy - though the sex is more a means of exchange or release than one of love or affection.
Interesting things - "Dead Beat" is two words in the title - not like a "deadbeat Dad" but actually a "Dead Beat" as in Beatnik.
I've read This is Not A Novel and I'm somewhat familiar with Wittgenstein's Mistress - it's interesting that in Epitaph for a Dead Beat, Harry Fannin goes into lists of baseball players and historical dates when he's trying to relax or stay awake - these lists would become Markson's full books when he embraced his avant-garde inner self.
Interesting things - "Dead Beat" is two words in the title - not like a "deadbeat Dad" but actually a "Dead Beat" as in Beatnik.
I've read This is Not A Novel and I'm somewhat familiar with Wittgenstein's Mistress - it's interesting that in Epitaph for a Dead Beat, Harry Fannin goes into lists of baseball players and historical dates when he's trying to relax or stay awake - these lists would become Markson's full books when he embraced his avant-garde inner self.
November 27, 2019
David Markson was perhaps best known for Wittgenstein's Mistress, an experimental novel that David Foster Wallace called "pretty much the high point of experimental fiction in this country." Early in his career, he wrote the two detective novels contained in this volume. They are real page-turners, and I think he had as much fun writing them as I did reading them.
In Epitaph for a Tramp, private detective Harry Fannin sets out to find the killer of his ex-wife. Epitaph for a Dead Beat finds him in the middle Greenwich Village arts scene, where he stumbles across the bodies of three murder victims within as many days. Both novels are full of colorful characters, humor, and great prose.
In Epitaph for a Tramp, private detective Harry Fannin sets out to find the killer of his ex-wife. Epitaph for a Dead Beat finds him in the middle Greenwich Village arts scene, where he stumbles across the bodies of three murder victims within as many days. Both novels are full of colorful characters, humor, and great prose.
August 20, 2020
Fascinating early Markson — two detective novels he wrote to pay the bills, but which have some of the characteristics of his later postmodern masterpieces, including a protagonist with a penchant for lists and odd facts. "Tramp" is very pastiche-y, to the extent that it's a little glib (but in a very entertaining way), and eventually veers to a finale that's psychologically realistic and somewhat harrowing. "Dead Beat," with its vivid portrait of early-'60s Greenwich Village and its social scene of strivers, hustlers, and frauds, is closer to what some might call a "real" novel (I consider both works real enough, but you know what I mean), and absorbing enough that one almost regrets that Markson didn't continue working in genre a little longer.
April 8, 2021
So I was definitely surprised to discover that Markson, whose experimental novels are delightful, had written these two hard-boiled detective stories in his youth. I picked up a signed copy at Codex bookstore in the Village. So, definitely better than your typical pulp, with lots of word play and some fun takes on the beatnik era. But there's a good dose of misogyny and homophobia. Realistic, I suppose, and fitting to the time, but ... be warned.
August 11, 2017
With this book, you actually get two of the author's early crime novels in one volume. There are some wonderful turns of phrase in each; and a lot of memorable descriptions. But in the end, for me, both suffered from convoluted plots that didn't always make sense. A fun enough diversion, but not as memorable as I was hoping they would be.
August 31, 2024
YOU GET:
some rich beat language,
old school men's adventure mags men,
a flagrant distain for beats and "fags",
lots of literary namedropping,
concussions and disorientated thinking,
2 great endings,
and with fail descriptions of boobs and even whole frails.
Disclaimer: this is vintage fun, not high literary output, but it does make fun of that a bit.
some rich beat language,
old school men's adventure mags men,
a flagrant distain for beats and "fags",
lots of literary namedropping,
concussions and disorientated thinking,
2 great endings,
and with fail descriptions of boobs and even whole frails.
Disclaimer: this is vintage fun, not high literary output, but it does make fun of that a bit.
July 12, 2017
Just about the best classic detective fiction you can get, shocking how little Markson's more highbrow literary gifts show through in aesthetic, but they show through in an impeccably progressing plot, memorable characters, and some simply great prose.
September 24, 2021
I found it to be a difficult read in that I wasn't familiar with the beatnik era and their heros.
August 17, 2023
Period pieces. Well done.
December 27, 2015
You don't read a good, pulpy detective novel for the plot.
David Markson, perhaps one of the finest experimental fiction writers of the 20th Century, took this platitude and ran with it for his tales of private dick Harry Fannin, which borrows liberally from a rich genre history. Markson's prose reads like Chandler's on dope - it's filled with more verbose similes, more seedy characters and more explicit illusions to sex. Change New York in the '40s for New York in the '60s and you've got the backdrop for Fannin's two adventures in this tome, neither of which is memorable for its mystery, but rather for its mood.
Fannin is a lovable clod who's always finding himself in the worst possible predicaments. Half-finished bottles of Old Crow, love affairs that never pan out and an almost pathetic streak of self-deprecation mark his narration, which doesn't do anything particularly new for the genre. But it doesn't have to. Markson knew he was working in well-grooved trenches, and while "Unforgiven" these novels are not, the books attempt the same sort of take-down Romance of the gumshoe detective as Clint Eastwood's 1992 film did for the Western gunslinger.
Both novels won't stick with you the way Markson's later writing will. But they are fun little romps back through a type of storytelling that is largely ignored by critics. And that's too bad. Because there are some very interesting techniques in establishing place and narrative voice in Markson's work, and indeed that of his forebears, that deserves - if not adoration - at least respect for its attempts at new ways of telling a story.
David Markson, perhaps one of the finest experimental fiction writers of the 20th Century, took this platitude and ran with it for his tales of private dick Harry Fannin, which borrows liberally from a rich genre history. Markson's prose reads like Chandler's on dope - it's filled with more verbose similes, more seedy characters and more explicit illusions to sex. Change New York in the '40s for New York in the '60s and you've got the backdrop for Fannin's two adventures in this tome, neither of which is memorable for its mystery, but rather for its mood.
Fannin is a lovable clod who's always finding himself in the worst possible predicaments. Half-finished bottles of Old Crow, love affairs that never pan out and an almost pathetic streak of self-deprecation mark his narration, which doesn't do anything particularly new for the genre. But it doesn't have to. Markson knew he was working in well-grooved trenches, and while "Unforgiven" these novels are not, the books attempt the same sort of take-down Romance of the gumshoe detective as Clint Eastwood's 1992 film did for the Western gunslinger.
Both novels won't stick with you the way Markson's later writing will. But they are fun little romps back through a type of storytelling that is largely ignored by critics. And that's too bad. Because there are some very interesting techniques in establishing place and narrative voice in Markson's work, and indeed that of his forebears, that deserves - if not adoration - at least respect for its attempts at new ways of telling a story.
August 21, 2013
One of my favourite new literary finds of recent times. Up till about a month ago I hadn't even heard of the Harry Fannin hardboiled beatnik Noirs, now I wish there'd have been more than just those two.
The novels were originally written in 1959 and 1960 and are about a hardboiled private eye in the tradition of Philip Marlowe who solves murders in Greenwich Village amongst the resident beatniks. In some of the subject matters the book is often quite daring for the time it was written in (open promiscuity and drug taking for starters with occasional dollops of taboo topics such as incest). On practically every page you seem to get endlessly quotable lines of dialogue.
There is quite a postmodern feel to it with liberal references to all kinds of books, authors and composers (Kerouac, Thomas Hobbes, Thomas Mann, Bach, Wagner etc etc) and David Markson later on apparently became quite a well known experimental writer. Just by reading those two books it is easy to see that this was no ordinary common garden pulp author.
In the first book Fannin needs to find the killer of his estranged nympho wife, in the (slightly even better) second book he is involved in a "proper" murder case that is not related to him.
This really is a little known Noir masterpiece that lives off the confrontational interaction between hardboiled P.I. and the then-current new wave of bohemian beatniks. If you like these kinds of stories, this is now officially a Must Read.
The novels were originally written in 1959 and 1960 and are about a hardboiled private eye in the tradition of Philip Marlowe who solves murders in Greenwich Village amongst the resident beatniks. In some of the subject matters the book is often quite daring for the time it was written in (open promiscuity and drug taking for starters with occasional dollops of taboo topics such as incest). On practically every page you seem to get endlessly quotable lines of dialogue.
There is quite a postmodern feel to it with liberal references to all kinds of books, authors and composers (Kerouac, Thomas Hobbes, Thomas Mann, Bach, Wagner etc etc) and David Markson later on apparently became quite a well known experimental writer. Just by reading those two books it is easy to see that this was no ordinary common garden pulp author.
In the first book Fannin needs to find the killer of his estranged nympho wife, in the (slightly even better) second book he is involved in a "proper" murder case that is not related to him.
This really is a little known Noir masterpiece that lives off the confrontational interaction between hardboiled P.I. and the then-current new wave of bohemian beatniks. If you like these kinds of stories, this is now officially a Must Read.
January 10, 2011
EPITAPH FOR A TRAMP has Harry Fannin's ex-wife, out of sight for a year, stumbling into his office knifed in the chest and dying in his arms after mumbling a few words. Though their ending hadn't been pleasant, he'd caught her cheating on him, he goes off tto find her killer and the reason why.
EPITAPH FOR A DEAD BEAT finds Fannin stopping off at a late night bar after a job falls through and getting involved when a young woman is accosted by a man. Taking her home, they discover her roommate shot to death with a .22.
Later, Harry takes a job from a father recently come into millions wanting him to find the daughter he hadn't seen in ten years. It doesn't take him long to find her. Only she had just been knifed to death.
Connections between the two dead women, inherited money, another murder, has Harry scrambling to find out what's going on.
The two novels published in 1959 and '61 are set in New York amongst the beat generation of that era. There is a bit of gay bashing, but considering the time period, I guess I understand it.
EPITAPH FOR A DEAD BEAT finds Fannin stopping off at a late night bar after a job falls through and getting involved when a young woman is accosted by a man. Taking her home, they discover her roommate shot to death with a .22.
Later, Harry takes a job from a father recently come into millions wanting him to find the daughter he hadn't seen in ten years. It doesn't take him long to find her. Only she had just been knifed to death.
Connections between the two dead women, inherited money, another murder, has Harry scrambling to find out what's going on.
The two novels published in 1959 and '61 are set in New York amongst the beat generation of that era. There is a bit of gay bashing, but considering the time period, I guess I understand it.
February 19, 2008
Anyone, especially in their 20s, who is living in New York, should definitely pick this book up. It's a lighter book, a P.I. mystery novel, but really seems to touch on the social aspects of young "hipsters" in the 50s. Honestly, pick out any scene in the book where Harry is hanging around Greenwich Village and replace the Village with Williamsburg and Bohemian/Beatnick with Hipster and you'll know what it's like to be among young 20-somethings in Brooklyn today. Their views on life and the efforts of most to break free of the social morays of the time parallel what most hipsters experience today. Perhaps this is what I get out of it most because I am a young 20-something living in New York trying to figure out where my life views and decisions stand in the world, but either way, you can't deny the universal quality of the book and it's subject matter.
April 3, 2008
Well, I'm a huge fan of Markson's Wittgenstein's Mistress, and the works that followed, and with my Lee Child induced fascination with mysteries, the reprint of 2 early Markson novels seemed right up my ally.
Well, they were hit and miss. The writing was astonishing, and if I taught English classes, this is the text I would use to illustrate extraordinary uses of metaphors and similes. The plot at times was confusing, and occasionally boring. Sort of like listening to Guy Noir, where some weeks it's a hoot, and others you drift off.
That said, if we're following the criteria of being-long-enough-that-momentum-alone-won't-cause-me-to-finish-it, coupled with the fact that I finished it in a week . . . I liked it.
Well, they were hit and miss. The writing was astonishing, and if I taught English classes, this is the text I would use to illustrate extraordinary uses of metaphors and similes. The plot at times was confusing, and occasionally boring. Sort of like listening to Guy Noir, where some weeks it's a hoot, and others you drift off.
That said, if we're following the criteria of being-long-enough-that-momentum-alone-won't-cause-me-to-finish-it, coupled with the fact that I finished it in a week . . . I liked it.
June 5, 2008
What fun. The seeds of Markson's experimental fiction are barely present but for some entertaining flights of stream-of-consciousness fancy that occasionally race out of the mind of his hardboiled detective character, Harry Fannin. Most interesting is Markson's grimed over portrait of the 50's Greenwich Village scene. I detected a veiled portrait of William Gaddis both as a character and also as the subject of one of Fannin's suspects' dissertation. The writing gets better into the second book as he seems to let go of the need to write to his audience and he has fun breaking out of the genre while simultaneously reveling it its excesses. I wish his western, Ballad of Dingus Magee, were in print. I bet it's as fun.
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July 30, 2019Markson, best known for his series of "experimental" novels starting with WITTGENSTEIN'S MISTRESS, also wrote the revisionist-Western spoof BALLAD OF DINGUS MAGEE, in which none of the outlaws can seem to shoot straight, two novels about Mexico (the potboiler MISS DOLL, GO HOME and the more mature work GOING DOWN), a droll novel about Greenwich Village literary life, SPRINGER'S PROGRESS, poetry, criticism, and a book-length analysis of Malcolm Lowry's UNDER THE VOLCANO, a novel he admired tremendously. However, I think my favorite books of his are these two early crime novels, also set in the Village, from the 1950s. Both are genuinely suspenseful, provide readers with a sense of what it was like to live there and then, and are very funny.
June 21, 2016
This is a re-issue of two of the best pulp 'private eye' fiction pieces written by David Markson. The author wrote these books in the late 1950's, before he became a 'serious' writer' and went on to publish legitimate criticism and more literary fiction. One wonders why he wasn't considered a master of this genre since he wrote with such gusto and talent. The books are part of the Harry Fannin series. Fannie is a hard-boiled P.I. in New York City. The writing is solid and convincing. The dialogue is crackling with more metaphors and similes that a dog has fleas.
The women are blonde and dangerous. The cops are sometimes friendly...sometimes antagonistic. The streets are gritty and the bodies keep piling up.
A great read for those who love the genre.
The women are blonde and dangerous. The cops are sometimes friendly...sometimes antagonistic. The streets are gritty and the bodies keep piling up.
A great read for those who love the genre.
September 29, 2007
beautiful new york pulp, good characterization of the city and of the genre. fast read, and not as whiskey drenched as chandler's crime fiction, but definitely akin to it. very very fun time capsule read as well, both for the 50's new york snapping beatniks and poets and the dated but easily recalled references. you should take this book from me.
March 2, 2010
Great detective novels :: good for literary and crime nerds alike. Markson, legend of experimental fiction in later decades, wrote these in the early sixties to pay the rent, clearly has a lot going on beneath the veneer of wit and style which make his and all good detective novels so fucking loveable. You will either want to be, or fuck, Harry Fannin.
December 7, 2008
I read Epitaph for a Tramp, which is one complete story in this book. It started off with a mysterious serious of events that set off the search for who dunnit, which wasn't all that satisfying in the end, but gave a fairly good ride with witty verbage in the noir style.
March 10, 2011
Nice to have these packaged together. Fun examples of the '60s "hunk" P.I. genre. Especially enjoyed the take on "Greenwich Village" as home to those wacko longhairs, poets, intellectuals, and beatniks.
November 29, 2007
This book was awesome. The self-aware stereotypical gumshoe banter was pitch perfect and hella funny.
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