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Barney Godwin, a typical noir Everyman, discovers that a local swamp rat has lucked into the proceeds of an infamous back robbery, and he schemes to make the money his own. Girl Out Back should have been better, but author Charles Williams makes little effort to explain the motivations of his first-person narrator, especially early in the novel, and he introduces major plot elements in a lazy hey-guess-what-I-just-remembered fashion.
190 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1957
73 people want to read
About the author
Charles Williams
33 books97 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
Please see: Charles Williams
Charles Williams was one of the preeminent authors of American crime fiction. Born in Texas, he dropped out of high school to enlist in the US Merchant Marine, serving for ten years (1929-1939) before leaving to work in the electronics industry. He was a radio inspector during the war years at the Puget Sound Navy Yard in Washington state. At the end of World War II, Williams began writing fiction while living in San Francisco. The success of his backwoods noir Hill Girl (1951) allowed him to quit his job and write fulltime.
Williams’s clean and somewhat casual narrative style distinguishes his novels—which range from hard-boiled, small-town noir to suspense thrillers set at sea and in the Deep South. Although originally published by pulp fiction houses, his work won great critical acclaim, with Hell Hath No Fury (1953) becoming the first paperback original to be reviewed by legendary New York Times critic Anthony Boucher. Many of his novels were adapted for the screen, such as Dead Calm (published in 1963) and Don’t Just Stand There! (published in 1966), for which Williams wrote the screenplay.
After the death of his wife Lasca (m. 1939) from cancer in 1972, Williams purchased property on the California-Oregon border where he lived alone for a time in a trailer. After relocating to Los Angeles, Williams committed suicide in his apartment in the Van Nuys neighborhood in early April 1975. Williams had been depressed since the death of his wife, and his emotional state worsened as sales of his books declined when stand alone thrillers began to lose popularity in the early 70s. He was survived by a daughter, Alison.
Please see: Charles Williams
Charles Williams was one of the preeminent authors of American crime fiction. Born in Texas, he dropped out of high school to enlist in the US Merchant Marine, serving for ten years (1929-1939) before leaving to work in the electronics industry. He was a radio inspector during the war years at the Puget Sound Navy Yard in Washington state. At the end of World War II, Williams began writing fiction while living in San Francisco. The success of his backwoods noir Hill Girl (1951) allowed him to quit his job and write fulltime.
Williams’s clean and somewhat casual narrative style distinguishes his novels—which range from hard-boiled, small-town noir to suspense thrillers set at sea and in the Deep South. Although originally published by pulp fiction houses, his work won great critical acclaim, with Hell Hath No Fury (1953) becoming the first paperback original to be reviewed by legendary New York Times critic Anthony Boucher. Many of his novels were adapted for the screen, such as Dead Calm (published in 1963) and Don’t Just Stand There! (published in 1966), for which Williams wrote the screenplay.
After the death of his wife Lasca (m. 1939) from cancer in 1972, Williams purchased property on the California-Oregon border where he lived alone for a time in a trailer. After relocating to Los Angeles, Williams committed suicide in his apartment in the Van Nuys neighborhood in early April 1975. Williams had been depressed since the death of his wife, and his emotional state worsened as sales of his books declined when stand alone thrillers began to lose popularity in the early 70s. He was survived by a daughter, Alison.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
July 7, 2023
Bravo, Charles Williams! You pulled off the most outrageous heist. What a pleasure it was to read Girl Out Back. A sexy hilarious hard boiled Dostoyevskian backwoods swamp noir crime procedural. Yes! That's what it is.
Barney Godwin, trapped in an unhappy marriage to a buxomly rich woman, spots an opportunity to escape when he learns about an FBI investigation into the lost loot in a bank robbery. Barney finds the unlikely nerdy comic book reading man who he suspects might have stumbled upon the loot, and masquerades as an FBI agent. The intricate plotting is characterized by attention to detail, misdirection and a lot of clever twists. The book is almost like a sequel to Hell Hath No Fury aka The Hotspot. Barney Goodwin could well be Maddox, caught in a bad marriage with Mrs. Harshaw. Like Maddox, Barney is a sailor who dreams of escaping the normal square life and kicking out on his own.
If I ever planned to commit a crime, this book would be like my bible. Reading Charles Bukowski made me want to become a drunk. Reading Charles Williams makes me want to become a criminal. Also Laura La Plante. Hahaha! How could I forget her?
Barney Godwin, trapped in an unhappy marriage to a buxomly rich woman, spots an opportunity to escape when he learns about an FBI investigation into the lost loot in a bank robbery. Barney finds the unlikely nerdy comic book reading man who he suspects might have stumbled upon the loot, and masquerades as an FBI agent. The intricate plotting is characterized by attention to detail, misdirection and a lot of clever twists. The book is almost like a sequel to Hell Hath No Fury aka The Hotspot. Barney Goodwin could well be Maddox, caught in a bad marriage with Mrs. Harshaw. Like Maddox, Barney is a sailor who dreams of escaping the normal square life and kicking out on his own.
If I ever planned to commit a crime, this book would be like my bible. Reading Charles Bukowski made me want to become a drunk. Reading Charles Williams makes me want to become a criminal. Also Laura La Plante. Hahaha! How could I forget her?
March 23, 2020
Barney Godwin lives in a small rural town. He runs a two-man boat shop where they repair outboard motors and sell fishing and boating supplies. Whenever he feels like it, he leaves his employee in charge and heads out to fish for an afternoon or even a couple of days. Barney's wife is Jessica and she's worth two hundred grand left from her first marriage. She is "currently an ash blonde, has very lovely, big, blue eyes, and her figure hovers between voluptuous and overblown, though she can still make voluptuous in ten days on Ry- Krisp and lettuce when she wants."
So what does a guy like Barney do when the FBI shows up looking for currency from a $180,000 bank robbery? Does Barney tell the agent about the bills he was given by some dame earlier that morning or does he lie to the agent and try to figure out where the stash is on his own? Barney follows the clues and embarks on the craziest scheme to get his hands on the missing loot, a scheme so nutty it never could work or could it. In the process, Barney finds himself involved in murder, trespassing, adultery, and impersonating an officer.
In many ways, it is a story about greed and karma and what happens when an ordinary guy crosses the line and keeps crossing more and more lines. Girl Out Back is a 1958 novel by Charles Williams. It contains many of the noir elements of River Girl, the Hot Spot, and Nothing In Her Way, but the story just doesn't come off as successfully. Although it is a compelling can't-put-it-down read, it simply doesn't have the power and depth of his other works. Perhaps the passion that rips through River Girl or Scorpion Reef is missing.
It is a fine story and worth reading, just not the kind of story dripping with pulpy goodness that catapulted Williams to the top ranks of the fifties pulp writers.
So what does a guy like Barney do when the FBI shows up looking for currency from a $180,000 bank robbery? Does Barney tell the agent about the bills he was given by some dame earlier that morning or does he lie to the agent and try to figure out where the stash is on his own? Barney follows the clues and embarks on the craziest scheme to get his hands on the missing loot, a scheme so nutty it never could work or could it. In the process, Barney finds himself involved in murder, trespassing, adultery, and impersonating an officer.
In many ways, it is a story about greed and karma and what happens when an ordinary guy crosses the line and keeps crossing more and more lines. Girl Out Back is a 1958 novel by Charles Williams. It contains many of the noir elements of River Girl, the Hot Spot, and Nothing In Her Way, but the story just doesn't come off as successfully. Although it is a compelling can't-put-it-down read, it simply doesn't have the power and depth of his other works. Perhaps the passion that rips through River Girl or Scorpion Reef is missing.
It is a fine story and worth reading, just not the kind of story dripping with pulpy goodness that catapulted Williams to the top ranks of the fifties pulp writers.
July 15, 2017
(2.5 stars)
I suspect many books go out of print over time because they are so closely connected with the era in which they found popularity. When that era passes, when the collective consciousness that permeated those times reincarnates into something different, it drags down into obscurity many of those books that it had spawned. As for a book's literary merits, those are more subjective and, in many cases, dependent on genre. This is my first Charles Williams book, and I would have to say its obscurity is probably due to its narrator/protagonist's close identification with early 1950's cultural values; though there is nothing wrong with that, this reader found much unintentional humor due to the disconnect. The protag is a lady's man with a nicotine habit and a shaving kit. He has his own "den" in the basement where he can smoke and tie flies and dream of the ultimate fishing vacation when he's not required to be anywhere else; like, say, upstairs accomodating his wife's amorous clutches. I've met many a man my grandfather's age (born in the late 1910s, early 1920s) who still whistles catcalls when he spies a lady showing a little cleavage or leg. Fair enough - this is why I like to occasionally read books like this (hat-tip to my GR friend cbj for bringing it up on the radar). Williams sold millions of books in his time, and I suspect it was to ex-GIs and Merchant Marine men who had plenty of time to relax in their dens while their wives went shopping.
Okay, enough of the social commentary, let's go over the story briefly. The setting is a rural town somewhere near plenty of good fishing lakes; the location state is not mentioned but it isn't Florida because that's where the protag dreams of living. The protag meets the "girl out back" (GOB) at the very beginning when she inadvertently passes some bad money to him during a routine purchase. This action gets the FBI involved and starts our protag down a questionable path full of improbable actions that eventually leads to an unquestionably suspenseful ending. The GOB is a married woman whose violent husband keeps on a very short leash, when he's not collecting "marital accounts-receivable as they f[a]ll due." She's ready for a real man to take her away from all that and our protag is sure he's the right guy for the job - if there is real money to be made. When our protag is thinking about "real money," he means enough money to set up a marina and fishing shop down near the Florida Keys. (Wow, one can dream.)
On the positive side, the book does deliver a suspenseful ending, and the author delivers some memorable phrases throughout the book. Here's an example: "She stepped up on the concrete walk and went past me. She was quite tall. I’m six feet two, so in the scuffed spectator pumps she was wearing she must have been close to five eight. Her legs were bare. The predominantly blue cotton dress she had on was just another number off the rack, well worn and often laundered, and while it was somewhat tight across the chest for a couple of somewhat obvious reasons I noted it only in passing. Now that bust-line architecture has become a basic industry, like steel and heavy construction, all the old pleasant conjectures are a waste of time and you never believe anything until the returns are in from the precincts." Did I say memorable? Maybe so ... maybe not.
I suspect many books go out of print over time because they are so closely connected with the era in which they found popularity. When that era passes, when the collective consciousness that permeated those times reincarnates into something different, it drags down into obscurity many of those books that it had spawned. As for a book's literary merits, those are more subjective and, in many cases, dependent on genre. This is my first Charles Williams book, and I would have to say its obscurity is probably due to its narrator/protagonist's close identification with early 1950's cultural values; though there is nothing wrong with that, this reader found much unintentional humor due to the disconnect. The protag is a lady's man with a nicotine habit and a shaving kit. He has his own "den" in the basement where he can smoke and tie flies and dream of the ultimate fishing vacation when he's not required to be anywhere else; like, say, upstairs accomodating his wife's amorous clutches. I've met many a man my grandfather's age (born in the late 1910s, early 1920s) who still whistles catcalls when he spies a lady showing a little cleavage or leg. Fair enough - this is why I like to occasionally read books like this (hat-tip to my GR friend cbj for bringing it up on the radar). Williams sold millions of books in his time, and I suspect it was to ex-GIs and Merchant Marine men who had plenty of time to relax in their dens while their wives went shopping.
Okay, enough of the social commentary, let's go over the story briefly. The setting is a rural town somewhere near plenty of good fishing lakes; the location state is not mentioned but it isn't Florida because that's where the protag dreams of living. The protag meets the "girl out back" (GOB) at the very beginning when she inadvertently passes some bad money to him during a routine purchase. This action gets the FBI involved and starts our protag down a questionable path full of improbable actions that eventually leads to an unquestionably suspenseful ending. The GOB is a married woman whose violent husband keeps on a very short leash, when he's not collecting "marital accounts-receivable as they f[a]ll due." She's ready for a real man to take her away from all that and our protag is sure he's the right guy for the job - if there is real money to be made. When our protag is thinking about "real money," he means enough money to set up a marina and fishing shop down near the Florida Keys. (Wow, one can dream.)
On the positive side, the book does deliver a suspenseful ending, and the author delivers some memorable phrases throughout the book. Here's an example: "She stepped up on the concrete walk and went past me. She was quite tall. I’m six feet two, so in the scuffed spectator pumps she was wearing she must have been close to five eight. Her legs were bare. The predominantly blue cotton dress she had on was just another number off the rack, well worn and often laundered, and while it was somewhat tight across the chest for a couple of somewhat obvious reasons I noted it only in passing. Now that bust-line architecture has become a basic industry, like steel and heavy construction, all the old pleasant conjectures are a waste of time and you never believe anything until the returns are in from the precincts." Did I say memorable? Maybe so ... maybe not.
March 7, 2013
Barney Godwin, a typical noir Everyman, discovers that a local swamp rat has lucked into the proceeds of an infamous back robbery, and he schemes to make the money his own. Girl Out Back should have been better, but author Charles Williams makes little effort to explain the motivations of his first-person narrator, especially early in the novel, and he introduces major plot elements in a lazy hey-guess-what-I-just-remembered fashion.
January 6, 2025
Set in the fictional small town of Wardlaw, Louisiana in the late 1950s this concerns Barney Godwin, living what seems to be a decent life; recently married to an attractive and wealthy widow, the manager of a boating supplies store, and fishing in the bayous lying on his frequent afternoons off.
But Barney fancies himself as a hustler of sorts, and when a beautiful young woman comes into the shop one day to buy some outboard motors and passes a marked twenty dollar bill, he sees his chance and comes up with a plan to recover the money from a heist that went wrong, more than $150,000.
This is a typical pulp noir of the time, though a stand-out in that vast field. Williams writes with snappy dialogue and describes his bad guys particularly well. The Louisiana swamp is an ideal backdrop for an unseasoned hustler like Barney to stumble his way to the cash. It is very entertaining, an exemplar of its day.
But Barney fancies himself as a hustler of sorts, and when a beautiful young woman comes into the shop one day to buy some outboard motors and passes a marked twenty dollar bill, he sees his chance and comes up with a plan to recover the money from a heist that went wrong, more than $150,000.
This is a typical pulp noir of the time, though a stand-out in that vast field. Williams writes with snappy dialogue and describes his bad guys particularly well. The Louisiana swamp is an ideal backdrop for an unseasoned hustler like Barney to stumble his way to the cash. It is very entertaining, an exemplar of its day.
February 19, 2025
His Name Was Porfiry
This is the most nerve-wracking CKW of them all.
If you can ever look at a syrup pail, a defaced twenty-dollar bill, fishing tackle, or an outboard motor again after this book you missed your calling -- you oughta be out murdering pawnbrokers and making the big money.
This is to Hell Hath No Furries* what Jeff Dahmer is to Raskolnikov.
(The blurb-writer is another one of those Book Scientists who has a list with boxes to check. He figures this makes him into Chief Science Officer Spock and -- because Book Science is Science -- we all have to listen to him. If these Scientists weren't just plain WRONG all the time, their only crime would be Ruining All the Fun.)
This is the most nerve-wracking CKW of them all.
If you can ever look at a syrup pail, a defaced twenty-dollar bill, fishing tackle, or an outboard motor again after this book you missed your calling -- you oughta be out murdering pawnbrokers and making the big money.
This is to Hell Hath No Furries* what Jeff Dahmer is to Raskolnikov.
(The blurb-writer is another one of those Book Scientists who has a list with boxes to check. He figures this makes him into Chief Science Officer Spock and -- because Book Science is Science -- we all have to listen to him. If these Scientists weren't just plain WRONG all the time, their only crime would be Ruining All the Fun.)
March 4, 2018
Good example of noir fiction. It's interesting that Williams doesn't spell out the details of each characters backgrounds or motivations. Instead you have to fill them in yourself from the hints being dropped all through the book as the story develops. As in most noir the steady progression of events weren't surprising except for Jewel's actions at the end. I thought it was well written in the style of the period it was written in - late 1950's.
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October 27, 2021What happened to the ending? Was it left up in the air?
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews