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A Good Man to Know: A Semi-Documentary Fictional Memoir
Rudy Winston was a good man to know in South-Side Chicago in the thirties, forties and fifties, and Barry Gifford brings him to life from three very different points of through the eyes of his son, through obituaries and news stories, and through an FBI report on a caper called the "Gulf Coast Bank Sneak." A Good Man to Know is most memorable for its child's vision of events, some mundane, others mysterious roadtrips, a death at a baseball game, a search for alligators in Florida, a mother's penchant for fortune-tellers.
164 pages, Hardcover
First published May 1, 1992
6 people want to read
About the author
Barry Gifford
142 books205 followersBarry Gifford is an American author, poet, and screenwriter known for his distinctive mix of American landscapes and film noir- and Beat Generation-influenced literary madness.
He is described by Patrick Beach as being "like if John Updike had an evil twin that grew up on the wrong side of the tracks and wrote funny..."He is best known for his series of novels about Sailor and Lula, two sex-driven, star-crossed protagonists on the road. The first of the series, Wild at Heart, was adapted by director David Lynch for the 1990 film of the same title. Gifford went on to write the screenplay for Lost Highway with Lynch. Much of Gifford's work is nonfiction.
He is described by Patrick Beach as being "like if John Updike had an evil twin that grew up on the wrong side of the tracks and wrote funny..."He is best known for his series of novels about Sailor and Lula, two sex-driven, star-crossed protagonists on the road. The first of the series, Wild at Heart, was adapted by director David Lynch for the 1990 film of the same title. Gifford went on to write the screenplay for Lost Highway with Lynch. Much of Gifford's work is nonfiction.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
July 30, 2017
While A Good Man to Know is not the Barry Gifford of Wild at Heart it goes some way to explaining the man who brought the world the likes of Sailor Ripley, Lula Pace Fortune and Perdita Durango.
Billed as a semi-documentary fictional memoir, the book captures memories from Gifford’s childhood both real and imagined.
Much of the focus is on Gifford’s father, Rudy Winston, the good man to know of the title.
Gifford explains, “My father ran an all-night liquor store on the corner of Chicago and Rush, next door to the Club Alabam, where I used to watch the showgirls rehearse on Saturday afternoons. I often ate breakfast at the small lunch counter in the store, dunking doughnuts with the organ-grinder's monkey. Big redheaded Louise ran the counter and fed me milk shakes while I waited for my dad. The place was a drop joint for stolen goods, dope, whatever somebody wanted to stash for a while. The story was that you could get anything at the store, day or night. Al Capone's brother, who was then using the name White, would come into the store often, as well as movie star Dorothy Lamour, ex-middleweight champ Tony Zale (who had a restaurant across the street - he used to show me the gloves from his matches), and whoever else was in town. We lived on Chestnut Street, next to the lake, in the Seneca Hotel, which was later described to me as containing ‘the lobby of the men with no last names’.”
It is this world of Capone’s Chicago into which Gifford was born in a 1940s hotel room (his mother was a teenage beauty queen) and lived an itinerant lifestyle in his early years between the Windy City, Florida, Havana and across the deep south.
The characters he was brought up with along the way are not too far removed from those who wander through his best works of fiction and the influence is clear to see.
Chapters are short - many just two or three pages - but full of Gifford’s trademark mood reflecting his extraordinary childhood.
The book slows down when Gifford hands over the pages to contemporary press cuttings from his father's world and associates and genuine FBI material about the same.
While no means essential among Gifford’s canon of works it is an interesting insight into the formative years of a man dubbed “both a ‘cult’ writer and a great one” by fellow writer Andrei Codrescu.
Billed as a semi-documentary fictional memoir, the book captures memories from Gifford’s childhood both real and imagined.
Much of the focus is on Gifford’s father, Rudy Winston, the good man to know of the title.
Gifford explains, “My father ran an all-night liquor store on the corner of Chicago and Rush, next door to the Club Alabam, where I used to watch the showgirls rehearse on Saturday afternoons. I often ate breakfast at the small lunch counter in the store, dunking doughnuts with the organ-grinder's monkey. Big redheaded Louise ran the counter and fed me milk shakes while I waited for my dad. The place was a drop joint for stolen goods, dope, whatever somebody wanted to stash for a while. The story was that you could get anything at the store, day or night. Al Capone's brother, who was then using the name White, would come into the store often, as well as movie star Dorothy Lamour, ex-middleweight champ Tony Zale (who had a restaurant across the street - he used to show me the gloves from his matches), and whoever else was in town. We lived on Chestnut Street, next to the lake, in the Seneca Hotel, which was later described to me as containing ‘the lobby of the men with no last names’.”
It is this world of Capone’s Chicago into which Gifford was born in a 1940s hotel room (his mother was a teenage beauty queen) and lived an itinerant lifestyle in his early years between the Windy City, Florida, Havana and across the deep south.
The characters he was brought up with along the way are not too far removed from those who wander through his best works of fiction and the influence is clear to see.
Chapters are short - many just two or three pages - but full of Gifford’s trademark mood reflecting his extraordinary childhood.
The book slows down when Gifford hands over the pages to contemporary press cuttings from his father's world and associates and genuine FBI material about the same.
While no means essential among Gifford’s canon of works it is an interesting insight into the formative years of a man dubbed “both a ‘cult’ writer and a great one” by fellow writer Andrei Codrescu.
January 8, 2016
Loved it. Interesting, insightful, a treat.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews