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Somebody's Done For
Per Càlvin Jander, la felice giornata dedicata alla pesca si risolve in un naufragio. Le cose si stanno mettendo male, quando un'imbarcazione avanza a meno di cinquanta metri da lui. Jander, allora, solleva il braccio dall'acqua e lo agita debolmente, sfinito. La barca si avvicina fino a una decina di metri, poi si ferma. A bordo ci sono due uomini che lo guardano senza aprire bocca. Ma che cosa stanno aspettando? Perché lo fissano senza porgergli aiuto? Eppure si vede che Jander è senza fiato, senza forze e che da un momento all'altro rischia di affogare. La barca gli gira attorno lentamente, e i due uomini continuano a parlare fra loro, come se niente fosse. Un incubo? Uno scherzo di pessimo gusto che la stanchezza si diverte a fare al povero Jander? Niente non si tratta di uno scherzo. L'imbarcazione si allontana, lasciando solo il naufrago al suo destino. E' finita per Jander? No, il destino ha scelto una vita piena di emozioni, fra gente disperata, di emozioni interrotte dall'amore per una affascinante e "sperduta" ragazza, una vita che, alla fine, non gli sembrerà più degna di essere vissuta.
176 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1967
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83 people want to read
About the author
David Goodis
97 books322 followersBorn and bred in Philadelphia, David Goodis was an American noir fiction writer. He grew up in a liberal, Jewish household in which his early literary ambitions were encouraged. After a short and inconclusive spell at Indiana University, he returned to Philadelphia to take a degree in journalism, graduating in 1937.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
July 3, 2025
“Somebody’s Done For” was my fifteenth novel by author David Goodis, and this being his final one, published posthumously in 1967, it’s clear he never lost his verve and special talents. As with many of his novels, a backstory is provided by way of a series of flashbacks, a unique narrative device that really adds to the drama and suspense. Marvelously drawn characters that fail at seeking love and redemption are what the author excelled at—the “poet of the losers” as it were.
I’ll always wonder what Goodis might have achieved in the 1970s-1980s had he not passed away so tragically young at only age 49.
I’ll always wonder what Goodis might have achieved in the 1970s-1980s had he not passed away so tragically young at only age 49.
October 5, 2021
David Goodis' Last Novel
"Somebody's Done For" (1967) is a little-known paperback novel published after the death of its author, David Goodis (1917 -- 1967). Born in Philadelphia, Goodis worked in Hollywood and wrote several novels. He returned to Philadelphia in 1950 and spent the remainder of his life living in his parents' home and writing a series of cheap pulp paperback novels. Although forgotten at the time of his death, there has been a resurgence of interest in Goodis with the Library of America publishing a volume of five of his novels and including his most famous novel, "Down There" in another volume devoted to 1950s crime fiction.
"Somebody's Done For" tells the story of the failed relationship between Calvin Jander, single at 32, a graduate of the Wharton School, with a humdrum job in advertising, and a femme fatale, Vera, in her 20s who dances at a club, the "Amethyst" in out-of-the way south Jersey. Vera lives with a criminal gang in a hidden location in an old house in the marshes of south Jersey near the Delaware Bay. The gang consists of the leader, Vera's father together with his heavily-drinking wife, and two other men.
The action of the story occurs over a short time but is extended by several detailed backstories. It begins when Jander, on a fishing trip to get away from his stultifying life, nearly drowns in the Delaware Bay, and is rescued when Vera finds him unconscious in the marshes. Jander spurns several opportunities to escape and soon finds himself in the clutches of the gang. The gang's past is only revealed in a lengthy backstory that Jander learns from a sympathetic figure in the group who also tries to help him. As the story unfolds, a subsequent backstory shows contact between Jander and Vera about a year earlier at the Amethyst, further details about Jander's life, including his relationship to his mother and his shrewish sister, and the story of Vera's past.
The book is replete with the violence, murders, and beatings that befits its genre. It is also replete with largely repressed and unhappy sexuality involving Vera and Jander, Vera and the gang members, Vera and many of the patrons of the Amethyst, and several other relationships of secondary characters in the novel. Still, there is much more to the book than sex and violence. Goodis gets inside his characters to show their loneliness and failed dreams. Jander is sometimes described by the gang as a spineless jellyfish but more often he appears in the book as a failed hero with his attempt to rescue Vera from the clutches of the gang and of the Amethyst. Both Vera and Jander are doomed by lovelessness and by their inability to escape their pasts and their families.
Readers of Goodis have mixed opinions about "Somebody's Done For". Goodis' final novel appeared six years after the last work in a series of paperbacks, and for many readers shows signs of fatigue and of the author repeating himself. Other readers view the work more favorably. In his recent book, "Pulp According to David Goodis", Jay Gertzman devotes his last chapter to a lengthy analysis of "Somebody's Done For", including its relationship to Goodis' earlier writings and themes and to works by other authors, including Kafka and Arthur Miller, displaying similar preoccupations. Gertzman concludes that "Somebody's Done For" is a "tragedy of the common man"-- the apparently commonplace Jander who in his failure has nobility and romance. The novel is bleak and fatalistic with a faint glimmer of hope and possible redemption.
I was glad to have the opportunity to read "Somebody's Done For". I found it a sad, moving work that ranks with Goodis' better writings. Goodis had the gift of writing from the inside, and this book, as do his other works, tells the story of a lonely, tormented individual whose inner life might not be apparent to the casual observer. Goodis's works explore a small number of related themes and characters, but each work manages to be original and poignant.
Readers should be grateful that much of Goodis is accessible in the LOA and in various paperbacks of some of his other novels. It would be worthwhile to have a new paperback edition of Goodis' last book, "Somebody's Done For".
Robin Friedman
"Somebody's Done For" (1967) is a little-known paperback novel published after the death of its author, David Goodis (1917 -- 1967). Born in Philadelphia, Goodis worked in Hollywood and wrote several novels. He returned to Philadelphia in 1950 and spent the remainder of his life living in his parents' home and writing a series of cheap pulp paperback novels. Although forgotten at the time of his death, there has been a resurgence of interest in Goodis with the Library of America publishing a volume of five of his novels and including his most famous novel, "Down There" in another volume devoted to 1950s crime fiction.
"Somebody's Done For" tells the story of the failed relationship between Calvin Jander, single at 32, a graduate of the Wharton School, with a humdrum job in advertising, and a femme fatale, Vera, in her 20s who dances at a club, the "Amethyst" in out-of-the way south Jersey. Vera lives with a criminal gang in a hidden location in an old house in the marshes of south Jersey near the Delaware Bay. The gang consists of the leader, Vera's father together with his heavily-drinking wife, and two other men.
The action of the story occurs over a short time but is extended by several detailed backstories. It begins when Jander, on a fishing trip to get away from his stultifying life, nearly drowns in the Delaware Bay, and is rescued when Vera finds him unconscious in the marshes. Jander spurns several opportunities to escape and soon finds himself in the clutches of the gang. The gang's past is only revealed in a lengthy backstory that Jander learns from a sympathetic figure in the group who also tries to help him. As the story unfolds, a subsequent backstory shows contact between Jander and Vera about a year earlier at the Amethyst, further details about Jander's life, including his relationship to his mother and his shrewish sister, and the story of Vera's past.
The book is replete with the violence, murders, and beatings that befits its genre. It is also replete with largely repressed and unhappy sexuality involving Vera and Jander, Vera and the gang members, Vera and many of the patrons of the Amethyst, and several other relationships of secondary characters in the novel. Still, there is much more to the book than sex and violence. Goodis gets inside his characters to show their loneliness and failed dreams. Jander is sometimes described by the gang as a spineless jellyfish but more often he appears in the book as a failed hero with his attempt to rescue Vera from the clutches of the gang and of the Amethyst. Both Vera and Jander are doomed by lovelessness and by their inability to escape their pasts and their families.
Readers of Goodis have mixed opinions about "Somebody's Done For". Goodis' final novel appeared six years after the last work in a series of paperbacks, and for many readers shows signs of fatigue and of the author repeating himself. Other readers view the work more favorably. In his recent book, "Pulp According to David Goodis", Jay Gertzman devotes his last chapter to a lengthy analysis of "Somebody's Done For", including its relationship to Goodis' earlier writings and themes and to works by other authors, including Kafka and Arthur Miller, displaying similar preoccupations. Gertzman concludes that "Somebody's Done For" is a "tragedy of the common man"-- the apparently commonplace Jander who in his failure has nobility and romance. The novel is bleak and fatalistic with a faint glimmer of hope and possible redemption.
I was glad to have the opportunity to read "Somebody's Done For". I found it a sad, moving work that ranks with Goodis' better writings. Goodis had the gift of writing from the inside, and this book, as do his other works, tells the story of a lonely, tormented individual whose inner life might not be apparent to the casual observer. Goodis's works explore a small number of related themes and characters, but each work manages to be original and poignant.
Readers should be grateful that much of Goodis is accessible in the LOA and in various paperbacks of some of his other novels. It would be worthwhile to have a new paperback edition of Goodis' last book, "Somebody's Done For".
Robin Friedman
October 28, 2024
Excellent noir drama by David Goodis.
May 2, 2008
Goodis' final novel is his masterpiece, a full-on noir tale of (sub)urban desolation, familial malaise, and loveless relationships. The story is filled with references to his own life, particularly in that the main character works to support his mother and sister, while in real life Goodis was writing to support his mother and brother. One particular passage sent chills down my back: the main character describes his father who worked himself to death at the age of 49 support his family, but who still felt like a failure; those who know Goodis' life also know that he too would die at 49 (he completed the novel shortly before he died) and that he hadn't achieved "success." In his own lifetime, Goodis was sadly overlooked. 41 years after his death, he is finally getting his due, though too many of his novels are unjustly out of print, including this one. It is worth any and all effort to find.
February 16, 2025
Not my favorite. Very atypical Goodis. Reads more like a swamp book
March 20, 2021
The last book that David Goodis wrote is also one of his best. The lead character’s rowboat capsizes during a sudden storm in the Delaware Bay, and he eventually makes it to land where he’s rescued by the sultry Vera, who’s living with escaped convicts, one of whom is her father. The story takes off like a shot from there, and is absolutely captures the gritty setting and the despair of the characters. I just loved this book, and it’s another reason Goodis has catapulted to being one of my favorite authors.
April 2, 2022
La víctima (Somebody's done for, 1967) fue la obra póstuma de David Goodis y escrita bastante más espaciadamente en el tiempo que el resto, 6 años, tras Night Squad (Un gato en el pantano/Brigada nocturna, 1961). En ella el escritor narra otra vez la historia de un hombre atormentado, que tras un accidente en barca y nadar a la deriva es rescatado y apresado por una banda de maleantes en un recóndito paraje cercano a las costas de New Jersey. A partir de aquí se estructuran unos flashbacks que irán desgranando la historia o si se quiere ir componiendo el puzzle. Ni que decir tiene que tratándose de Goodis vuelven a asomar aquí todos los apectos temáticos de otras obras: el hombre torturado y perseguido, mujeres fuertes, incesto velado, sexo, alcohol… todo ello con los consabidos monólogos interiores y esos saltos temporales retrospectivos tan típicos del escritor. Es por tanto menos urbana que las que componen su ciclo de novelas de la ciudad filadelfia. Tras su lectura y habiendo posteriormente leído algunas críticas favorables del libro por parte de algunos fans no he podido por menos que sorprenderme tal es la decepción que para mí me ha supuesto. Es verdad que se lee con cierto ritmo, pero el libro no funciona de ninguna manera. Por un lado la calidad de los diálogos me ha parecido baja. No es que Goodis fuese Chandler, pero tenía al menos cierto empaque, cierto punch. Aquí, no sé si por temas de traducción o qué, me he encontrado con diálogos bastante pobres, cuando no infantiles. Pero ya al margen de todo esto el problema es que la historia contada no se aguanta por ningún lado… dando palos de ciego narrativamente hablando. Un desastre. No sé si es que tenía ya un pie en la tumba y estaba en horas cuando lo escribió, pero es una novela caótica. The moon in the gutter (La luna en el arroyo, 1953), que comenté un tiempo atrás, aunque tenía todos los ingredientes de otras novelas suyas y podía pasar por otra más del ciclo o la “franquicia” no funcionaba del todo porque faltaba en ella una gran historia. Pero al menos sí había un bloque unitario, la historia estaba bien definida. El problema de "La víctima" es que aquí Goodis no ha sabido centrarse, saber qué quería contar, a dónde quería llegar…definitivamente, contar una historia. Una pena cerrar así su carrera, pero es lo que hay. Afortunadamente aún me quedan algunas novelas suyas para disfrutar y pese a algún bache, me parece unos de los 2 o 3 mejores escritores que ha dejado la novela negra y por tanto es obligado volver a él en un futuro…
February 4, 2024
It’s certainly readable and kept me going but there’s not much to it.
November 15, 2024
David Goodis’ final novel, Somebody’s Done For, begins with 32-year-old Calvin Jander swimming for his life off the New Jersey coast as the birds circle overhead, waiting for him to give up. He had rowed out to far in rented rowboat, hoping to catch something work keeping, but the weather changed and so did his luck. Two men in a boat with an outboard motor looked at Calvin and circled him before deciding that they did not want anything to do with him. Calvin swam on, hoping against hope he could make shore. On the shore, a woman in her early twenties (Vera) who seemed vaguely familiar nudged Calvin because the tide was coming in. Barely functional, Calvin lets the woman help him across the beach, but she makes him promise that he will not be curious. She says it is for his own sake. And she tells him that the less that he knows the better his chances will be of staying alive. What a terrific opening to a novel. Right away, Goodis lets you know the main character is an ordinary guy who accidentally found his way into this situation. There is, of course, a beautiful woman involved and two unsavory characters who chose not to save Calvin and something mysterious and dangerous going on that Calvin is better off not knowing about.
It gets even more sinister when Gathridge, the husky man from the boat with the outboard motor shows up to the shack and demands to know why Calvin is now wearing Gathridge’s clothes. Vera says that Calvin won’t talk, but Gathridge is unhappy and says he is following orders. The orders come from Hebden, the boss at the main house and also Vera’s father, who does not believe that Calvin is a nobody who just happens along. Instead, he theorizes that Calvin is a somebody sent to investigate him and he isn’t too happy about it.
What Goodis does next with the story gives it a different kind of flavor than just an ordinary crime novel. He offers us backstories of Hebden and Gathridge and how they ended up in the house on the New Jersey marsh. Then, he offers up Calvin’s story and how fate had once before led him to Vera and how he might not be as soft and fuzzy as he appeared to be. Goodis also offers up Vera’s backstory in pieces. Finally, Goodis brings it all together and you can see how carefully and painstakingly he crafted this non-linear novel and tied it all together.
This is a different type of novel from the regular streets of Philadelphia novel that Goodis normally offered his readers. It is just as noir and just as sad and just as classic. It was published several years after his previous novel in 1961 and since he passed on January 7, 1967, he probably did not see it published. It might have opened up a new direction for his work, but it was his final epitaph.
It gets even more sinister when Gathridge, the husky man from the boat with the outboard motor shows up to the shack and demands to know why Calvin is now wearing Gathridge’s clothes. Vera says that Calvin won’t talk, but Gathridge is unhappy and says he is following orders. The orders come from Hebden, the boss at the main house and also Vera’s father, who does not believe that Calvin is a nobody who just happens along. Instead, he theorizes that Calvin is a somebody sent to investigate him and he isn’t too happy about it.
What Goodis does next with the story gives it a different kind of flavor than just an ordinary crime novel. He offers us backstories of Hebden and Gathridge and how they ended up in the house on the New Jersey marsh. Then, he offers up Calvin’s story and how fate had once before led him to Vera and how he might not be as soft and fuzzy as he appeared to be. Goodis also offers up Vera’s backstory in pieces. Finally, Goodis brings it all together and you can see how carefully and painstakingly he crafted this non-linear novel and tied it all together.
This is a different type of novel from the regular streets of Philadelphia novel that Goodis normally offered his readers. It is just as noir and just as sad and just as classic. It was published several years after his previous novel in 1961 and since he passed on January 7, 1967, he probably did not see it published. It might have opened up a new direction for his work, but it was his final epitaph.
June 15, 2024
3.75, rounded up.
It took a little while to really get going, or grab me, but when it did, I was hooked right to the end.
Goodis' final book is set in the Delaware Bay region, where our protagonist, Calvin Jander is washed up on the seashore after his fishing boat capsized during a storm.
He is found and rescued by a young lady who is familiar looking to him, but he can't remember where he has seen her before. He later meets members of her family who are living nearby but are not glad to see him. But who are these people living in an abandoned house in the area? And just where has he seen that young lady before?
These and other questions are answered as we read the characters' back-stories, and we learn more about Calvin and his disillusionment with the life he is living, his dead-end job, the awful mother and sister who live with him and live off his earnings. One feels a bit sorry for Calvin, living with those awful people, but he is a fairly weak character, not as assertive as he should be.
One wishes he would do what really he SHOULD do- throw it all in, go away and start a new life with the girl he thinks may be the one for him. But simple, happy endings belong in stories and the movies, not real life. Is there any happy ending in store for this protagonist?
It would be a spoiler to say more. I thought the title was applicable to Calvin at first, but it may also be just as applicable to someone else in the book as well.
As much a character study as it is a crime tale, Goodis ended his writing career on a high, quality - wise. It's a pity he wasn't more revered during his life time. But better late than never.
It took a little while to really get going, or grab me, but when it did, I was hooked right to the end.
Goodis' final book is set in the Delaware Bay region, where our protagonist, Calvin Jander is washed up on the seashore after his fishing boat capsized during a storm.
He is found and rescued by a young lady who is familiar looking to him, but he can't remember where he has seen her before. He later meets members of her family who are living nearby but are not glad to see him. But who are these people living in an abandoned house in the area? And just where has he seen that young lady before?
These and other questions are answered as we read the characters' back-stories, and we learn more about Calvin and his disillusionment with the life he is living, his dead-end job, the awful mother and sister who live with him and live off his earnings. One feels a bit sorry for Calvin, living with those awful people, but he is a fairly weak character, not as assertive as he should be.
One wishes he would do what really he SHOULD do- throw it all in, go away and start a new life with the girl he thinks may be the one for him. But simple, happy endings belong in stories and the movies, not real life. Is there any happy ending in store for this protagonist?
It would be a spoiler to say more. I thought the title was applicable to Calvin at first, but it may also be just as applicable to someone else in the book as well.
As much a character study as it is a crime tale, Goodis ended his writing career on a high, quality - wise. It's a pity he wasn't more revered during his life time. But better late than never.
November 8, 2024
I’m so thankful that Stark House Press is keeping the works of writers like David Goodis in print. Goodis’s final novel takes place on Delaware Bay, where Calvin Jander’s boat capsizes with no other people, boats, or land in sight. Almost exhausted from treading water, Cal’s hope springs to life as two men in a boat draw near, see him, but then turn around. I won’t tell you how Cal gets out of this predicament, but once he does, he might wish he’d drowned. This is dark stuff expertly handled.
November 12, 2023
Goodis' last book isn't near his best, but it's not his worst either. I found the first half tedious and the second, using various long flashbacks, markedly better.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews