Four Novels: They Shoot Horses, Don't They? / Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye / No Pockets in a Shroud / I Should Have Stayed Home

by Horace McCoy

Includes four unabridged novels by Horace McCoy: "They Shoot Horses Don't They," Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye," "No Pockets in a Shroud," and "I Should Have Stayed Home."

Genres: Fiction, Literature, Mystery

574 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1983

About the author

Horace Stanley McCoy (1897–1955) was an American novelist whose gritty, hardboiled novels documented the hardships Americans faced during the Depression and post-war periods. McCoy grew up in Tennessee and Texas; after serving in the air force during World War I, he worked as a journalist, film actor, and screenplay writer, and is author of five novels including They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? (1935) and the noir classic Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye (1948). Though underappreciated in his own time, McCoy is now recognized as a peer of Dashiell Hammett and James Cain. He died in Beverly Hills, California, in 1955.

Reviews

[Cullen Gallagher · Rating 5 out of 5]

4 masterpieces of noir fiction. "They Shoot Horses, Don't They" is is desperate tale of hopelessness during the Depression, when life was at its cheapest--and even then it wasn't affordable for McCoy's characters. "Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye" is a first-person gangster tale about a psychotic social-climber with a fierce Oedipal complex. Its scathing portrait of small-town politics and moral corruption is devastating. In "No Pockets in a Shroud," the idealism of a young reporter is shattered through and through, while in "I Should Have Stayed Home" an aspiring, hopeful actor learns how cheap his soul really is.

[Martin · Rating 4 out of 5]

These books were written in the 1930-40s. They are fun read, some pulpy, others having clear defined characters. The first and fourth are set in Southern California in the outer fringes of show business are are excellent, brief and compelling. "Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye" is a tough guy noir in the spirit of Dashiell Hammett and James Cain which was exciting and fast paces with 2 memorable romances. "No Pockets on a shroud" was well intentioned but pulpy and was the least of the four. I recommend these books to all the admirers of well written, dark fiction about the underworld.

[Squash (Lex) · Rating 2 out of 5]

The first two novellas were very good. The third was stupid and pulpy and moved absurdly fast but it was fun. I could barely get through the last one.