The BURIED Book Club discussion

Morris Renek:
There's no Wiki entry on him. This is all I could cobble together:
He wrote "Hard-Boiled Stories" & at a glance that description, would perhaps not gain him entry into the 'Elite' BBC– but one look at his Goodreads rating will tell you that this is no pulp fiction writer– because people are not reading him!
"He is a serious popular novelist who lacks a popular audience."
"He was respected but not easily published, admired but impoverished", so goes the description in Richard Elman's Namedropping: Mostly Literary Memoirs. The Google preview gives you a bio of sorts:

http://books.google.ae/books?id=UZsHb...

Morris died on 10 May 2013. He was 88 years old. Here's the NYT Obit:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/27/boo...

His favourite writers were Dickens, Conrad & Henry Miller– if you are what you read then it tells you something about the man, no?

Books: (details taken from Amazon.com)

Las Vegas Strip:
Book Description
Publication Date: 1975
Dust jacket art by Walter Velez. His fourth book about gambling and corruption in Las Vegas after World War II.

Bread and Circus:
Book Description
Publication Date: 1987
The rise and fall of William Marcy ("Boss") Tweed, one of the most clever, charismatic, and notoriously corrupt politicians of all time.

No description available for these:
Siam Miami ( You'll find the description for this & Heck in the NYT obit)
Heck
The Big Hello
Gloria Miami

Readers interested in "hard-boiled" genre, might want to take a gander at his books & let us know what Morris Renek is all about.

This is the father of one of my closest friends, Nava Renek, who is herself a writer. She would be very pleased to know that her father's books are coming (back) to light here. He was an incredibly hardworking disciplined writer; she grew up to the continual sound of his manual typewriter clacking away...

I believe his most famous (popular) was Siam Miami but the fact that no description of it appears seems to belie this. Las Vegas Strip was also big in his day but he never hit the mainstream. Maybe that can change in some way now.
Nava Renek's own books can be found via the link below; you all should definitely check them out. My own favorites are Spiritland and Mating in Captivity, and also the anthology of experimental fiction she edited (full disclosure, I have a story in it):

http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/...

I'm always happy to see pulp writers innovating, really. (or experimental writers doing pulp). Often the preconceptions and archetypal structure of genre convention actually allows the author freer play without becoming totally incomprehensible.

hmm, while his daughter's prose interests me more, i am grateful to you for helping unearth Renek
, Mala!

Thank you all for enlivening this thread with your lovely comments :-)

@ Jessica: Your post made this thread so personal now– suddenly Morris R is not just an obscure writer but somebody's dad,with a whole life history behind him! Could you pls ask your friend to provide some pics,info on his books & background here so more readers feel inclined to pick up his books? Thanks. And hopefully,I'll get to that book soon that you linked here. Very interesting!

@ Ali: Engagement with BBC writers are like going on blind dates– some may work out well,others might turn out to be fiascos– that probability is always there. I'd say,picking up any book is an act of faith but more so here,in the BBC.
Do locate his books & provide a review for us. Thanks.

@ Nate D: I've come across your reading choices,here & in the Completist Club & they are never run of the mill,so I believe every word that you've written up there :-) Thanks.

@ Rand: Dude,I was wondering when you'd pipe in! While Mating in Captivity,be more your game; you do read hard-boiled so pick up one of Morris' book ( How abt Siam Miami?),& give us the much-needed review.
His daughter,Nava Renek,also has very low ratings on Gr,but BBC rules exclude her inclusion. Do read & review her books though :-)

Nate D wrote: "I'm always happy to see pulp writers innovating, really. (or experimental writers doing pulp). Often the preconceptions and archetypal structure of genre convention actually allows the author freer..."

[Nate D, I take it, says the same as what I say in the following] There's an important distinction to keep in mind: a) an experimentalist/innovativist writer cracking the codes of a genre such as Coover's Noir: A Novel and a host of others ;; AND ;; b) a writer who executes those codes precisely, performing them with grace, writing the genre/pulp to its highest peak of excellence. "b)" essentially is what Sorrentino argues in his piece "Ross Macdonald: Some Remarks on the Limitations of Form," from Something Said, in which he says: "We do a disservice to Macdonald's writings by considering them as outside the quite rigid and artificial structure of the detective novel. Ross Macdonald nowhere surpassed or transcended the limitations of the form in which he chose to work. He worked brilliantly within the rigors of this form. That is his strength and valor as a writer." So the SNOBery of us lit=ER=ary types is directed against not the genre stuff itself, but against its habitual poor performance.

That too, of course, though my real love remains the experiments even over genre perfection. But at that point it's just a preference, not any sort of value judgement. And thanks Mala -- you've been adding some fascinating stuff here.

Nate D wrote: "That too, of course, though my real love remains the experiments even over genre perfection."

I doubt I'd recognize genre perfection if it thrashed me up side the head with an Oulipo stick.

I think Hesh Kestin is a somewhat similar writer,low ratings but recently published so can't be added.
.The Iron Will of Shoeshine Cats

Ppl shd read him though.

I'm just getting around to un-burying my father's books and came across this discussion group. So glad to see there's some interest in someone who was one of the hardest workers in the writing business. To begin, I will post some descriptions of his lost classics.

Siam Miami pub. date 1969 (from jacket copy)
"Her raw and touching singing gives listeners the unguarded sex they dream about, yet she is a long desperate way from success."

Heck pub. date 1971 (from jacket copy)
"Although he seems to be a young man on his way up, Heck thinks he's a nobody. And he's going to rob a bank to gain his self respect."

The Big Hello pub date 1961 (from jacket copy)
This is the tale of all that happens when Ruby, a fine family man, a self-made success in his plumbing business, decides after thirty-two years of marriage to get a divorce so he can be free to improve his mind.

Gloria Miami
German translation of Siam Miami

Welcome Nava! I hope you keep us up to date on your unBURYing efforts. Do you have plans to reissue your father's works? I imagine you've got boxes of his stuff ; any chance you could post some photos?

Nava wrote: "I'm just getting around to un-burying my father's books and came across this discussion group. So glad to see there's some interest in someone who was one of the hardest workers in the writing busi..."

Thank you for sharing the information & welcome to the BBC!
I'm looking at my first edition hb copy of Siam Miami clothbound in a lovely mauve colour & though summer vacation is beckoning me, will try reading & reviewing it before I go.
I wish you all the best with the revival of your dad's work.

Nathan "N.R." wrote: "Welcome Nava! I hope you keep us up to date on your unBURYing efforts. Do you have plans to reissue your father's works? I imagine you've got boxes of his stuff ; any chance you could post some pho..."

Kindly add the following data to the Siam Miami details:
448 pages, Hardcover, First Edition, The Macmillan Company, 1969

Add'd the mm edition too ;

Nathan "N.R." wrote: "Add'd the mm edition too ;"

That was fast! Thank you.

Hey guys, I enjoyed reading Siam Miami. Here's my review. Would like to read Mr. Renek's Heck & The Big Hello too.