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4.09 AVERAGE
4.09 AVERAGE
adventurous
dark
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Loveable characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
A novel fully deserving of its status as a cult classic, this is a masterpiece of noir fiction. Tense and crackling with irony wrapped in tight prose...they just don't write books like this any more. The pacing is breakneck, but never at the expense of character. Just the right play of shadow and light, highlighting the demons haunting the main characters and the terrible, brutal cost of crime.
First published in 1953, the NYRB is reissuing it. Read more here: http://www.nyrb.com/products/black-wings-has-my-angel?variant=2202485569
Highly recommended for those who enjoy noir.
First published in 1953, the NYRB is reissuing it. Read more here: http://www.nyrb.com/products/black-wings-has-my-angel?variant=2202485569
Highly recommended for those who enjoy noir.
It’s hard to believe that this poor imitation/hybrid of James M. Cain and Jim Thompson has received such ebullient praise. I have the feeling that NYRB had to use this angle in their marketing to justify bringing this book back into print, and readers just ran with it by parroting the blurbs. And so this painfully average crime novel from the 50s becomes a “lost noir classic.” If this had been published by Hard Case Crime or Black Lizard, it would have been one of their rather disappointing releases. The plot is simple, the symbolism is hackneyed, and the writing plods along without the stylistic flair of the classic noir writers. The armored car robbery plot doesn’t stack up against Stark’s much more memorable [b:The Man With The Getaway Face|618604|The Man With The Getaway Face (Parker, #2)|Richard Stark|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1328832618l/618604._SY75_.jpg|3825]. The introduction mentions that some publishers initially passed on this project. I understand why.
First person crime novel. Tim Sundblad escapes from prison, and goes to work on an oil rig. He saves up a lot of money, and when he's off he hires a prostitute and immediately falls in love with her. It turns out that a fellow prisoner gave him a great plan for a robbery, and Tim gets the woman involved in it. Of course things don't go as planned, right after the robbery and later. It's a pretty serious book, with an ending full of ironies. Chase portrayed the love affair really well, with mixed resentments and violence. Some memorable scenes, such as Virginia laying naked in piles of money. Barry Gifford's preface is fascinating; the nature of the guy who wrote this is kind of surprising, it seems at the start, given the nature of the book, it becomes clear. A previously-unknown classic of Gold Medal pulp crime.
It's rare for me to abandon a book when I'm 80% finished with it, but...well....a better book came along and I realized I just wasn't invested in the story.
I don't blame the page-by-page writing, which was crisp, professional and efficient, but rather the characters. Noir is supposed to celebrate the bleaker aspects of human nature; I get that. But C.W. Shugrue in The Last Good Kiss or Travis McGee actually care about something, and are stuck in my head as a result. In this book, we spend nearly all of our time with only two people, and all either of them care about is money, which does not really work for me.
I do appreciate some of the sly humor of the author's, a newspaper editor. Here he makes fun of his colleagues and profession:
If something better hadn't come along, I'd have probably finished this. It's a well-written example of the genre, but doesn't advance it in any way.
I don't blame the page-by-page writing, which was crisp, professional and efficient, but rather the characters. Noir is supposed to celebrate the bleaker aspects of human nature; I get that. But C.W. Shugrue in The Last Good Kiss or Travis McGee actually care about something, and are stuck in my head as a result. In this book, we spend nearly all of our time with only two people, and all either of them care about is money, which does not really work for me.
I do appreciate some of the sly humor of the author's, a newspaper editor. Here he makes fun of his colleagues and profession:
I remember in one bar down the street from the Denver Post there were six or eight newspapermen at the bar, loading up between additions. You can spot them anywhere. They talk in headlines and they drink gravely and their faces are clean and their fingernails full of carbon. They have many private jokes. They are about the only people I know who are the same out of college as in college, in small towns and big ones.
If something better hadn't come along, I'd have probably finished this. It's a well-written example of the genre, but doesn't advance it in any way.
Literalmente un buen policial/novela negra, con literatura, grandes frases entre medio, el personaje principal (el criminal) si tiene emociones, preocupaciones, se lo humaniza, realmente llegas a empatizar con el. Muy fácil de leer, no podes parar.
El final si alguien me lo quiere explicar genial.
El final si alguien me lo quiere explicar genial.
Black Wings has my Angel by Elliot Chaze is a NYRB Classics publication.
I ran across a post on PEN America about this book a few weeks back. It was originally published back in 1953 and is considered to be a ‘lost classic’, a book that is not necessarily well known to mainstream noir audiences, but is now considered to be one of the best crime novels written in the prime of pulp fiction. Its reputation has become almost mythic, apparently, but I had never heard of it, so as a collector and lover of noir crime novels I began to search for a copy.
So, did the book live up to its reputation?
I have to say the book is definitely a winner, even though there are some problems with the plot.
‘Tim’, after his stint in prison, plans to pull off a caper that will leave him set for life financially.
But, of course, things do not exactly work out quite the way he planned, due in part, to his having made the acquaintance of Virginia, a woman with a troubled past, who gets under his skin and quickly turns into an obsession.
After a bumpy start to their relationship, the two end up as partners in crime. The couple’s relationship is volatile, but the two flawed characters play well against each other in class noir fashion.
For fans of pulp fiction or noir this book is almost a textbook example of those genres, and may put you in mind of Jim Thompson, in some ways. It's gritty and dark, juxtaposed against a vivid scenic backdrop and occasional sprinkles of humor. It’s harsh, but has style, and despite its brevity, really packs a punch.
I was amazed by the storytelling and am so glad I stumbled across it!
4 stars
I ran across a post on PEN America about this book a few weeks back. It was originally published back in 1953 and is considered to be a ‘lost classic’, a book that is not necessarily well known to mainstream noir audiences, but is now considered to be one of the best crime novels written in the prime of pulp fiction. Its reputation has become almost mythic, apparently, but I had never heard of it, so as a collector and lover of noir crime novels I began to search for a copy.
So, did the book live up to its reputation?
I have to say the book is definitely a winner, even though there are some problems with the plot.
‘Tim’, after his stint in prison, plans to pull off a caper that will leave him set for life financially.
But, of course, things do not exactly work out quite the way he planned, due in part, to his having made the acquaintance of Virginia, a woman with a troubled past, who gets under his skin and quickly turns into an obsession.
After a bumpy start to their relationship, the two end up as partners in crime. The couple’s relationship is volatile, but the two flawed characters play well against each other in class noir fashion.
For fans of pulp fiction or noir this book is almost a textbook example of those genres, and may put you in mind of Jim Thompson, in some ways. It's gritty and dark, juxtaposed against a vivid scenic backdrop and occasional sprinkles of humor. It’s harsh, but has style, and despite its brevity, really packs a punch.
I was amazed by the storytelling and am so glad I stumbled across it!
4 stars