Due to sloth and general wretchedness, I haven't updated this blog in a while. But I'm going to try to write something at least once a week. Mostly I'm going to mention good books I've read or movies I've seen. And here's one I just finished last night and thoroughly enjoyed--JIM TULLY: AMERICAN WRITER, IRISH ROVER, HOLLYWOOD BRAWLER by Paul. J. Bauer and Mark Dawidsiak, with a foreword by Ken Burns.
Tully was hardboiled before anyone, including Hammett and Hemingway, even knew what that meant. He wrote sentences the way Mike Tyson punched, and they leave you reeling. He wrote some wonderful books, most of which have been reprinted in handsome trade paperbacks by the Kent State University Press. My favorites are SHANTY IRISH and THE BRUISER--one of the best boxing books I've ever read. One of the best novels of any kind I've read, period. Another good one of his that was banned before it could even be published is LADIES IN THE PARLOR.
But he also lived one hellofan interesting life, and this biography, TULLY, set in the early part of the last century, which includes a wonderful anecdote of Tully's myth-dispelling meeting with his hero Jack London, is gripping.
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