Hard Case King and Others
Coincidentally to reading his "'Salem's Lot," next up for me from Hard Case Crime happened to be his "The Colorado Kid." As I've mentioned before, Hard Case Crime is a paperback publisher, about a year old now, who is doing a brilliant job of bringing out Gold Medal type reprints, most long out of print, as well as original novels written in the same tradition.
In their first year, they've published books from somewhat forgotten heroes of old like Wade Miller and Day Keene, and grandmasters Lawrence Block and Donald Westlake (Richard Stark, too). Out of a number of award nominations, Domenic Stansberry won the Edgar for "The Confession" and Max Phillips won a Shamus for "Fade to Blonde." The covers of their books all feature newly commissioned art, again straight from the hard boiled style of the past.
This month their sixteenth book is being released. They seem to be averaging about one title per month and naturally I buy them all; I can't help it, they're actually numbered on the spines. One of the good things they do, and this harkens back to my point about the price of mass market paperbacks versus trade paperbacks, is list their books at a price of $6.99. This help keeps them accessible, especially when compared with some of the other houses admirably rediscovering "lost" authors but in trade paperback format with a sticker of more than double Hard Case's.
Anyway, apparently in response to a request for King to write an intro to one of Hard Case's forthcoming books, he offered to actually write a novel instead. What a boon to a small publisher fighting to make a mark on the reading public. And once more, they released it last October with a price of $5.99. I have no idea what their sales figures are, but I would imagine them to be significant.
The problem, though, is that the book is neither hard boiled nor noir. It is not a mystery, though it describes one. It is not a thriller; it is merely a discussion between two old small town newspapermen and their summer intern. While they describe the facts they've unearthed the past twenty five years regarding the appearance of a corpse on the beach, there is no crime and also no resolution. In short, it's something of an odd duck, a big name from a small press with a book outside the expected parameters.
King actually provided an afterword in the book and he states that since life itself rarely has a tidy ending, he didn't feel his story did, either. Okay, that helps to explain, sort of, why he wrote what he wrote, but the fact that he felt he needed to actually state it in an afterword is a mite peculiar. I'm glad it's there, and it helped me to read it, but what does it say about the work itself if even the author thinks it needs to be explained? Shouldn't that happen in the book itself?
I didn't mind the book itself; it's very short, and King's style is so quick to read that it's almost like devouring a short story. The tone is light and conversational throughout and if anything, upbeat and life affirming. It sticks out as cute in the sea of tough guy existentailist plots and characters of the rest of the line. King does something that I find annoying here (he does it often in other works, as well) by incorporating pop music of the seventies as props. Get off the Cat Stevens references, please. Usually when any author uses pop music lyrics, songs, album names, whatever, it causes a break in the narrative flow either because we get it, it's really not that clever, and it never has joy for the reader in the same way it does for the writer.
King completists will want it by definition, Hard Case Crime completists will buy it (it's those damn numbers on the side), and they deserve the exposure King has brought them, including a feature on CBS's "Sunday Morning" show. Being the book that it is, I wish we could see what this all means. Though the King name will sell "The Colorado Kid," are those fans more or less likely to purchase other Hard Case Crime titles? Do they even notice the publisher and what it is they're about? Would those that didn't care for the book not buy other Hard Case titles because of that, or would those that like it be disappointed in the others?
The reason I mentioned the two categories of completists is that I think those tendencies skew or warp interpretations of the actual figures. For instance, Hard Case Crime has already published one book by Max Alan Collins, a writer whose knowledge and passion I admire but whose writing I do not, with another one scheduled for 2006. Not only did I buy the book with the presumption that I probably would not like it, I actually read it, confirming my fears. It was tough going but it's that completist instinct again. I will almost certainly buy the forthcoming title but I will fight any impluse to actually read the darn thing.
On the Rara-Avis list, someone who seemed to have similiar opinions posted a comment about the Collins book. Hard Case Crime's publisher actually replied that the sales figures for that book were comparable to the sales for the other titles, which is my point. We bought it for the publisher's imprint, to have a complete series, to support the effort to bring out the work in general. It's just difficult to identify the lemons based on straight sales. Presumably "The Colorado Kid" outsold all the other Hard Case titles but it certainly doesn't mean it's the best book of the series; it's not even a representative sample.
I really wonder what King could do if he wrote a hard boiled or noirish novel. This would have been a perfect opportunity to reach a knowledgable fan base outside his normal following but he did something else instead (a commercial?) The bottom line for me is that the price of the book as well as its brevity make it such a minimal investment to read that it doesn't really disappoint; it's just over too quickly. It's just an odd duck, a brief out of focus moment for a worthwhile publisher, but it's also a missed opportunity. Hats off to everyone involved for making this book happen, I just wish it had turned out a bit differently.
In their first year, they've published books from somewhat forgotten heroes of old like Wade Miller and Day Keene, and grandmasters Lawrence Block and Donald Westlake (Richard Stark, too). Out of a number of award nominations, Domenic Stansberry won the Edgar for "The Confession" and Max Phillips won a Shamus for "Fade to Blonde." The covers of their books all feature newly commissioned art, again straight from the hard boiled style of the past.
This month their sixteenth book is being released. They seem to be averaging about one title per month and naturally I buy them all; I can't help it, they're actually numbered on the spines. One of the good things they do, and this harkens back to my point about the price of mass market paperbacks versus trade paperbacks, is list their books at a price of $6.99. This help keeps them accessible, especially when compared with some of the other houses admirably rediscovering "lost" authors but in trade paperback format with a sticker of more than double Hard Case's.
Anyway, apparently in response to a request for King to write an intro to one of Hard Case's forthcoming books, he offered to actually write a novel instead. What a boon to a small publisher fighting to make a mark on the reading public. And once more, they released it last October with a price of $5.99. I have no idea what their sales figures are, but I would imagine them to be significant.
The problem, though, is that the book is neither hard boiled nor noir. It is not a mystery, though it describes one. It is not a thriller; it is merely a discussion between two old small town newspapermen and their summer intern. While they describe the facts they've unearthed the past twenty five years regarding the appearance of a corpse on the beach, there is no crime and also no resolution. In short, it's something of an odd duck, a big name from a small press with a book outside the expected parameters.
King actually provided an afterword in the book and he states that since life itself rarely has a tidy ending, he didn't feel his story did, either. Okay, that helps to explain, sort of, why he wrote what he wrote, but the fact that he felt he needed to actually state it in an afterword is a mite peculiar. I'm glad it's there, and it helped me to read it, but what does it say about the work itself if even the author thinks it needs to be explained? Shouldn't that happen in the book itself?
I didn't mind the book itself; it's very short, and King's style is so quick to read that it's almost like devouring a short story. The tone is light and conversational throughout and if anything, upbeat and life affirming. It sticks out as cute in the sea of tough guy existentailist plots and characters of the rest of the line. King does something that I find annoying here (he does it often in other works, as well) by incorporating pop music of the seventies as props. Get off the Cat Stevens references, please. Usually when any author uses pop music lyrics, songs, album names, whatever, it causes a break in the narrative flow either because we get it, it's really not that clever, and it never has joy for the reader in the same way it does for the writer.
King completists will want it by definition, Hard Case Crime completists will buy it (it's those damn numbers on the side), and they deserve the exposure King has brought them, including a feature on CBS's "Sunday Morning" show. Being the book that it is, I wish we could see what this all means. Though the King name will sell "The Colorado Kid," are those fans more or less likely to purchase other Hard Case Crime titles? Do they even notice the publisher and what it is they're about? Would those that didn't care for the book not buy other Hard Case titles because of that, or would those that like it be disappointed in the others?
The reason I mentioned the two categories of completists is that I think those tendencies skew or warp interpretations of the actual figures. For instance, Hard Case Crime has already published one book by Max Alan Collins, a writer whose knowledge and passion I admire but whose writing I do not, with another one scheduled for 2006. Not only did I buy the book with the presumption that I probably would not like it, I actually read it, confirming my fears. It was tough going but it's that completist instinct again. I will almost certainly buy the forthcoming title but I will fight any impluse to actually read the darn thing.
On the Rara-Avis list, someone who seemed to have similiar opinions posted a comment about the Collins book. Hard Case Crime's publisher actually replied that the sales figures for that book were comparable to the sales for the other titles, which is my point. We bought it for the publisher's imprint, to have a complete series, to support the effort to bring out the work in general. It's just difficult to identify the lemons based on straight sales. Presumably "The Colorado Kid" outsold all the other Hard Case titles but it certainly doesn't mean it's the best book of the series; it's not even a representative sample.
I really wonder what King could do if he wrote a hard boiled or noirish novel. This would have been a perfect opportunity to reach a knowledgable fan base outside his normal following but he did something else instead (a commercial?) The bottom line for me is that the price of the book as well as its brevity make it such a minimal investment to read that it doesn't really disappoint; it's just over too quickly. It's just an odd duck, a brief out of focus moment for a worthwhile publisher, but it's also a missed opportunity. Hats off to everyone involved for making this book happen, I just wish it had turned out a bit differently.
posted by Rick Ollerman at 10:53 PM
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