Len Levinson and Doom Platoon

With Doom Platoon you are in war pulp heaven. Penned by Len Levinson under the name of Richard Gallagher, the book is a nonstop tilt a whirl hurl and churl actioner. On top of that, it has a cover to die for. Usually I read these kinds of books to see if I can incorporate some of the style into my own writing. But not this one. This one is pure pleasure and I have decided that I'm going to read all of Levinson's work for enjoyment only.

The plot is a loose bucket of bolts. It is about an army platoon in WWII that is assigned by the brass to hold off a German Panzer division on the road to the town of Dillendorf Germany. It is a suicide mission and the men know it. But since they are the dogface soldiers they are, they grit their teeth and take it.  The story takes another turn after the battle and then another.

The novel is also crude and bawdy. The characters are the typical stereotypes you find in war flicks: the New Yorker, the Texan etc-- and the SS and German characters are comic book evil. But clichés aside, Levinson does an excellent job of making the American characters likeable even when they are throwing insults at each other. Len's prose style is very visual and very cinematic. You can picture yourself up there on the hill taking German mortar rounds and butt-stroking a German soldier with your rifle.

The book does have its flaws and at times it gets a little hokey-- especially the scenes with Mazursky, Dexter and the German Baronesses. But that's all part of the fun. If you are a pulp and men's adventure nerd then Doom Platoon is one you should check out, as with Levinson's other books. Like I said, I definitely will.

Quotes from authors who have inspired me

I thought I would share quotes from authors who have inspired me. I would be remiss not to quote from Mickey Spillane.

"Hemingway hated me. I sold 200 million books, and he didn't. Of course most of mine sold for 25 cents, but still... you look at all this stuff with a grain of salt."

Mickey Spillane

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Always do sober what you would do drunk. That'll teach you to keep your mouth shut."

Ernest Hemingway

 

Story Flow

A friend at breakfast quoted Elmore Leonard as saying "you should spend as much time with your characters as possible, and if you do, they will write the novel for you..." Good advice from a master. It's what I am doing with these two stories I am working on. Not only am I spending time with the characters, I am also spending time with the plot and the setting. There is no need to crank these babies out and I can just take it easy and be inspired. Then, when I am ready the story will flow like a wild rushing river.

The other thing that is on my mind is memories. I am one of those people that has a photographic memory. I can remember things all the way back to when I was five, and I am also one of those people that can look at pictures and not ask this question :"What was I wearing and what was I thinking when I was wearing it?"

I know what I was wearing, and I know why, and know that it was appropriate for the time and place. So how does this all tie into writing? Memories of my own life are what I use to make my characters more real and personal.  In other words, they help me inject some of my own self into my characters which makes it easier to tell the story because it is a lot more personal.

Huey Dusk(my first official review)

My first review of the original Huey Dusk was Luke warm. Here are some excerpts.

The world Whit has created is pretty fantastic, in every sense of that word. A world where clowns are real people, not just guys in make-up doing a job. You cut a clown, he bleeds white. A world where mimes really don’t speak.

By definition, a novella has less time than a novel to pull the reader in, and thusly it is imperative that the reader is captivated within the first half a page. Unfortunately I didn’t find Huey Dusk quite achieving that. This was in no small part due to the very choppy nature and static prose of the opening scenes. Nonetheless, there was still something in these scenes that made me want to know more. A clown who’s taking drugs just seconds before entertaining the children… Not your normal opening scenes, but certainly the kind that makes the reader want to plough on. I’m glad I did.

Due to the word count there’s a little less story in this novella than I would have liked. Indeed I felt it was a story with more promise, so much more I’d not been privy to. The world Whit has created is pretty fantastic, in every sense of that word. A world where clowns are real people, not just guys in make-up doing a job. You cut a clown, he bleeds white. A world where mimes really don’t speak.

What I liked about this review was that it was honest and picked up on all the parts that I hoped one would pick up on. He said the prose was static and choppy; I might have added dreamlike. When I originally wrote the story it was only meant to be a one paragraph piece of flash fiction. But I just kept adding to it paragraph by paragraph. It was intended to be expressionist art, so to speak, designed to be unsettling.

He also alluded to a paper thin plot. Again I started writing this story as a series of vignettes and realized I had something more. So, to me, the thin plot again makes this minimalist art and gives the story a very cultish vibe.

In subsequent stories, Huey has changed quite a bit, and I have never been able to recapture the magic of the original-- I'm not sure I want to. For those who want to form their own opinions about this story they can buy it either at www.untreedreads.com  or at www.amazon.com.

Thoughts about my new work in progress.

I loved the last story I wrote so much I thought I would do a spin off of. It could be classified as a prequel because it covers the younger years of a minor character in Trouble Follows. The piece will be a nod to Dashiell Hammett's Red Harvest. Yes, this has been done before, but I feel there can't be enough Red Harvest knock offs. So I am going to contribute yet another to the literary and pulp market place.

I find the setting of the country, especially the Northwest, an intriguing backdrop for a gangster novel.  It gives the yarn a very surreal touch to see fedora wearing gangsters in Montana surrounded by snow-capped peaks and evergreens. One just doesn't equate those things.

Emmett Kelly

Emmett Kelly was a circus clown in in the 1930's who took on the persona of "Weary Willy". Weary Willy was  a sad sack, and what made him distinct was that he did not wear white face, and was modeled after the Depression Era hobos. At the time this was unheard of since clowns were supposed to be happy. But Willy was not. He'd be the one sweeping up after the circus. His most famous schtick was trying to broom away the circus spotlight.

I really like the Emmett Kelly type  of clown, and I unknowingly did a nod to Weary Willy in my first Huey Dusk story, with my character Moppy.  Moppy was a janitorial clown.

Moppy's act was to dance on stage with a mop and then scrub the air with a giant squeegee. I think the major difference between Willie and Moppy is that Moppy will slice you with a straight razor if you cross him.

Eating Poetry

Eating poetry is the title of a Mark Strand poem. As of lately that is what I have been doing. I have been reading it and writing and as Mark Strand put it, I am letting the ink dribble down my chin.

Oh and Happy New Year to all!!!