Hi, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab...
Pulp fiction.
Chances are, if you read those words, the first thing that leaps to mind for you is Quentin Tarantino and all the iconography associated with his 1994 smash hit. And who can blame you? By taking that simple generic phrase and making it the title of his very specific film, he pretty much claimed ownership of it for an entire generation.
But if you were to ask an older generation what the phrase “pulp fiction” means to them, you might get a very different response. When I was young, my parents kept very different stacks of books around the house. My mother was into science-fiction, but my dad loved the tough guy stuff. When I raided his stacks, I’d end up with Fleming’s Bond novels or a John D. McDonald mystery or a Remo Williams DESTROYER book. And, occasionally, I would find a Doc Savage buried in there, like some forgotten treasure. Few and far-between. I didn’t know they were “pulp” at the time, but they certainly stood apart. There’s a purity to the storytelling, a sort of rapid-fire stream-of-consciousness quality that always made for a compelling read.
What author Paul Malmont has done with his remarkable debut novel THE CHINATOWN DEATH CLOUD PERIL is not only pay tribute to the breathless storytelling techniques of the great pulp age, but he’s actually made the major writers of the day into pulp heroes in the process. Lester Dent, better known as Kenneth Robeson, was the creator of DOC SAVAGE, and his main literary rival at the time was Walter Gibson, the man behind THE SHADOW, who wrote as Maxwell Grant. There were a number of other major names in the game at the time, but those two sort of towered over it, the Spielberg and Lucas of their time. Younger writers looked up to them, wanted to be them, hoped to have the same sort of impact as them.
In fact, that’s how the book begins. With Walter Gibson holding court with a young guy named Ron Hubbard.
And, yeah... it’s that Ron Hubbard.
He’s new to the pulp scene, but he’s absolutely sure he’s got what it takes to be one of the giants of the pulp scene. He’s determined to learn from Gibson. He listens as Gibson holds forth with, “Let me tell you a story. You tell me where real ends and pulp begins.” It’s perfectly natural, a writer holding forth on the way he tells a story, but it’s also a very smart way for Malmont to convey to an unfamiliar audience just what pulp should be. It’s the sort of storytelling where you believe that everything in it is possible, but you know that not everything in it was real. That fine line between the true and the fantastic, that blurred area... that’s pulp. In playing out this scene, Malmont establishes the Tale of the Sweet Flower War, a mystery that sort of serves as an undercurrent, a fun sort of background plot thread throughout the entire novel. He talks about Street & Smith, the publishers that turned out so much of the great pulp of the age. He sets up the politics of Chinatown at the time, something that plays a pivotal role in the whole book. And all of it seems completely conversational and motivated, and not at all like exposition. Malmont allows Gibson to draw you in by inviting you to listen to a story, then delivering a humdinger. Just as Gibson reaches the big finish, he’s interrupted by Dent walking up to the table, and the sparks between them establish just what we can expect from the rest of the book, a sort of testy rivalry with a lot of history to draw on. And his definition of pulp turns out to be totally different than Gibson’s. He defines great pulp as an outright pack of lies. “Secret identities and disguises. The Yellow Peril. Superweapons. Global schemes. Hideous deaths. Cliff-hanging escapes. Horrors from the grave. Lost lands. Overwhelming odds. Impossible heroics. Unflagging courage.”
By the end of the book, of course, we’ll see that Lester Dent’s pack of lies and Walter Gibson’s blurred truth are one and the same, and the joy with which Malmont builds this book is infectious. There’s something inspired about the way he uses so many real people as characters in the novel, folding them all together in ways that feel accurate even if they’re not true. Again... very true to the spirit of pulp, and very canny of Malmont.
And if that’s all there was to the book... just a big bag of clever... then it would be a bust. Instead, Malmont delivers a ripping yarn, a compulsive read. In a world that was fair, this would find the same sort of mainstream acceptance that THE DA VINCI CODE did. It’s certainly got enough action and excitement, enough thrills and chills. The way Malmont stings his chapter endings, building cliffhangers that force you to race through the next chapter in order to get back to what was just happening, only to have the next chapter end in a whole new cliffhanger... that’s not far off from the way Dan Brown built his book. Malmont’s a real writer, though, a guy with a great command of character and language. He’s also a shameless romantic, and both Gibson and Dent are given women who are more than their equal. Dent and his wife are my favorite bantering couple this side of Nick and Nora Charles, and Gibson’s affair with a magician’s wife is oddly touching and absurd. By the time HP Lovecraft shows up undead, the book is a rocket-ship, throwing crazier and crazier ideas at you with each progressive page. The book is broken up into “Issues,” the titles of which are evocative and do a nice job of telling you what to expect: CURSE OF THE GOLDEN VULTURE, I AM PROVIDENCE, THE NIGHT WATCHMAN, HELL GATE, THE JUDGE OF THE DEAD. And, yet, again... as florid and pulpy as those titles are, Malmont makes it matter. He makes you care about the outlandish events. He doesn’t even introduce my favorite character until late in the book, a guy who just calls himself “Otis Driftwood” for the longest time. His identity is a tiny mystery inside the much-larger mystery, and its eventual resolution had me laughing out loud at the audacity. Malmont wrote an ambitious book, and it’s a completely rewarding read as a result.
Like I said in my other column today, I don’t review books very often, but when I do, it’s because I genuinely belive something deserves your attention. Right now, we’re a full month into the summer movie season, and most of the people I’ve spoken to are disappointed by everything so far to some degree. If that’s how you’re feeling, then this week, I’m going to bring you reviews of not just this one, but three new books, each of which are unique and which will give you as much entertainment as anything you can buy a ticket to in any venue this summer. THE CHINATOWN DEATH CLOUD PERIL hits shelves today, and I’d recommend you guys all check it out. It’s bliss, pure and simple, storytelling as contact high. I’ll be back tomorrow morning with part two of my DVD column, and until then...
"Moriarty" out.
