Friday, December 04, 2009

Roadside Night Reprint Edition

I don't know if this is the same edition as the one Max Allan Collins mentions in his comment on the previous post, but it's a good cover and worth posting. "A guy -- a girl -- a highway motel" . . . As Ron says in his comment, I love motel noir, too. There's an anthology idea for somebody: MOTEL NOIR.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm tellin' ya, James, some enterprising publisher should steal my Motel Noir idea -- it'd make one heckuva anthology. If I knew how these things worked, I'd do it myself...

Incidentally, I bought a copy off eBay (Buy-It-Now) minutes after reading your blog. Between this and the Orrie Hitt I picked up (HIRED LOVER by "Fred Martin"), I can safely say your blog is the only one that costs me money to read.

Please keep it up. :-)

~ Ron C.

Frank Loose said...

I ordered a copy of Roadside Night earlier this morning but don't know which cover it will be. Regarding Motel Noir, I recommend The Red Scarf by Gil Brewer, and Talk of the Town by Charles Williams. Both are terrific reads.

Duane Spurlock said...

I read another Charles Williams book a few years ago that took place mainly in a motel. The title TALK OF THE TOWN doesn't ring a bell, but it was long enough ago that I won't disagree. But maybe Williams wrote more than one motel novel. It was pretty good, as I recall.

Pericles said...

TALK OF THE TOWN was also published as STAIN OF SUSPICION.

Duane, the copy you read may have been under the latter title.

Cap'n Bob said...

If you can expand that to hotel noir you can add WILD TOWN, by Jim Thompson.

David Cranmer said...

Great cover, great idea.

Juri said...

Ron: you just ask authors you know and when you have enough authors, you send an e-mail to a publisher. Simple as that. ;)

(Just kiddin', of course. But in real life it's not much more complicated, even though trying to find the copyrigh holders if you're including older works is pretty hard and time-consuming.)

Anonymous said...

Ah, I was kidding a bit, too, Juri. My name carries less weight than a feather from Ellroy's fedora, and we all know that's a Big Problem. Spouting opinions on Rara-Avis and blogs like this doesn't a saleable editor make, unfortunately.

Ahh, but it would have been glorious...

Ron C.

Juri said...

Ron: you could still compile a book with the title and sell it to a smaller publisher, someone like Ramble House. Not much money involved, if any, but still there'd be a book called MOTEL NOIR.

Anonymous said...

No worries, Juri -- I've thought about that as well, and have given that some thought over the last few months...ever since I started a pretty interesting conversation about it over @ Rara-Avis, and clearly there was indeed interest out there for such a project.

We'll see what happens, but I appreciate the support.

Anonymous said...

No worries, Juri -- I've thought about that as well, and have given that some thought over the last few months...ever since I started a pretty interesting conversation about it over @ Rara-Avis, and clearly there was indeed interest out there for such a project.

We'll see what happens, but I appreciate the support.

~ Ron C.