I'll post up some more excerpts in a short time. Meanwhile it's Pulphead appreciation day. I'll mention the first pulp book (though some might say its lit-chops are nothing to be mocked) I read, as a pre-teen (or was I just a teen, nevertheless I was very young).
The Day of the Jackal was the book. I remembering looking at the cover and thinking (it was somewhere in Bombay, I was sitting in my grandmother's flat and thinking to myself that I needed something to do. This book was sitting on some dusty shelf, its acid-pages fast dying, and I enjoyed the cover (it was a blue and white one with someone's head on a sniper's scope). I started it and didn't put it down except for the occasional bathroom break. What a thriller!
I've never gone back to it, though sometimes I wonder if I do if I'd be so in love with the writing. But for Pulpheads, this is a book you must look at. It dives into a cop and an assassin. For the young me, there were also the scintillating sex scenes (I remember looking around and thinking: I'm being allowed to read this, what a thrill!) that were literal high for a young man. The plot's arc is quite tough, and I found the details to be extremely detailed and almost as if the author knew what he was talking about.
What else? (I'm trying to remember what was so great). It did have the kind of writing where you're transported to another world. And its talk about the OAS and the post-Algerian French landscape was very interesting. One rarely hears about such things. (I did some thorough research after the fact, though back then, sans Google, it was pretty hard). The whole
OAS situation is something most people don't hear about. Check it out. The country of France went through many pangs, and a lot of it was post WWII.
I hope that helps people find a good book to read. Any other fans? What did you think of this novel? And when did you first read it?
