Thanks for deleting #9 on your list, otherwise I would have been tempted to say something snippy. I went to college with Mark Salzman.
Actually, he was a pretty nice guy. We were in a play together at the Dramat, a rewriting of Barrie’s Wendy and Peter (the basis of Peter Pan). Salzman played a minor Indian; I played a minor Pirate.
The other thing I remember about him was his habit of practicing shirtless Tai C’hi on weekend mornings in the Branford courtyard. The women would peek at him from behind their curtains. The men felt that he should be taken off and subjected to a massive Swirlie.
Book, book, book. Here’s one that combines several aspects of your top ten list: Compulsion by Meyer Levin. It’s a fictionalized reconstruction of one of the century’s swingingest crimes, the Leopold-Loeb case. Thrill-killing in its infancy. It combines psychological realism, a mounting sense of horror and suspense, and superb courtroom drama.
Lord D: Whoops, sorry! Snap up that copy of On the Bottom, though…that’s the book that made Ellsberg’s name.
When the U.S. Navy’s S-51 submarine sank in the waters near Block Island in 1926, losing all hands, the Navy planned to hire a civilian salvage company to retrieve the craft, as they had in the past. Commander Ellsberg argued that the Navy should be responsible for reclaiming its own dead. He was allowed to mount the salvage operation, involving over thirty divers, which brought the sub and the bodies of the sailors to the surface.
On the Bottom tells the story. Ellsberg adroitly handles the difficult task of describing a complex job of underwater engineering and making it comprehensible to a Humanities Major like me. He also tells the tale with an enormous amount of suspense…men against the sea, the crushing pressure of the icy depths, the primitive state of 1920s diving apparatus.
30 Fathoms Deep is great fun, but it’s fiction, and essentially a kid’s book. The characters dive for pirate gold, not the corpses of their comrades. However, it’s a 1930 kid’s book, which means it’s more sophisticated than most contemporary fiction for adults.
So On the Bottom is a more than aceptable substitute.
Thanks, Uke. By “found an online copy”, I meant that I read On the Bottomonline here. Fascinating stuff. There were several used copies for sale - that was the easy one to find. I might still pick up a print copy, we’ll see. Kids book or not, I’ll keep my eye out for 30 fathoms deep but it looks pretty rare.
Since I couldn’t find my book, I think I deserve another recommendation.
You just had it, four or five posts up. Ellsberg’s On the Bottom. Lucky you can read it online, thus saving your shekels for your next caulk-and-paint job.
And all the little Ellsbergs miss their next royalty check, so it looks like groats and lentils for their dinners for the next fiscal quarter.
Uke – I immediately ordered your selection – Three Classic African-American Novels and it’s on back order.
In the meantime, I’m reading Lansdale’s “Blood Dance.” Hope you manage to track down a copy. It might be “early” Lansdale, but I think this guy was good from Day One.
I just got back to this thread. I am making a spreadsheet for easy referral to all the things I want!
I have not read <b>Roads</b> I have some short story collections that were reprinted in the 70’s and that’s all I’ve been able to find. I will keep looking tho’ - he makes Poirot look like a wimp!
Seabury Quinn was THE most popular author in the history of the pulp mag Weird Tales…go figure.
A cite for a Quinn story on the cover meant that the issue would easily outsell ones that touted H.P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, Ray Bradbury, Carl Jacobi, Robert Bloch, and any of the many other WT authors who could write rings around Master Seabury.
There’s an anecdote told about SQ involving a New Orleans whorehouse where the girls proved to be avid readers of Weird Tales, and were especially fond of the Jules de Grandin stories…the visiting writer was offered a night “on the house” in honor of his illustrious status.
Between The Rhetorics of Desire in Vergil, Augustine, and the Troubadours and Theory and the Premodern Text, my summer’s been a smidge on the dry side. I’m looking for something a touch on the saucy side, with great prose. All the better if it touches on ancient literature somehow.
