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Sunday Story Ratings #25: Mistral

Submitted by trice on Sun, 2012-05-13 03:32

Mistral by Raoul Whitfield

Originally published December 15, 1931 in Adventure; this edition 1995

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Collected in: Hard-Boiled: An Anthology of American Crime Stories (ed. Bill Pronzini & Jack Adrian)

 

PG

(L, D, V)

Coarse Language (PG)

Drug Use (PG) {Tobacco, alcohol}

Violence (PG) {Only one incident toward the end, dramatic and tense but not graphic}

 

Representations

Gender:

Male protagonist, male characters.

Sex:

Not noted.

Race & Ethnicity:

Mostly (presumed-)white European, some US. According to the story intro, the writer has a Spanish-Filipino detective but I don't think he's the lead here, and if the lead's ethnicity were indicated I missed it.

Disability, Physical Diversity and Health:

One character has a scar. That seems to be all.

 

Awards

Not found.

 

Notes

I liked this one. Not sure what to say about it, I suppose I found the detective character intriguing and am curious to read more of him, except I think he was a one-off. I rather felt the growing empathy and guilt wert the other guy.

Goodbye, Kimiko

Submitted by tess on Mon, 2012-05-07 11:47

The weekend before we put her asleep was very rough. She couldn't keep anything inside of her for long. Her fur was covered in nasty stuff this morning. She didn't have the energy to get to the catbox less than a meter away, or clean herself afterward.

The appointment was late in the morning. I took advantage of my working-at-home status, at pulled my laptop down to the floor so I could get in some scritching.

We decided to go to the local animal hospital instead of our standard vet to put Kimiko to sleep. The vet was surprisingly skillful -- and fast. He gently introduced himself to her. He was advised that it'd be best to give her an anesthetic first as she was likely to fight tooth and nail. We petted and talked to Kimi and one hissing thrash later, it was done.

We were left alone with her for a few minutes, petting, talking, and crying. I snapped a final picture. Kimi has been having problems maintaining her balance for months now. Even when sitting on all four paws, she wavered back and forth slightly. As the drugs took hold, she suddenly toppled over nearly falling off the exam table. It was only then I realized that she had been using all her strength just to sit. Sleeping had been incredibly difficult for her for months as well. No wonder why she held any spot she took so fiercely.

Within minutes, her eyes dilated, and her breathing became short and shallow. We checked and she was indeed, quite malleable. The vet came in. Gently he positioned her, wetted a thigh, and gave her a final injection. It was a light, garish pink, the color of watered down cinnamon mouthwash. 10cc's went in, and we were left alone once more.

We said our tearful goodbyes to the tiny, emaciated little white cat I had known and loved for over three years. We kissed her on the head. A small puff came from the body and her breathing stopped. I petted her one last time, gently pressing the tiny pink pads on her paws -- something she rarely allowed in life.

Goodbye, by all your names:

Hecate,

Little Miss Pinky Paws, and

Kimiko,

You will be deeply missed.

Sunday Story Ratings #24: Round Trip

Submitted by trice on Sun, 2012-05-06 20:10

Round Trip by W. R. Burnett

Originally published 1929 in Harper's; this edition 1995

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Collected in: Hard-Boiled: An Anthology of American Crime Stories (ed. Bill Pronzini & Jack Adrian)

 

PG

(D, L)

Drug Use (PG) {Tobacco and alcohol}

Coarse Language (PG) {Not strong, I suppose not too frequent for so short a story}

 

Representations

Gender:

Tight third-person on male protagonist, only men have speaking parts.

Sex:

Vaguely heterosexual, in the sense that dancing with girls happens.

Race & Ethnicity:

Italian Mafiosi vs Irish cops.

Disability, Physical Diversity and Health:

The protagonist catches a random cold. That is all, I think.

 

Awards

Found no sign of any. Don't expect to find any before the second half of the century.

 

Notes

This was very short. Kind of darkly amusing with the contextually innocent Mafioso being turned around by the police.

Something queer

Submitted by trice on Sun, 2012-04-29 05:31

A few weeks ago I finished reading Don't Let Her See Me Cry: A Mother's Story, an autobiography by a Victorian woman of the sort that ends "and then I wrote this book".

Anyway, I found it interestingly jarring the way she used 'straight' to mean 'person who is not a drug-user', rather the use I am accustomed to of 'person who is heterosexual'. Not new to me as such, but definitely not what I am used to. It was weird to see sentences like "As I drove away I couldn't believe that a 'straight' person seemed to be attracted to me!" Referring of course to her first relationship with another woman after being released from prison.

What was a new word to me was 'wangle', which I had initially taken to be a mispelling of 'wrangle', but apparently is actually a word.

So there you go.

Sunday Story Ratings #23: The Scorched Face

Submitted by trice on Sun, 2012-04-29 00:53

The Scorched Face by Dashiell Hammett

Originally published May 1925 in Black Mask; this edition 1995

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Collected in: Hard-Boiled: An Anthology of American Crime Stories (ed. Bill Pronzini & Jack Adrian)

 

MA15+

(V, S, L, D)

Violence (MA15+) {Mostly obscured, too frequent and in some places I think too nasty to get away with M)

Sexual References (M) {Sexual activity implied}

Coarse Language (PG) {Mild, infrequent, only in instances of strong emotion}

Drug References (PG) {Qualifications for this don't change between PG and MA}

 

Representations

Gender:

Narration is first-person from a male perspective. Other characters almost exclusively male, except interviewees.

Sex:

Sexuality is hetero male oriented, any implication of sexual interaction between women in context of male-centred group sex. Said orgies being depicted as sufficiently shameful to ruin the participants' lives.

Race & Ethnicity:

West-coast US, almost entirely white. Some characters referred to by ethnicities of European origin, e.g. Italian. Small number of black characters appear in servant / bodyguard role, referred to alternately as 'black' or 'Negroes'.

Disability, Physical Diversity and Health:

None noticed.

 

Awards

Unknown, presumed none.

 

Notes

I started reading this story on a short break during my one of my shifts. Even reading just a few pages I was impressed by Hammett's technique. Feels like I could learn a lot about brevity in mystery construction. Very taught, effectively written. Can see why he would have been such an influential figure.