Say the word "history," and I'm going to lean a little closer. See, I'm a history nerd. When not reading novels, I'm devouring books like Jonathan Eig's Get Capone and Ben Macintyre's Operation Mincemeat and Luc Sante's Low Life.
Put "pulp" and "history" together, and I'm going to pick up the book and take it to the counter and hand the store employee a credit card and then go find some quiet place to read.
Which is what I did in San Francisco this past weekend. I was browsing at City Lights (highly recommended, if you've never been) and saw a curious-looking book on the history shelves: Devil Dog: The Amazing True Story of the Man Who Saved America by David Talbot. It took me about 10 seconds of skimming before I realized that I knew the titular "Devil Dog" very well: it refers to Smedley Butler, the Marine general who was brought to Philadelphia during the mid-1920s to clean up the bootlegging rackets.
But as the cover -- and the word "pulp" -- implies, this is not a plain Jane biography of Butler. Instead you've got a shotgun blast of illustrations and comix (by the legendary Spain Rodriguez), magazine-style sidebars and call-out quotes, archival art and photos, and most importantly, sharp and action-packed writing. Of all the things to be slapped with the "pulp" label over the years, this new series (conceived by Talbot, founder and former editor-in-chief of Salon, and his sister, New Yorker writer Margaret Talbot) really earns it. Devil Dog is relentless in its attempt to entertain, stun, surprise, and -- rather subversively -- shock you with some rather nasty bits of American history.
For instance: I've done a lot of reading about Butler's Philadelphia years, but I had no idea how harrowing Butler's early military career had been. The highlights could be pulp magazine cover lines:
I WAS SHOT IN THE CHEST AND LIVED!
THEIR SEVERED HEADS WERE MOUNTED...
... ON TELEGRAPH POLES!
THE EMPRESS HAD ME STRIPPED AND OILED*
(*Note: It wasn't Butler who alleged he'd been stripped and oiled. You'll have to read the book for more.)
You get the idea, though. And while the details are sensational, Devil Dog isn't sensationalist. It's actually a cold hard shot of truth along the lines of Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States. And Butler emerges not as a 2D pulp-style hero, but a tough, complex, flawed man determined to do the right thing, no matter the personal cost. After reading Devil Dog, I felt like I'd just watched one helluva a biopic, with blood-splattered images right out of a Scorcese film.
The good news? Pulp History is the start of a series. The second installment, Gary Kamiya's Shadow Knights: The Secret War Against Hitler, is at the top of my TBR pile right now.
The bad news: These two are it, for the time being. I have to imagine these take a while to produce, but damn do I want a whole shelf of these things right now.
(UPDATE: One weird bit of synchronicity: I just realized that David and Margaret Talbot, along with brother Stephen, are The Talbot Players, a self-described "story machine" that produces books, documentaries and films. Their offices are in Francis Ford Coppola's famous Sentinel Building in North Beach. Where did I go, after immediately purchasing Devil Dog, to have a drink and thumb through its pages? Coppola's Cafe Zoetrope, in the lobby of that same building.)
0 Yorumlar