The Antick Musings of G.B.H. Hornswoggler, Gent.: Starktober: An Introduction

Monday, September 30, 2013

Starktober: An Introduction

Tomorrow sees the beginning of a new series and reading project here on Antick Musings: Starktober.

I'm reading through all of Richard Stark's books -- the twenty-four Parker novels, probably the greatest sustained achievement in mid-century noir, and, interspersed with them, the four related Grofield books -- in order of publication, and I aim to write about one of them at least every weekday in October. So tomorrow we'll begin with The Hunter, and, if I can manage to squeeze the extras onto weekends, I hope to hit Dirty Money on Halloween. There may be a few quote posts along the way, as necessary.

The model is James Bond Daily, a similar reading project from 2009 where I read all of the Ian Fleming Bond books straight through and blogged about them.

If this inspires you, nearly all of Stark's novels are available in very nice uniform editions from the University of Chicago Press, which you can either buy directly from them, from that major online bookstore, or from your local independent.

And, if you don't know, Richard Stark was a pseudonym for one of the greatest mystery writers of the 20th century, Donald E. Westlake, whose Dortmunder books are as definitive as funny crime thrillers as the Parker novels are as dark crime thrillers. Westlake wrote a lot of other stuff as well -- generally excellent, and incredibly varied -- from humorous caper novels to dark psychological thrillers, from SF stories to a western, and from a nonfiction book about a minor invasion to a number of screenplays, including the Oscar-nominated The Grifters.

Starktober begins tomorrow.

The Posts of Starktober:
Starktober 1: The Hunter
Starktober 2: The Man With the Getaway Face
Starktober 3: The Outfit
Starktober 4: The Mourner
Starktober 5: The Score

Starktober: Internal Dialogue
Starktober 6: The Jugger

Starktober 7: The Seventh

Starktober 8: The Handle

Starktober 9: The Damsel

Starktober 10: The Rare Coin Score