A post about Angel Colón's "No Happy Endings" that includes just one ejaculation/masturbation joke

Angel Colón reads.
Photos by Peter Rozovsky

Good fun was had by all at Friday's launch of Angel Colón's new novel at Mysterious Bookshop in Manhattan. We also had at least as good a time afterward, the novel's title to the contrary. The book is called No Happy Endings, a reference to the (planned) sperm-bank heist that drives the plot. Our evening, on the other hand, ended in good fellowship, crepes, and wine in the West Village.

Look closely. That vessel next to
the book is not a gift-set jam jar.

Wine was served at the launch in plastic specimen cups (Angel got them cheap), and the evening included its share of ejaculation jokes, but I was more impressed by the author's distinguishing the novel's very human protagonist from the other lead character he writes about, the ex-IRA hard man Blacky Jaguar. "Blacky's a cartoon," Colón said.

Fantine Park, on the other hand, the new book's protagonist, is an epigone: She's not nearly the safe cracker her mother was. And her relationship with her father (said Colón and some attendees who had read the book) is a thread running through the novel and one reason I'm looking forward to reading it. Farce and character is not always an easy combination to, er, pull off, and I'll be eager to see how Colón does it here.

From left: Scott Adlerberg, Angel Colón, Dave White

Later a gang that included Colón; his wife, Jeanette; Scott Adlerberg; Suzanne Solomon; Jen Conley; and me repaired to Shade Bar for dinner, drinks, and conversation that ranged over Shakespeare, politics, crime writing, the teaching of history, and (says Jen) Nine Inch Nails and Donald Trump. The most excellent bartender, Laurie, remembered my name, Todd Robinson showed up, and I realized that I dig hanging out with gregarious, intelligent, opinionated New Yorkers. I was feeling so expansive that I passed up the 10-year aged tawny port and bought myself a glass of the 20-year instead.

For me, though, the evening's most trenchant observation came from Scott as we rode the subway from the bookstore to the bar. True crime, said this crime writer, is depressing in its brutality, banality, and stupidity, if I recall his words correctly. Crime fiction, he said, avoids this because it is highly stylized. That is the most thought-provoking observation I've heard about crime fiction in quite some time, and I'll be thinking about it and quoting it.  So thanks, Scott.

© Peter Rozovsky 2016

Crime Factory and classical gas

Who's in Issue #1 of Crime Factory? Ken Bruen, Adrian McKinty, Scott Phillips and Dave White, for a start. (A hat tip to Crime Scene NI.)

Bruen offers an excerpt from an upcoming novel, Killer, that looks to be as good as anything I've read by him, and it contains as pertinent a bit of self-reference as any I've read in crime fiction.

McKinty's contribution is a "making of" journal about his novel Fifty Grand, and Phillips offers an appreciation of Charles Willeford and what Willeford meant to his own writing. Lots of places publish crime fiction. Crime Factory offers glimpses of some of the sharp minds that create the stuff. May it live long.

*******

Over at A dead man fell from the sky ... , meanwhile, blogkeeper/author/classicist Gary Corby has been soliciting nominations for song titles of antiquity. My humble suggestions include:

"Get Bacchae (to Where You Once Belonged)"

"You Can Call Me Alcestis"

"Liver and Let Die" (This one's about Prometheus)

"Saturday Night's All Right for Phaëtōn"

You might also like a contribution from another reader that I wish I had come up with:

"I Want A Girl Just Like The Girl That Married Dear Old Dad" by Oedipus

© Peter Rozovsky 2010

Noir at the Bar III plus a chance to win books!

What did I learn from Noir at the Bar III with Dave White? For one thing, that the Tritone is a noisier place on Tuesdays than it is on Sundays, when we'd staged the previous Noirs at the Bar. But above the sounds of clinking mugs and no doubt interesting conversations, I also learned how an author faces the challenge of keeping an established genre such as the P.I. story fresh.

I learned that Dave picks up ideas from listening to his students. (He teaches eighth grade when he's not writing fiction, and he related the tale of a young man who had been banned for life from Costco for stealing a video game and was at his wit's end because he liked their pizza so much.) And I learned that Sarah Weinman knows how to ask good questions. (That's Sarah quizzing Dave in the photo above.)

That's what I got out of the evening. What can you get? A free book or even two. I'll send a copy of Dave's Shamus Award-nominated debut When One Man Dies to the first reader who can tell me which English poet lent the novel its title and the protagonist his name. Tell me which other Shamus-nominated author also borrows a great English poet's name for his protagonist and his title, and you'll also get a copy of Dave's latest, The Evil That Men Do.

Send your answers along with a postal address to detectivesbeyondborders(at)earthlink(dot)net.

© Peter Rozovsky 2008

Noir at the Bar in Philly with Dave White this Tuesday

The weekend's out of the way, and now the fun can start. This Tuesday, join us for Noir at the Bar III at the Tritone in Philadelphia, featuring Dave White, author of The Evil That Men Do and the Shamus Award-nominated When One Man Dies.

Dave will read from his work, take questions from the audience, and sit for a question-and-answer session with Sarah Weinman of Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind.

Where:
The Tritone,
1508 South Street,
Philadelphia
215-545-0475

When:
Tuesday, August 19
6:30 p.m.

"Noir at the Bar: Where the crime is hard-boiled, and the candy bars are deep-fried"

© Peter Rozovsky 2008

Noir at the Bar with Shamus Award-nominated author Dave White Aug. 19

Our little issues are out of the way, and we are ready to stage Noir at the Bar III, originally scheduled for last week. While we waited out the delay, our guest, Dave White, was nominated for the Private Eye Writers of America's Shamus Award for best first novel for When One Man Dies. So come on out to the Tritone in Philadelphia on Tuesday, Aug. 19, at 6:30 p.m. to congratulate Dave and hear him read, and stick around for the best mahi-mahi burgers and fried candy bars in all of crime fiction.

Dave White, author of When One Man Dies and The Evil That Men Do, will be guest of honor at the third Noir at the Bar reading on Tuesday, Aug. 19, at the Tritone in Philadelphia.

Why not fill the time until then by reading Dave's novels? Or take a look at his short fiction here.

"Noir at the Bar: Come for the mystery, stay for the mahi-mahi."

Where: The Tritone, 1508 South Street, Philadelphia
215-545-0475

When: Tuesday, August 19, 6:30 p.m.

© Peter Rozovsky 2008