This is an excellent collection of short stories -- "pulp fiction" -- originally published between the 1920s and the 1990s. The 32 items included offer a broad survey of the genre, illustrating historical changes it has undergone over a period of 7 decades. Among the most notable authors included are David Goodis, James Cain, Jim Thompson, John D. Macdonald, Lawrence Block, Ross MacDonald, Bill Pronzini, and Donald E. Westlake. Standout contributions include Black Pudding by David Goodis, The Bloody Tide by Day Keene, We Are All Dead by Bruno Fischer, and Divide and Conquer by Jack Ritchie.

No such collection can include all of the noteworthy authors of the genre. In his introduction, editor Maxim Jakubowski acknowledges that for reasons of limited space, he excluded such writers as Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, Cornell Woolrich, and Earl Stanley Gardner. These are other authors are well represented in the many other available collections of pulp fiction.

Below is a list of the contributions that are included, along with my ratings on a 5* scale

Finders Killers! by John D. Macdonald (2*)
Murder’s Mandate by W. T. Ballard (2*)
Cigarette Girl by James M. Cain (2*)
The Getaway by Gil Brewer (3*)
Preview of Murder by Robert Leslie Bellem (2*)
Forever After by Jim Thompson (3.5*)
The Bloody Tide by Day Keene (4.5*)
Death Comes Gift-Wrapped by William P. McGivern (3*)
The Girl Behind the Hedge by Mickey Spillane (3*)
Enter Scarface by Armitage Trail (3*)
A Candle for the Bag Lady by Lawrence Block (2*)
Black Pudding by David Goodis (5*)
A Matter of Principal by Max Allan Collins (5*)
Citizen’s Arrest by Charles Willeford (0.5*)
Sleeping Dog by Ross Macdonald (1*)
The Wench Is Dead by Fredric Brown (2.5*)
So Dark for April by Howard Browne (3*)
We Are All Dead by Bruno Fischer (5*)
Death is a Vampire by Robert Bloch (1*)
Divide and Conquer by Jack Ritchie (4*)
A Real Nice Guy by William F. Nolan (2*)
Stacked Deck by Bill Pronzini (3*)
So Young, So Fair, So Dead by John Lutz (3*)
Effective Medicine by B. Traven (1*)
Killing Bernstein by Harlan Ellison (3*)
The Second Coming by Joe Gores (0*)
Hibiscus and Homicide by William Campbell Gault (2*)
Hell on Wheels by Thomas S. Roche (1*)
Ordo by Donald E. Westlake (2.5*)

I recommend the review by justchris for information on several of the stories: https://www.librarything.com/work/337717/reviews/121585672 ( )

This mammoth book contains about thirty pulp novels, but my favorite part is the Introduction.
Jakubowski says, “First, let’s bury the myth that pulp fiction is a lower form of art, the reverse side of literature as we know it…accredited denizens of the literary establishment relegated pulp writing to a dubious cupboard where we parked the guilty pleasures we were too ashamed to display in public.” He goes on, “what makes them [pulp fiction novels] stand out is the fact that the pulps had one golden rule …Every story in the pulps had a beginning and an end, sharply-etched economical characterization, action, emotions, plenty going on...This compact with the reader might appear self-evident, and was very much a continuation of the Victorian penny dreadfuls and novels written in installments.” Perhaps, not unlike the Sherlock Holmes stories.

The last page of the introduction (which is 15 pages long) in The Mammoth Book of Pulp Fiction contains this sentiment which I strongly endorse. “…pulp fiction is a state of mind, a mission to entertain, and literature would be so much poorer without it, its zest, its speed and rhythm, its unashamed verve and straightforward approach to storytelling…pulp fiction will never die.” ( )

Pulp Fiction is an anthology of 32 stories edited by Maxim Jakubowski and published by Castle Books in 2002, but originally produced by Carroll & Graf in 1996. It’s important to note the specifics as there appear to be multiple anthologies with this title, or very similar, including the same editor. The stories were originally published between 1930 and 1996: 3 from the 1930s, 4 from the 1940s, 12 from the 1950s, 5 from the 1960s, 4 from the 1970s, 3 from the 1980s, and the previously indicated one from the 1990s. That’s a pretty good normal distribution chronologically speaking. The shortest story was Charles Willeford’s “Citizen’s Arrest” at 6 pages (1966), while the longest was the novella “Flight to Nowhere” by Charles Williams at 51 pages (1955), organized into 20 chapters. All of the authors are men (or writing under a male pseudonym), as are all of the protagonists with the exception of “Forever After.” The introduction by the editor declares that “the pulps had had one golden rule which unsung editors insisted upon and good and bad writers alike religiously followed: adherence to the art of storytelling.”

The storytelling opens with Dashell Hammet’s Sam Spade in “Too Many Have Lived” (1933), hired to investigate a missing man turned into murder victim with a dubious background. The final story is “Ordo” by Donald E. Westlake (1977). I found that one the most interesting—a contrast to all that went before. It was entirely a character study centered on the eponymous character trying to understand the transformation of the girl he was briefly married to 20 years before into the movie star she became.

The stories largely featured shady characters engaged in shady activities, living in the margins of society, which I imagine is what gave so many of them pulpy appeal to the strait-laced readers of the Golden Age of the 1950s. Some of the stories feature average guys whose lives are disrupted by bad people (for example, “Flight to Nowhere,” “Cigarette Girl,” “Citizen’s Arrest,” and “So Young, So Fair, So Dead”), while others are down on their luck as alcoholics (“The Wench Is Dead” and “A Candle for the Bag Lady”) or ex-cons (“The Bloody Tide” and “Hell on Wheels”). Others feature morally ambiguous guys who deal on their own terms with bad people (see “Black,” “Divide and Conquer,” “Finders, Killers!” and “Stacked Deck”). Still others feature bad guys involved with reprehensible people (“Forever After” and “Death Comes Gift-Wrapped,” “A Real Nice Guy,” “A Matter of Principle,” and “Enter Scarface”). Some protagonists are the classic private detectives (the aforementioned Sam Spade, Sandy McKane in “Hibiscus and Homicide,” Nick Ransom in “Preview of Murder” and Paul Pine in “So Dark for April”).

The stories feature assassinations (“The Getaway,” “Forever After,” “A Real Nice” and “Hell on Wheels”), con jobs (“Murder’s Mandate,” “Death Is a Vampire”), heists (“Black,” “We Are All Dead,” “Flight to Nowhere,” and “Finders, Killers!”), organized crime (“Black,” “The Getaway,” “The Bloody Tide and “Divide and Conquer”), double crosses (“Finders, Killers!” “Black Pudding,” “So Dark Is April,” and “We Are All Dead”), revenge (“The Getaway,” “Preview of Murder,” “The Girl Behind the Hedge,” “Sleeping Dogs,” “Killing Bernstein,” “Black Pudding” and “We Are All Dead”). There are the damsels in distress (“Flight to Nowhere,” “Murder’s Mandate,” “Cigarette Girl” and “A Matter of Principle”), and the femme fatales (“Forever After” and “Hell on Wheels”). Some of the stories are hard to classify (“Second Coming” and “Effective Medicine”), and one has a science fiction punchline (“Killing Bernstein” by Harlan Ellison).

Sometimes the protagonist dies at the end, sometimes he lives happily ever after with the girl, sometimes we’re not quite sure whether he lives or dies, and sometimes he returns to the same old life or even moves into something new. While all of the protagonists (with the exception of “Enter Scarface”) and most of the villains are white, several stories feature characters who are Mexican or Chicano, and the story set in Hawaii includes Filipinos native Hawaiian, Japanese and mixed race characters. Most of the beautiful women in these stories are described as blond, but not all of them, and many of the women are not beautiful at all, particularly in “Black Pudding,” where her face is disfigured by severe scars. Most of the stories are shallow, gritty, and straightforward, no matter how many plot twists are rolled into the narrative. A few have more interesting and sensitive characterizations, more subtle storytelling. I tended to prefer those. Like most anthologies, it was a mix of styles and quality. About halfway through, I was painfully reminded of why I had made the decision to stop consuming stories about terrible people doing terrible things, but not all of the items in this collection fit that description, and those I tended to enjoy all the more for the contrast with the formulaic. I am glad that I made it to the end, because I found “Ordo” particularly rewarding. ( )

Good old school P.I. short stories from some of the real greats of the genre. ( )