Day Eleven

4/11

The Book: The Chinatown Death Cloud Peril by Paul Malmont

ISBN: 978-0-7432-8785-2

Suggested By: Robert Lopez

Where: Home

When: 9:30-10:20p

Music: None

Company: The Family

Pages:1-58 (58)

The Lead In: They say to never judge a book by its cover and I think that that is a ridiculous thing to say. How else could you cull through the stacks of books in a bookstore without eyeing the covers to eliminate that which will bore you? This book has a great cover, it hints of pulp writing.

The 411 on the 55: The story is set in the 20s or 30s (?), and focuses on two (up to this point anyway) pulp writers: L. Ron Hubbard and Walter Gibson. It opens in a bar where Gibson, a seasoned writer of pulp (creator of the Shadow), is discussing stories and having Hubbard, an up-and-coming writer, guess what aspects of the story are pulp. The story wraps up when it is interrupted by another writer, Dent, who has clashed with Gibson some time in the past over a story, though that is left hanging as the chapter ends.

The next section focuses on Hubbard, and to be honest, confused the hell out of me. He appears to be struggling with madness and is faking stomach cancer (?). He is attacked by someone else in the hospital and is barely saved from asphyxiation. He is focused on a past trip he made to an island, but only hints at what that might mean.

From there, Gibson is watching a magic trick and is called up onto the stage to play a role in the act. It is later revealed that he is having sex with the woman in the act and through this, she knows aspects about his life that she uses in the act.

Line of the Day: “I will tell you what makes pulp. Of course there’s blood, cruelty, fear, mystery, vengeance, heroes and villains. That’s just a good foundation. To make true pulp, really great stomach-churning, white-knuckle, turn-your-hair-white pulp, you have to fill it with a pack of outright lies.” pg 17

The Fact on the Fiction: “The name "pulp" comes from the cheap wood pulp paper on which such magazines were printed. Magazines printed on better paper and usually offering family-oriented content were often called "glossies" or "slicks." Wikipedia