Web Of The City [Paperback]

Harlan Ellison (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1, 1983

Harlan Ellison was awarded an honorary degree from UCLA for the excellence of his imaginative writings. Some smartass might even call him "Dr." Ellison. But only once. Because even though Ellison has come a long way since he started writing in the Fifties, he's still the street fighter who assumed a phony name and joined The Barons, the toughest gang of juvenile delinquents in Brooklyn's Red Hook area, just so he could write a novel about life in the slums. The real-life story of those ten weeks in hell was published as MEMOS FROM PURGATORY. But the actual novel that came out of that period has been out-of-print for quite some time. Now, with its original title restored, e-reads is pleased to re-issue WEB OF THE CITY, the book by a streetwise "Dr." who risked his tail and talent to write about the dark underbelly of city life. "Harlan Ellison is the dark prince of American letters, cutting through our corrupted midnight fog with a switchblade prose. He simply must be read." --Pete Hamill "Ellison writes with sensitivity as well as guts--a rare combination." --Leslie Charteris, creator of The Saint

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Harlan Ellison is the dark prince of American letters, cutting through our corrupted midnight fog with a switchblade prose. He simply must be read."-Pete Hamill "Ellison writes with sensitivity as well as guts--a rare combination." -Leslie Charteris, creator of The Saint --This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Ace (February 1, 1983)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0441877184
• ISBN-13: 978-0441877188
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.1 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,418,944 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars HIS FIRST NOVEL, June 25, 2001

By 

EMAN NEP - See all my reviews

This review is from: Web Of The City (Paperback)

After reading this, it puzzles me why Harlan Ellison doesn't write more novels than he did. Especially considering that this is his first novel, he did an amazing job. Before I go on let me clear up one thing: this is a work of FICTION based on FACT. Harlan Ellison ran around with a group of Brooklyn gangsters for 10 weeks to get background for this story. And it shows. Parts of this book make the movie On the Waterfront with Marlan Brando seem tame. Basically it is the story of Rusty Santoro, President of a gang called the Cougars. But he feels that he can do better in life, so he drops out of his gang--they aren't too happy about it. And just as soon as he's about to break loose, he gets snared back in again. This is what Harlan Ellison means by The Web of the City. Harlan Ellison does everything well in this novel: from the distorted language of the lower class, to the atmosphere of the bad parts of town, and the types of people that live there. Although written in the 1958, this book reads as if it were written not too long ago. This book was first published as Rumble, but Web of the City is the title that Harlan gave it. I highly recommend this book, this author, and anything he writes.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Ellison writes about his experiences in a gang., April 6, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Web Of The City (Paperback)

Really cool stuff. As a very young writer, Ellison went undercover and joined a street gang as their "war counsellor". He spent a while living this life and then wrote this novel (also published as "Rumble") about it. Reading the book may feel a bit like watching "West Side Story" in its almost quaint depiction of 50's-era teenage life, but once you get past the dated lingo, it's a scary and heartfelt portrayal of very real people. The novel gives us some real insight into Ellison too, as he writes not only about the kids whose lives he describes but also about the ways in which those lives touch his, the decisions he must make during his time with them, and his discoveries about himself. As a story it's not his most neatly-crafted... but then, it's not a work of fiction