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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Coleman, best known for his nightmarish noir paintings and drawings, has produced an engaging, pocket-sized hardcover book drawn from various parts of the great American underbelly. Presented with text facing illustrations on each spread, the book consists of four stories based on real people—researched, appropriated and rewritten in the first person by Coleman—that originally appeared in the anthology Blab!, memoirs of the hobos Jack Black and Boxcar Bertha, and tales of the criminal mayhem of two psychopaths. Coleman's recreation of their authorial voices are striking, rueful, philosophical and manic, but what ties them together are are his drawings. Somewhere between Victorian engravings and folk art, they are haunting and macabre. They're not oppressively dark or gothic; rather, they hit a variety of emotional notes, just as their subjects do. As compelling as the prose is, Coleman's drawings are more so—they have a visceral effect that most words just can't match. The tiny format is fitting for a book best dipped into, rather than taken all at once, and it echoes the pulp magazines that came before it. Coleman's uncompromising, warts-and-all vision of humanity is not for everyone, but this work is still worth a good, long look. (Apr.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
Four stories from early numbers of Monte Beauchamp's anthology series BLAB! adopt the format of 1930s Big Little books: roughly three inches by three and one-half inches, with text pages facing single-picture pages. Much less thick than a Big Little because of better paper, the book's real distinction is content greatly different from the comic-strip and movie-serial fodder of the Big Littles: gritty true-crime testimonies, adapted with brio from their protagonists' depositions, two of them in semifamous books. From You Can't Win (1926) comes the criminal career of burglar Jack Black, who finally went straight (as Coleman neglects to say but other sources reveal, a librarian, definitely non-MLS). From Sister of the Road (1937), a fake memoir by anarchist Emma Goldman's lover Ben Reitman (1879-1942), comes "The Autobiography of Boxcar Bertha." The other subjects are serial killers Carl Panzram and Paul John Knowles (consult Michael Newton's encyclopedic Hunting Humans, 1990). Coleman's first-person texts aim to convey the perps' minds, while his intricate, energetic drawings radiate violence, twisted passion, and worse. Utterly fascinating if a mite repulsive. Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
See all Editorial Reviews
Coleman, best known for his nightmarish noir paintings and drawings, has produced an engaging, pocket-sized hardcover book drawn from various parts of the great American underbelly. Presented with text facing illustrations on each spread, the book consists of four stories based on real people—researched, appropriated and rewritten in the first person by Coleman—that originally appeared in the anthology Blab!, memoirs of the hobos Jack Black and Boxcar Bertha, and tales of the criminal mayhem of two psychopaths. Coleman's recreation of their authorial voices are striking, rueful, philosophical and manic, but what ties them together are are his drawings. Somewhere between Victorian engravings and folk art, they are haunting and macabre. They're not oppressively dark or gothic; rather, they hit a variety of emotional notes, just as their subjects do. As compelling as the prose is, Coleman's drawings are more so—they have a visceral effect that most words just can't match. The tiny format is fitting for a book best dipped into, rather than taken all at once, and it echoes the pulp magazines that came before it. Coleman's uncompromising, warts-and-all vision of humanity is not for everyone, but this work is still worth a good, long look. (Apr.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
Four stories from early numbers of Monte Beauchamp's anthology series BLAB! adopt the format of 1930s Big Little books: roughly three inches by three and one-half inches, with text pages facing single-picture pages. Much less thick than a Big Little because of better paper, the book's real distinction is content greatly different from the comic-strip and movie-serial fodder of the Big Littles: gritty true-crime testimonies, adapted with brio from their protagonists' depositions, two of them in semifamous books. From You Can't Win (1926) comes the criminal career of burglar Jack Black, who finally went straight (as Coleman neglects to say but other sources reveal, a librarian, definitely non-MLS). From Sister of the Road (1937), a fake memoir by anarchist Emma Goldman's lover Ben Reitman (1879-1942), comes "The Autobiography of Boxcar Bertha." The other subjects are serial killers Carl Panzram and Paul John Knowles (consult Michael Newton's encyclopedic Hunting Humans, 1990). Coleman's first-person texts aim to convey the perps' minds, while his intricate, energetic drawings radiate violence, twisted passion, and worse. Utterly fascinating if a mite repulsive. Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
See all Editorial Reviews
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Looking back at it, it seems to me that I was blown here and there like a dead leaf whipped about by the autumn winds till at last it finds lodgment in some cozy fence corner. Read the first page Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
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Looking back at it, it seems to me that I was blown here and there like a dead leaf whipped about by the autumn winds till at last it finds lodgment in some cozy fence corner. Read the first page Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Gold Tooth New!
Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
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