Wed 8 Jul 2009
Reviewed by Ted Fitzgerald: GIL BREWER – Satan Is a Woman.
Posted by Steve under Reviews[5] Comments
GIL BREWER – Satan Is a Woman. Gold Medal #169; paperback original; 1st printing 1951. Cover art: Barye Phillips.
This is the perfect title for a Brewer novel and one that sums up the plot of so many Brewer outings.
Larry Cole’s a young man with difficulties: he runs a barely functioning beachfront bar on Florida’s Gulf Coast and his older brother is doing prison time for murder. Larry would like to find the money to get a high-powered lawyer who could spring his brother, but he doesn’t know how he’ll get the money.
Enter Joan Taylor, a sweet young thing with a yen for Larry and ideas of her own. Larry falls hard for Joan, but he’s confused by her behavior: stealing a wallet, stabbing a drifter in the throat and badgering Larry to burgle the nearby yacht club.
Lots of familiar Brewer set pieces here, including the extended disposal of an unwanted body, but also some well-wrought descriptions of the Florida milieu and an attractive if credulous protagonist in Larry.
An alert reader will figure out the twists in plenty of time, but the only weak spot is a denouement that relies too much on two characters verbalizing information they already know and have no need to say aloud.
Editorial Comment: A profile of Gil Brewer, the man and the author, can be found here on the primary M*F website. Written by Bill Pronzini, the piece definitely doesn’t pull any punches. If you haven’t read it already, you should.
Following the article, lower down on the same page, you can find a definitive bibliography for Gil Brewer, compiled by Lynn Monroe, a long time collector of Brewer’s work both under his own name and all his pseudonyms.
July 9th, 2009 at 5:33 am
I belong to the Rara-Avis group which discusses hardboiled and noirish novels. Lately there has been some comments about Gil Brewer including the news that New Pulp Press will be reprinting FLIGHT TO DARKNESS and THE RED SCARF. I’m hoping to see a revival of interest in this writer like we witnessed with Jim Thompson.
July 9th, 2009 at 9:07 am
Good news! Synchronicity strikes again.
Over the next few days I’ll be posting another Gil Brewer review by Ted, then two by Bill Pronzini from 1001 MIDNIGHTS.
One of the latter is THE RED SCARF, which Bill thinks is one of Brewer’s best. I know I wrote a review of it myself several years ago. I’ll see if I can’t find it and post it here also.
— Steve
July 9th, 2009 at 10:33 am
“…he’s confused by her behavior: stealing a wallet, stabbing a drifter in the throat…”
Well, that whole stabbing business would definitely give me pause.
He’s a decent writer, and I hope his little renaissance goes well. Maybe that will encourage a publisher to take a chance on Charles Williams, a writer who absolutely deserves to be rediscovered.
Btw, glad that you mentioned Greenan. His ALGERNON PENDLETON was as weird and entertaining as any novel I’ve read.
July 9th, 2009 at 1:56 pm
Nice review. I’d like to see more written about Brewer. I enjoyed this book, but I think it is definitely second tier Brewer. It had some great scenes, but there was a predictability to a lot of the story. Still, any Brewer title is worth reading. My faves are Red Scarf, 13 French Street, A Taste for Sin, and Vengeful Virgin.
July 10th, 2009 at 12:07 am
Brewer is one of those tragic cases of almost, but not quite. I’m not sure his work has the same intensity of Jim Thompson’s best, though he might be a better writer overall, at least a more even one.
I don’t think I would rate Brewer at the level of Williams, Thompson, or even Peter Rabe, though only just below that — probably in line with John McPartland and one or two others of the second and third tier Gold Medal writers (which in some cases meant better than other publishers first-tier writers).
That said, a minor Brewer revival would be welcome. He may never have achieved what he might have in other circumstances, but what he left behind is more than enough to show the promise.