Sat 27 Apr 2019
Pulp Stories I’m Reading: PAUL CAIN “One, Two, Three.”
Posted by Steve under Pulp Fiction , Stories I'm Reading[5] Comments
PAUL CAIN “One, Two, Three.” Short story. First published in Black Mask, May 1933. Collected in Seven Slayers (Saint Enterprises, paperback, 1946). Reprinted in The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps, edited by Otto Penzler (Vintage Crime, softcover, November 2007).
Paul Cain wrote only one novel (Fast One) and less than two dozen short stories, most of them for Black Mask, but that’s all it took to make him a legend in our time, if not his own. He was the ultimate in hard-boiled fiction, terse and unemotional as fiction could possible be written.
“One, Two, Three” is a fine, fine example. Told by an anonymous narrator with an unknown profession (a private operative working on his own? a gambler doing his best to follow up on an easy mark?), the story zigs and zags more than most novels do, with divorce proceedings, blackmail, and two bloody deaths high on the dance card.
I tried to follow the explanation of who did what when and to who before giving up on it — it’s that complicated — and decided that the 1930s California setting and the total tough guy atmosphere were all I needed to tell you that if you ever get a chance to read this one or anything else by Paul Cain, you really ought to.
April 27th, 2019 at 5:01 pm
I second Steve’s advice to read Paul Cain, one of the great hard boiled writers even though he only wrote the one novel and a few short stories.
I gave THE COMPLETE SLAYERS by Paul Cain my highest recommendation when I reviewed it for Mystery File. The link is https://mysteryfile.com/blog/?p=16440
April 28th, 2019 at 3:12 pm
Paul Cain is one of my top tier Black Mask authors as well. I wish he wrote many more stories for Cap Shaw. It seems the Hollywood money lured him away from the pulps, as it did many others. Dammit!!
April 28th, 2019 at 8:04 pm
Cain had a word savagery unseen until Spillane, and a staccato style that is almost impossible to imitate. His rapid paced stories and one novel achieve a sort of lyricism that have nothing to do with poetry, but merely the pure pleasure of watching a master play with words so effectively.
April 28th, 2019 at 10:26 pm
All sentiments that I believe are the reasons why Otto Penzler chose this story as the very first one in his recent anthology of pulp fiction.
April 30th, 2019 at 10:14 am
Paul Cain’s “Fast One” is sensational, raw, nasty, and perfect. Fearless and unashamed writing, as compared to the mamby-pamby, walk-on-eggshells-with -our-tippy-toes, poltroon-ish strain which dominates popular fiction today. If Cain were writing today he’d spend his life defending himself in court.