Mon 17 Jan 2022
Pulp Stories I’m Reading: DAY KEENE “Nothing to Worry Aboutâ€.
Posted by Steve under Pulp Fiction , Stories I'm Reading[6] Comments
DAY KEENE “Nothing to Worry About.†Short story. First published in Detective Tales, August 1945. Collected in League of the Grateful Dead and Other Stories (Ramble House, 2010). Reprinted in Best American Noir of the Century, edited by James Ellroy & Otto Penzler (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2010).
There is a long tradition of stories such as this one. It is a prime example of tales in which one half of a married couple plans to kill the other one, but even though the planning is perfect, things do not work out as well as the guilty person had in mind.
In this one – and far from the very first one in its subgenre – an Assistant State’s Attorney named Sorrell, and someone who should know better but who’s arrogant enough to think he can get away with it, decides to kill his wife, a woman he now hates and who, he is convinced, is holding his career back. But even more, he has another woman in mind already to replace her.
It doesn’t work out, of course, but in addition to than the well-timed twist in the end, author Day Keene fleshes out the other characters, too, ones that other writers might even have omitted, or at best glossed over. And yet I demur. There’s nothing really new in this one. It’s a good story, but why (I wonder) was it recently selected as one of the “Best American Noir of the Century�
January 17th, 2022 at 2:01 am
I agree there is nothing special about this one, but it is a good example of Keene’s virtues as a pulp writer all in one place.
January 17th, 2022 at 9:29 am
You’re right. After sleeping on it overnight, I’m now inclined to think more favorably about this story this morning. I’m not yet to the point of considering it as one of the best noirs of the century, but as a small undiscovered gem of a story, yes.
January 17th, 2022 at 8:45 am
I have had occasion to observe several unpleasant divorces and concluded that if one wants to sever the bonds of Matrimony, Murder is simpler, cheaper, involves less Court Time, and will leave one’s good name in better shape – even if convicted.
January 17th, 2022 at 9:31 am
Folks, Dan was the police chief of a small burg in Ohio for several years. In matters such as this, he knows whereof he speaks.
January 17th, 2022 at 10:44 am
It’s possible that the editor of the collection wanted something by Day Keene that was both short enough for inclusion and different enough from other selections limiting them to this story.
January 17th, 2022 at 11:33 am
You’re quite right, beb. There are lots of considerations as to what story goes into an anthology and which ones don’t, for whatever reason.
And up in Comment #2, I referred to the story as an “undiscovered gem.” Not so. I am definitely wrong about that. It’s gotten attention by a couple of other bloggers, both of whom liked it more than I did.
For example, fellow blogger Cullen Gallagher talks briefly (and favorably) of this story in his review of Day Keene’s Ramble House collection League of the Grateful Dead and Other Stories:
http://www.pulp-serenade.com/2020/10/league-of-grateful-dead-and-other.html
This story was also written up by Bob Byrne on the Black Gate blog in 2018 as one of several prime examples of Keene’s hardboiled/noir stories. (He admits he doesn’t know where the borderline is. Nor do I, for that matter.)
https://www.blackgate.com/2018/08/13/a-black-gat-in-the-hand-day-keene/