Mike Hammer author, Mickey Spillane, dead at 88
He made himself out to be not too bright, but Mickey Spillane was bright enough.His Mike Hammer hard-boil novels had no real style, Spillane claimed, but they were stylish enough to be imitated by many.
But Spillane was entirely himself.
He wrote this way, if you'll pardon this brief imitation:
I never heard the leather sap coming down on my skull. I didn't feel it 'til I came to a couple of minutes later.
The buxom blond snitch I was quizzing was there beside me on the bloody floor. Her throat was slit, earring to earring.
The mob's message was plain enough: the sparrow was singing too much -- and she was warbling all the wrong notes.
Simple books? Sure. But who needs complicated? The first Mike Hammer novel came out in 1947. By 2003 some 130 million "guns, gals and guts" Mike Hammers had been sold worldwide.
"Each one is exactly like the last one," one attentive fan said of the Mike Hammer books, of which he had a full set.
"I know what I'm getting, so I get it. That learning something new, expanding my horizons and deepening the character is all hoity-toity shit for the birds," the fan added.
Other writers of some note -- writers like Philip K. Dick -- greatly admired Spillane.
And consider the way Spillane stopped the Mike Hammer series at 13 titles. Now that's an off-hand touch of class, no matter what the author may otherwise claim. So did the timing of his demise.
Why, if Spillane himself were to write his own obituary, he'd probably tap out something like this on that old manual he preferred to use:
"I already held three aces, so I filled out my hand with a pair of eights."
posted by Tom Nadeau at 8:20 PM
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