Day Keene (1904–1969)

“Roaring drunk, filthy, elemental?”

Yes, to all three. And to those, add deadly.
Swede Nelson, after years at sea, runs into Corliss Mason. Hard.

“God almighty. What if I had to kill a man every time I wanted to really arouse her?”

This is a decent story, but it has that ol' plotline that I just never understand - man meets woman, falls madly in love, wants to marry her the next day, and then kills for her. Like literally, in 24 hours, all of that! Then he's shocked when she isn't all that she seemed - the night before! Come on man!
Still, I was entertained.… (mais)

I've gone on record with my general distaste for noir (as distinct from hardboiled detective stories), but there are exceptions to every rule and a well-written novel is a well-written novel. Day Keene knew his craft, and Home Is the Sailor will hook you even if noir is not your cup of tea. Merchant marine on shore leave, booze, women, gambling, seedy motels: the elements of the plot are unremarkable, but Keene's storytelling ability makes them seem fresh. Occasionally the violence gets really ugly yet never becomes gratuitous, and Swede Nelson--for all his flaws--is not an entirely unsympathetic central character (unlike, say, Kells in Paul Cain's overhyped Fast One).

A great read overall. I know Keene wrote a couple of private eye novels (both featuring an Irish-Hawaiian detective named Johnny Aloha), and I'm anxious to see what his work in that field was like.… (mais)

Reed and Connie Renner, a young couple on the verge of divorce, return from fourteen months isolated in the Pacific Ocean to discover a world mired in desperation. Some event, speculated to be the test detonation of an extremely dirty nuclear bomb, has killed off nearly every woman on the planet of childbearing age. Those who survived are for some unknown reason unable to conceive, and are placed under heavy guard by their governments in an effort to preserve them from hordes of desperate, lonely men. A top lawyer, Reed soon finds himself working for a government desperately trying to hold off the collapse of a society without a future, where his actions soon draw the ire of a powerful mobster who is willing to stop at nothing to get to Reed – and his beautiful wife.

Day Keene (the pseudonym of Gunnard Hjerststedt) was a writer best known in the 1950s and 1960s for the crime fiction he wrote. This collaboration with Leonard Pruyn was his only foray into science fiction, which is unfortunate considering how well he writes. His novel is a fascinating look at the impact of gendercide upon a population, one with some interesting and well-thought-out details. His literary roots are evident in the efficient prose, tight plotting, and focus on the criminal underside, which finds its own way to profit in a changed world. Fifty years later, it still holds up well as a moving tale of a slowly unfolding apocalypse, one in which sane people struggle against the odds to hold onto hope.… (mais)

Keene's 1954 novel The Big Kiss-Off is a masterpiece of hot sticky swamp noir.

The plot-line of a man returning to his hometown only to find every hand turned against him has been played out lots of time, but Keene still manages to make it seem as if he were the first to ever think of it.

Cain was shot down in the Korean War, spent two years in a POW camp only to find his divorce papers waiting for him in Tokyo. But, he's a Cajun sailor and finds a fast boat to sail to his hometown on the
Bayou only to find the sheriff giving him a deadline to leave town, his family property has been sold off, and the slinky blonde tramp he had married took off with some cheap conman. And, there's a sexy dark-
haired Charo-like Venezuelan temptress thrown in to boot.

Keene does a great job of capturing the flavor of the small town, the intricate passages through the swamps, and the confusion and frustration Cain felt returning to what no longer resembled home. Not only that but Keene aptly illustrates step by step the passion and
sexual tension Cain feels stuck with a gal he can't seem to cut loose.… (mais)