Getting Off: A Novel of Sex and Violence by Jill Emerson
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
Always been a sucker for hard-boiled fiction, especially the old pulps. Well, I say old, but I don’t think they’re old yet. Jim Thompson’s old, but I’m only just getting into Thompson. Ross H. Spencer’s old. Is Stephen King old? He’s got a title in the Hard Case Crime library, and so does Lawrence Block.
Seems there’s this old pulp revival thing going on, and it’s not enough to make a buck dusting off the oldies, we got guys writing new oldies too. Guys writing new oldies using their old pseudonyms. Or something.
I guess Block wrote lesbian crime fiction under the name Jill Emerson ages ago, and for this new old stuff he’s written a new book with that old name. I never read any of that old Jill Emerson stuff, so I can’t tell you if this is more of the same.
But I have read all of the John Keller novels, and I can assure you Getting Off, this novel, is more of that same. Same straight forward tone, same matter-of-fact attitude towards murder. But now there’s sex. And there’s long cheesy parts, which I guess is the way they did it back then. Almost cartoonish, nearly a parody.
There’s a meager plot and an attempt at a morality, but the ending is too long and drawn out and there’s enough coincidences tossed in to make it all too convenient and just a tad tiresome. I guess I can give that sort of thing a pass when I’m indulging in some old pulp. But when it’s new-old, it doesn’t feel authentic. Just played out.