I’ve argued before on this blog that 1975 was the greatest year in the history of crime/mystery fiction. Whenever I find myself in a good used-book store, I can’t resist looking for crime novels from that era, hopefully obscure ones, neglected masterpieces that no one, myself included, remembers any more. I’ve been working on a book about this topic for years. One chapter of the book is called “Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda.” In this chapter, I investigate books that, for one reason or another, feel as though they should have been published in 1975 (or thereabouts), and then I speculate on how they might have been received, by readers and book critics, had they been published in that year. I have written, for instance, that Quentin Tarantino’s novelization of his film Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood (the ellipses are elided from the title of the book) was clearly intended to mimic a crime novel of the mid 1970s. It deals, in part, with the Mason family killings of 1969. And much of the story concerns the protagonist’s role as a guest star on the Lancer TV program, which debuted in 1968 and concluded its run in 1970. Thus the novel couldn’t have been published any earlier than about 1971. But, given the nature of the writing game and the nature of the publishing business, it is unlikely that a long and ambitious book such as Once Upon A Time in Hollywood could have hit the bookstore shelves any earlier than about 1973 or 1974.
COULDA, WOULDA, SHOULDA
COULDA, WOULDA, SHOULDA
COULDA, WOULDA, SHOULDA
I’ve argued before on this blog that 1975 was the greatest year in the history of crime/mystery fiction. Whenever I find myself in a good used-book store, I can’t resist looking for crime novels from that era, hopefully obscure ones, neglected masterpieces that no one, myself included, remembers any more. I’ve been working on a book about this topic for years. One chapter of the book is called “Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda.” In this chapter, I investigate books that, for one reason or another, feel as though they should have been published in 1975 (or thereabouts), and then I speculate on how they might have been received, by readers and book critics, had they been published in that year. I have written, for instance, that Quentin Tarantino’s novelization of his film Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood (the ellipses are elided from the title of the book) was clearly intended to mimic a crime novel of the mid 1970s. It deals, in part, with the Mason family killings of 1969. And much of the story concerns the protagonist’s role as a guest star on the Lancer TV program, which debuted in 1968 and concluded its run in 1970. Thus the novel couldn’t have been published any earlier than about 1971. But, given the nature of the writing game and the nature of the publishing business, it is unlikely that a long and ambitious book such as Once Upon A Time in Hollywood could have hit the bookstore shelves any earlier than about 1973 or 1974.