Don Carpenter Boeken

"Friday's at Enricos, the story of four writers living in Northern California and Portland during the early, heady days of the Beat scene. A time of youth and opportunity, this story mixes the excitement of beginning with the melancholy of ambition, often thwarted and never satisfied. Loss of innocence is only the first price you pay. These are people, men and women, tender with expectation, at risk and in love, and Carpenter also carefully draws a portrait of these two remarkable places, San Francisco and Portland, in the 50s and early 60s, when the writers and bohemians were busy creating the groundwork for what came to be the counterculture."--Back cover

A hardboiled novel about life in the American underground, from the pool halls of Portland to the cells of San Quentin. Simply one of the finest books ever written about being down on your luck. Don Carpenter’s Hard Rain Falling is a tough-as-nails account of being down and out, but never down for good—a Dostoyevskian tale of crime, punishment, and the pursuit of an ever-elusive redemption. The novel follows the adventures of Jack Levitt, an orphaned teenager living off his wits in the fleabag hotels and seedy pool halls of Portland, Oregon. Jack befriends Billy Lancing, a young black runaway and pool hustler extraordinaire. A heist gone wrong gets Jack sent to reform school, from which he emerges embittered by abuse and solitary confinement. In the meantime Billy has joined the middle class—married, fathered a son, acquired a business and a mistress. But neither Jack nor Billy can escape their troubled pasts, and they will meet again in San Quentin before their strange double drama comes to a violent and revelatory end.

Don Carpenter wrote about Hollywood like no one else. The Hollywood Trilogy collects, for the first time, Carpenter’s most significant Hollywood novels—A Couple of Comedians, Turnaround and The True Life Story of Jody McKeegan—into a single volume. Here readers will find the jungle of B-movie Hollywood with no attempt to dress up the rawness and vulgarity of this glamorous” town. Carpenter’s characters occupy every facet of Hollywood—there are naïve and shy young men trying to break into the business, one-picture wonders, comedy duos, beautiful starlets and middle-aged moguls wondering how exactly they got where they are. All are drawn with the wit, pace and above all, the authenticity that were Don Carpenter’s trademarks.Following the Spring 2014 publication of Friday at Enrico’s, Carpenter’s forgotten novel, finished and championed by Jonathan Lethem, interest in Carpenter’s work is at an all-time high. The Hollywood Trilogy will introduce readers to an entirely new facet of Carpenter’s work, just waiting to be discovered by a contemporary audience.

In den wilden Tagen der Beat Generation trifft sich die Bohème von San Francisco jeden Freitag im Enrico's, um nächtelang zu trinken und zu diskutieren. Die jungen Schriftsteller sind voller Tatendrang und Lust, das Leben in all seinen Facetten zu ergründen. Der Roman fängt nostalgisch eine Epoche ein, in der alles möglich schien und die Welt sich dennoch weiterdrehte. Während ganz Kalifornien dem Sommer der Liebe entgegenfiebert, ringen vier aufstrebende Literaten um ihren ganz persönlichen Erfolg: Die 19-jährige Jaime ist die Tochter eines Journalisten und hat das Schreiben im Blut. Ganz im Gegensatz zu ihrem Verlobten Charlie, einem Veteran aus Korea, der verbissen an seinem großen Kriegsepos arbeitet. Die beiden sind befreundet mit dem Müßiggänger Dick, der sich auf dem Erfolg einer einzigen Kurzgeschichte ausruht, die der Playboy veröffentlicht hat. Eines Nachts gesellt sich der Einbrecher und Juwelendieb Stan zu ihnen, der ein außergewöhnliches Talent für das Verfassen von Groschenromanen offenbart. Gemeinsam lachen und streiten sie, ohne zu merken, dass um sie herum eine Dekade zu Ende geht.