A Little Treat For Me

Before I went to bed last night, I picked up Alfred Hitchcock's "Games Killers Play", which Dell published in 1967, to see if there was anything interesting in it. (My mother picked up the book from a library sale about fifteen years ago, and it's been sitting, unread, on my shelves for a number of years.) It contains a Donald Westlake story--"The Feel of the Trigger"--that I mean to get to in a bit, but I was astonished to find in there a story called "Room to Let" by Hal Ellson. At first I suspected that this was a pseudonym for Harlan Ellison, and I eagerly read the story on this basis. Sadly, that turns out not to be true. Hal Ellson was actually a going concern in suspense fiction when Harlan Ellison was still a youngster. There is, however, a connection (from Harlanellison.com):

"Sometime in 1949 or '50, Mr. Ellison passed a newsstand and thought he saw his name there, on one of the small paperback novels. Further inspection revealed his error: the author of that book was Hal Ellson. Intrigued by the nominal similarity, he read the book, which turned him on. Ellson was, at that time and for some years, a selling name, with such novels to his credit as DUKE and TOMBOY, and stories appearing in magazines the likes of 'Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine,' 'Guilty!' and 'Manhunt.' And his subject matter was, more often than not — juvenile delinquency.

"Thus sparked, Mr. Ellison's interest was further fanned to flame by a beating at the hands of a kid gang in front of the old Paramount Theater in New York City."

The Ellison book that sprang from all this was "Memos From Purgatory", a book based on Ellison's experience posing as a street gang member.

I love finding out these little tidbits and tugging these little threads. It's just the kind of guy I am.

Smell you later.