Pulp For Hire
As far as I can tell, Ed McBain's The Gutter and the Grave is a pulp reader's pulp novel. That's pretty pulpy: suspicious and lushly described dames, street toughs, and bohemian musicians. It's a veritable wonderland of archetypes, starring a detective with a difficult past and the trials and tribulations that come with doing a favor for a friend accused of murder. Suspension of belief required. I wanted to try some classic, 1950's guilty-pleasure, interesting as both entertainment and an artifact of its time. Then I found this passage:
The pad on Lenox was jumping.
The musicians ranged from white to tan to brown to black. No one in that room was thinking about anything but music. I sometimes think all racial prejudice in the world would evaporate if everyone was taught to play an instrument and then allowed to join a gigantic international band. I've never yet met a musician, black or white, who has let color become any sort of a barrier. And this holds for musicians who come from neighborhoods where racial prejudice is taught from the cradle by well meaning parents preparing their kids for the hard knocks of life. It doesn't work on musicians. There's no room for hatred when three men or six men or a dozen men or two dozen men are blowing their separate sheets and making a conglomerate sound. The sound is the thing and music has its own color, blue or red or pale yellow or misty pink. (173)
Who the hell put social consciousness in my stereotypical pulp? I mean "stereotypical" in the best way possible, of course, but this book was published in 1958, prior to the civil rights movement. Maybe some of the sentiments expressed in the passage are naive, because "a gigantic international band" may end up pretty violent, but am I wrong in saying this feels like some very forward thinking ideas for the period? This novel was published at the height of cushy, conservative America. It's gritty escapism, but escapism none-the-less. Part of me wonders if the author added this in later in the following decades, but the thought process in this paragraph is intriguing for the sort of book it happens to be.
The pad on Lenox was jumping.
The musicians ranged from white to tan to brown to black. No one in that room was thinking about anything but music. I sometimes think all racial prejudice in the world would evaporate if everyone was taught to play an instrument and then allowed to join a gigantic international band. I've never yet met a musician, black or white, who has let color become any sort of a barrier. And this holds for musicians who come from neighborhoods where racial prejudice is taught from the cradle by well meaning parents preparing their kids for the hard knocks of life. It doesn't work on musicians. There's no room for hatred when three men or six men or a dozen men or two dozen men are blowing their separate sheets and making a conglomerate sound. The sound is the thing and music has its own color, blue or red or pale yellow or misty pink. (173)
Who the hell put social consciousness in my stereotypical pulp? I mean "stereotypical" in the best way possible, of course, but this book was published in 1958, prior to the civil rights movement. Maybe some of the sentiments expressed in the passage are naive, because "a gigantic international band" may end up pretty violent, but am I wrong in saying this feels like some very forward thinking ideas for the period? This novel was published at the height of cushy, conservative America. It's gritty escapism, but escapism none-the-less. Part of me wonders if the author added this in later in the following decades, but the thought process in this paragraph is intriguing for the sort of book it happens to be.