Day Keene (1904–1969)

I've gone on record with my general distaste for noir (as distinct from hardboiled detective stories), but there are exceptions to every rule and a well-written novel is a well-written novel. Day Keene knew his craft, and Home Is the Sailor will hook you even if noir is not your cup of tea. Merchant marine on shore leave, booze, women, gambling, seedy motels: the elements of the plot are unremarkable, but Keene's storytelling ability makes them seem fresh. Occasionally the violence gets show more really ugly yet never becomes gratuitous, and Swede Nelson--for all his flaws--is not an entirely unsympathetic central character (unlike, say, Kells in Paul Cain's overhyped Fast One).

A great read overall. I know Keene wrote a couple of private eye novels (both featuring an Irish-Hawaiian detective named Johnny Aloha), and I'm anxious to see what his work in that field was like. show less

“Roaring drunk, filthy, elemental?”

Yes, to all three. And to those, add deadly.
Swede Nelson, after years at sea, runs into Corliss Mason. Hard.

“God almighty. What if I had to kill a man every time I wanted to really arouse her?”

This is a decent story, but it has that ol' plotline that I just never understand - man meets woman, falls madly in love, wants to marry her the next day, and then kills for her. Like literally, in 24 hours, all of that! Then he's shocked when she isn't all show more that she seemed - the night before! Come on man!
Still, I was entertained. show less

Keene's 1954 novel The Big Kiss-Off is a masterpiece of hot sticky swamp noir.

The plot-line of a man returning to his hometown only to find every hand turned against him has been played out lots of time, but Keene still manages to make it seem as if he were the first to ever think of it.

Cain was shot down in the Korean War, spent two years in a POW camp only to find his divorce papers waiting for him in Tokyo. But, he's a Cajun sailor and finds a fast boat to sail to his hometown on the show more
Bayou only to find the sheriff giving him a deadline to leave town, his family property has been sold off, and the slinky blonde tramp he had married took off with some cheap conman. And, there's a sexy dark-
haired Charo-like Venezuelan temptress thrown in to boot.

Keene does a great job of capturing the flavor of the small town, the intricate passages through the swamps, and the confusion and frustration Cain felt returning to what no longer resembled home. Not only that but Keene aptly illustrates step by step the passion and
sexual tension Cain feels stuck with a gal he can't seem to cut loose. show less

"You can never tell what a big, tough Polish boy will do when he finds a nude blonde in his bathroom. Especially if he is a heavyweight fighter who was born back of the yards, is married to a million dollars, and has a psychiatric record." With that opening sentence, Day Keene has indeed told an entire story and more. Here, you have it all in just a few short words. And, that's how good a writer Keene was.

In fact, this is a story about a boy from the wrong side of the tracks who had no way show more out of the bad side of town other than winning fights with his fists. It is a story about how he gets mixed with a wealthy woman and is convinced that he is nuts, so nuts that on the day he gets out of the fishbowl as he calls it, after a few drinks, he wakes up with a body in his hotel room and not a damn clue how it got there or why. It is explained: "The hallucinations were beginning again. He could swear there was a nude girl in his bathroom. She was lying on her back on the tile, one leg straight, one white knee raised, her pink-tipped breasts pointing upward. More, she was the little blond with whom he'd walked out of Johnny's Bar that afternoon. And she was dead."

Barney Mandell is an ordinary guy, but he is in an extraordinary jam. It looks for all the world like he's stark raving looney-tune mad and violent too and there's barely anyone on his side. Of course, there's the rich princess with her claws into him (Gale) and then there's Rosemary, the neighbor girl all grown up who he never thought to notice before. And, then there's the blonde (or what's left of her) in the tub.

Keene tells a great story, mixing in murder, greed, social class warfare, and a helluva annoying parrot.

Plot-wise, if you've read enough of the 1950's pulp classics, you probably have a lot of figured out well before the end, but so what. This is Day Keene and you gotta enjoy each and every page of this wonderful pulpy novel. show less