Since I once read that the term Black Friday to designate the masochistic shopping crush in which all those other people are engaged at this moment originated in Philadelphia, I see no harm in bringing back this post from 2010 about Black Friday, by Philadelphia's own David Goodis.TODAY ONLY: Stay home and read this book instead of going to the mall, and derive 70% more pleasure from your reading!!!
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I read David Goodis's 1954 novel Black Friday on Thanksgiving Day, and I can see why the French love this guy. The book's bleak, uncertain ending reminds me strongly of Jean-Patrick Manchette.I also got a kick out of its mention of my newspaper and out of its references to Dizzy Gillespie and the painters Corot and Courbet.
Here's a routine bit of description whose tone is, however, indicative of Goodis' bleakness:
"The front of the cellar* was divided into two sections, one for coal, the other for old things that didn't matter too much."And here's a tiny excerpt from Black Friday read at Goodis' graveside.
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* I know of no Goodis story in which cellars do not play a part: Black Friday, Down There, "Black Pudding." That has to say something about Goodis. Here’s your humble blogkeeper reading from “Black Pudding.”© Peter Rozovsky 2010
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