Brit Grit Alley features interviews, news and updates on what's happening down British crime fiction's booze and blood soaked alleyways.
This week down Brit Grit Alley, I have a guest column from
Chris Black of hot new Brit Grit publisher Number Thirteen Press.
Why Number Thirteen Press?
The idea was simple. Number Thirteen Press – 13 pulp crime
novellas, publishing on the 13th of each month for 13 consecutive
months. This brings up a number of questions, of course. Principally, why the
hell am I doing this?
Why pulp? Look back at original pulp culture and it included
a huge diversity of styles and genres. And with the rise of e-publishing –
cheap production to a mass market – pulp fiction is back with a bang. Pulp doesn’t
just mean that anything is possible in fiction but that nothing is impossible.
No restrictions. It doesn’t have to
include anything, it’s just that it could
include anything. Basically, pulp is as much about the publishing as the story,
and it means nothing is forbidden.
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Why crime? My definition of crime is pretty loose: crossing
lines. I have a theory about noir, that it is not a genre of crime but a wider genre
of transgression. It might be moral or ethical, personal or social, but it is
the transgression that gets to the core of the story. On the other hand, crime also
includes legal transgressions: heist stories, straight thrillers, pulp
thrillers, gangster stories, Brit grit and a ton of other styles. All are
welcome at Number Thirteen. The net of crime fiction is very, very broad, and as
crime readers have always known and the rest of the world is just catching up
on: it’s the genre that most often (sorry sci-fi fans) mixes high literature
with entertainment. Even when it’s pulpy.
And why novellas? This is where we get to the meat of the matter.
The novella (or short novel: the boundary between the two is rather blurry) was
essential in the development of noir and crime fiction. Think Chandler’s
novellas, combined to novel length. Or They
Shoot Horses Don’t They?, The Postman
Always Rings Twice, and Double
Indemnity; all essential early noir texts and all novellas (around 45,000
words or less). It’s such a perfect length; a novelette is like a long short
story, but a novella is a novel stripped to the essentials, focused entirely
on the core of the narrative.
As publishing developed, novellas became un-economical.
Paperback original hacks (and I use the term lovingly) trained themselves to
write dead on 60,000 words every time, but these days some legacy publishers
will reject a 60,000 word novel on length. Since the 1970s it just isn't
economical and it takes a ballsy press (or someone who isn't in it for the
money) to publish anything under 60k – more common from small literary presses
than genre publishers. At the same time I read books – good books by authors I
really respect – of around 65,000 to 75,000 words, and I think: It’s good. It’s
really good. But it could stand to lose 10%-20%. Novels have been fattened up (beyond
the natural fit for an author’s style) and too many seem excessively bloated as
a result. As Ian McEwan noted recently, few novels earn their length these
days. You couldn’t say that about Gold Medal.
With the rise of e-publishing length becomes no issue. It’s
no longer a choice between short stories and doorstoppers. Publishers like
Blasted Heath, Snubnose Press and New Pulp Press (and plenty more) are doing
great things at shorter lengths, and it’s about time. The novella and short
novels (NTP considers submissions from about 18k to 60k words) have been
neglected for too long.
So I looked around at the new publishing landscape, and I
liked it. Lots of great writing, lots of great writers and stories getting a
chance that they wouldn't have got 20 years ago.
Still.
Nobody was doing exactly what I would do, given the chance.
I waited until everything was exactly right and that didn’t
happen so I went ahead anyway.
And why 13? Well, I
wanted one book per month. To keep the press ticking over constantly, but
without being overwhelmed. To keep readers interested and hopefully coming back
regularly. And what date is convenient each month? Avoiding major holidays like
Christmas, New Year and the 4th of July, in the middle of the month
we have the magic number 13. Memorable, significant. And I remembered David
Goodis’s Black Friday, about Friday
the 13th and how some people carry that kind of luck with them all
the time (as quoted on the Press homepage) and that seemed to be a good
summation of some kinds of noir, my favourite crime genre.
It also gives a cut-off point. After 13 months I may be
losing money, or too busy to continue. I may take a break, or finish, or press
right on with a second list of 13. It gives me the freedom to quit or continue
without pressure. But it also gives me the impetus to see it through to the end
and not fade away as can happen with small internet-based companies.
So, 13 it is. And starting with Michael Young’s Of Blondes and Bullets, a really nice
Goodis-like British novella. The second book will be the rather unique Down Among the Dead, a short novella of
trouble and the Troubles by the fantastically talented Steve Finbow. Coming up
are books in the Nordic noir style and some pure American pulp. I believe in
the quality and worthiness of all these pieces, yet twenty years ago nobody
would have seen them. If they would have been published at all it would be by a
small press in a limited run and they would most likely remain largely unknown.
Today, instead, they are available to everybody. That’s really the point and
why I’m doing this: because in eighty years’ time, people might just look back
on a novella by a Number Thirteen Press author and say, ‘It was like They Shoot Horses...? for a new
century.’
Or maybe not. Either way, at least the authors and I can say
we gave it a shot. Hopefully, along the way, people will read and be
entertained by short, punchy, powerful crime fiction. And that’s worth
something.
Many thanks to Paul for allowing me to share and thanks to
everybody who has supported the Press in its long journey to the beginning.
Chris Black
Of Blondes and Bulletsis out now.
Down Among the Dead is due out on 13th of
December.
There'll be more carryings on down Brit Grit Alley very soon, sorta kinda thing, like.
