Obsession - La lune dans le caniveau - La blonde au coin de la rue - Descente aux enfers - Beauté bleue

Finding David Goodis by Louis Boxer

A year and a half ago, I had never heard of David Goodis.

A year and half later, I have been to his house at 6305 North 11th Street, I have gone through years of his meticulously kept tax returns, and I have been to his grave site.

I have seen his movies. I have read his books. I have read essays, critical studies, and just about everything about him.

I have talked to anybody and everybody about him from all over the world.

I have met with his family. I have met with his friends. I have met with his admirers.

In the process of discovering who David Goodis was, I have learned that he was a man of great complexity.
As Philippe Garnier (whose seminal work Goodis, La Vie En Noir Et Blanc [Goodis: Life in Black And White] 1984 which remains to be translated from the French) told me when I first began this quest, “Don't delude yourself: you'll never know what made him tick. I don't. Sallis don't know. Nobody knows that much.” He was right.

Illness has prevented me from answering your letter of July 15. I am going through a labyrinth of neurological difficulties which make it impossible fore me to grant your request for an interview.

However, if it will be of any help, I offer the following--I'm 49, and my first novel was published when I was 22. It was nothing and the same applies to most of the 16 others published since then. . . .

At first, I wanted to write very solemnly and handle only the important issues. But of course the most important issue of all is putting food in one's belly and in order to do, that I deviated from the track most of the time and complied with the wishes of various editors and publishers. I admit this was weakness. I should have taken a job digging ditches, and because I was too lazy to do that, I threw away a lot of valuable time, especially in Hollywood, although I must say I had a lot of fun in Hollywood.

First Lines: David Goodis
By Cullen Gallagher

Invariably, whenever I start a David Goodis novel I have to set it aside and let the first sentence sink in and slowly drag me down, down, always down. It only takes a few words for Goodis to fully transport you into his gloomy world of gutters, alleys and dives. His novels are the incessant thoughts of 3AM, when its too late to sleep and too early to rise, when you stumble through backlogs of regret and disappointment; that solitary time when you can’t be anything but honest with yourself, even when you don’t like what you have to say.

C'était une ruelle sombre, avec la lune qui l'éclairait en éclaboussant de sa lumière des taches de sang séché.