Harry Whittington: The Last of His Kind

The days of the hard-working pulp writer might be over, but the image of someone

sitting behind a typewriter, tobacco-stained fingers hammering out stories for which he or

she is paid by the word, is still a romantic one. These days fiction writers are lucky if their

work nets them anything approaching minimum wage, while only a fraction can be said to

make a decent living from their writing. Nevertheless, back before the internet, when

television was in its infancy, before the decline of national newspapers and the

corporatisation of publishing, when paper was cheap and there was still a functioning

working class, writers willing to do the hard graft could sustain themselves in a world of

pulp magazines and cheap paperback houses.

Perhaps thats an exaggeration. Because even then only a select few were able to

succeed in that world. Harry Whittington was certainly one of them. Over the course of

four decades, he made a living churning out hardboiled crime stories, mysteries, westerns,

soft-core porn, southern historical novels and soap operas. He could do this because he

was well-versed in the market and how to write for it. From reading the likes of Hammett,

Chandler and Cain, he realized early on the importance of both plot and those who inhabit

the plot. Perhaps he sensed that its the plot that turns the pages, but its the characters

who leave a lasting impression. Which is as true for Chandlers The Big Sleep, Hammetts

Red Harvest, or Whittington novels like Web of Murder, Strange Bargain or Any Woman

He Wanted.

Whittington- not the Harry Whittington wounded by former VP Cheney in that

famous quail-hunting incident, though that Whittington and the incident could have come

straight from one of writer-Whittingtons novels- was the last of his kind. From the early

1950s to the mid-1980s he might have been the hardest working writers in Noirville,

racking-up some 180 novels. In churning out his high-octane books, he deployed over
twenty noms-des-plumes: Whit Harrison (for suspense and westerns), Clay Stuart

(southern novels), Steve Philips (police procedurals), Hondo Wells (westerns), Tabor

Evans (westerns), Harriet Kathryn Myers (nurse romances), Hallam Whitney (southern

novels), Ashley Carter (southern historical- Falconhurst series), Harry White (westerns),

as well as Howard Winslow, Henry Whittier, Curt Colman, John Dexter, Kel Holland, Blaine

Stevens and Suzanne Stephens. Whittington novels like The Devil Wears Wings, Fires

That Destroy, A Moment to Prey and A Ticket to Hell are tense affairs, with knuckle-

crunching dialogue. But even though companies like Black Lizard, Stark House and 280

Steps have reprinted several of his best novels, Whittington has never achieved the same

status as Hammett or Cain, nor gained the same cult following as Thompson and Goodis.

Born in Ocala, Florida on February 4th, 1916, Whittington, at an early age, fell in

love with literature, particularly writers like Dostoyevsky, Gorky, Maupassant, Balzac,

Flaubert, Balzac, Dumas, Anatole France, who wrote about the world as they saw it, and

knew how to create complex narratives that could twist and turn in any direction. Its ironic

that Whittington, given his love for these more literary types, would opt for non-literary

pulp fiction. But Whittington, desperate to make writing his life, was willing to take his

accolades and paychecks wherever he could get them. This after putting in more than a

decade in the straight world, in a St Petersburg publicity agency, as an assistant manager

of the towns Capital Theater, followed by stints in the post office, and as the editor-in-chief

of periodicals like The Advocate.

No overnight success, Whittington set his sights on the paperback and pulp

magazine market. Unable to find a publisher for his first novel, The World Before Us, he

turned to westerns, publishing Vengeance Valley in 1944. No doubt he would have loved

to have been a Dostoyevsky or Balzac, and maybe, in a way, he was. At least in so far as

they wrote for a living and knew the importance of simply telling a good story. And, even

though he hoped to be the next Scott Fitzgerald with a touch of Maugham, the more
Whittington moved in the direction of pulp fiction, the more he would come to respect

others who wrote for that market. In his essay, I Remember It Well, which prefaces the

Black Lizard reprints of his work, he cites Day Keene, Gil Brewer, Talmage Powell and

Fred Davis, who also wrote by the word, putting in eight to ten hours a day in to make a

living during those final dog-days of pulp magazines. To illustrate the competitive

camaraderie amongst those writers: Whittington claimed hed taught Brewer and Keene

everything they knew about writing; meanwhile Brewer claimed hed taught Whittington as

well as Keene everything they knew about writing, only to be contradicted by Keene who

claimed he had taught both Brewer and Whittington everything they knew about writing.

Probably they had all influenced each other. Regardless, the onset of the paperback

original meant it was no longer a matter of getting paid by the word. Thanks to the

exigencies of publishing, one now had to work to contract, which, of course, meant less

autonomy for the likes of Whittington.

It was was a hard road to travel, but a road nevertheless. As Whittington said half-

jokingly in I Remember It Well, he hadnt realized when he began publishing in the late

1940s that most successful writers in America were either college professors, ad men,

reporters, lawyers, dog catchers or politicians. Not entirely true, but his point is well taken.

Many successful writers had other jobs and, unlike Whittington, didnt have to meet the

demands entailed in scratching for a living. Naive he might have been, but nothing was

going to hold Whittington back. Consequently, he quit his job to be a full-time working

writer. Still it would be seven years before he sold his first story, to United Features in

1943 for $15. It would still be another five years before he could sell stories on a regular

basis.

According to Whittington, he might never have entertained the notion of writing

crime and suspense stories had he not attended a 1949 writers conference in Chicago,

where he was told by an editor that these were the very stories publishers were looking for.
On the bus journey back to Florida, hemmed against a window by an overweight woman,

Whittington plotted his first crime story. He claims he arrived home on a Monday, wrote the

story that night, posted it on Tuesday, and by Friday had a check for $250 from King

Features, a long-standing Hearst outlet. Fanciful or not, it illustrates Whittingtons writing

speed and methodology, while indicating the kind of money that could be made from

writing pulp fiction.

Whittington, who would write 30 novelettes for King, dove headlong into the beast

that was the burgeoning paperback market. Companies like Fawcett, who paid writers

not by royalty but on print order. Foreign, movie and TV rights stayed with the author.

They were insane. It was a business model that seemed to work, at least for the likes of

Whittington and Brewer. No matter that they drove themselves into the ground trying to fit

into that system, which had the potential of paying well, however much it curtailed their

options. Of course, there was a price to be paid for their servitude. To deal with the

pressure entailed in churning-out books, working to deadlines, scrounging for contracts,

and making promises that were difficult to keep, some would turn to alcohol or pills. I dont

know if Whittington, who certainly liked to portray alcoholics in his fiction, was as much of a

drinker as Brewer or Thompson, but if so, it would have been understandable.

Most likely more workaholic than alcoholic, it took Whittington, by his own

admission, thirteen years to master the art of creating a compelling narrative. But once he

did, he would immodestly say, I could plot, baby. I could plot. More importantly, he could

also now sell practically anything he wrote, and live well off the proceeds. Believing that

not planning a novel was unprofessional, he admitted to having a range of experiences

and knowledge of various locales that fit the sort of writing he was doing. Though he

wanted to make the reader feel what his characters felt, he had the wherewithal to move

outside his own experiences, that it wasnt simply a case of writing about what one knows.

As he said, you dont have to die in a fire to write about arson.

 Whittingtons success eventually led to Hollywood. However, he had problems

adapting to the studio system. After all, Whittington had always worked on his own, while

in Hollywood he was expected to be part of a team. Even so, his treatment for Trouble

Rides Tall with Gary Cooper became a TV series, The Lawman. While IMDB lists ten film

credits associated with his name: from the short The Wonderful World of Tupperware

(1959) to TV work on Lawman, The Alaskans, Cheyenne, The Dakotas; and films like

Desire In the Dust (1960, based on his novel), Black Gold (1962, based on his story),

Adios Gringo (1965, based on his novel Adios), Fireball (1969), Dead in the Water (1991,

based on his novel Web of Murder). Undeterred, Whittington returned to Florida where he

wrote, produced and directed The Face of the Phantom, a horror movie no distributor

wanted to take on. For the next eight years, Whittington wrote a number of scripts, but

couldnt sell any of them.

The 1960s proved to be Whittingtons most prolific decade. His largest flurry of

novels began in 1964 after he was contracted to produce a 60,000 word novel, for which

he was paid $1000. According to Whittington, he handed in a novel per month for the next

39 months. Those 39 novels have been referred to as Whittingtons lost novels, because

they have been difficult to track down. Published under various pseudonyms, most were

adult-themed narratives (thanks to Whittington aficionado David Laurence Wilson, pretty

much all of these books have now been accounted for). Around this time he was also

contacted to write a series of tie-in novels based on The Man From Uncle under the name

Robert Hart-Davis, for which he was paid $1500. Not surprisingly, Whittington ended up

mentally and physically exhausted. Burnt out, he quit writing and found employment with

the Department of Agriculture. Though even during his eight year tenure with the

Department he managed to churn out the odd novel. Eventually, Whittington, thanks to his

wife, located a new agent who, after suggesting he change to writing name to Ashley

Carter, negotiated contracts for some eighteen antebellum plantation novels featuring
Falconhurst, a series begun by Kyle Onstott and, then, Lance Horner, as well as at least

seven in the Blackoaks series, about a Mandingo slave, and six Longarm westerns under

the name Tabor Evans.

Despite his output, Whittington was smart enough to sometimes stand back to let

his material crystallize on its own. For example, having signed a contract with Fawcett in

1952 to write a novel for which he received a $1000 advance, Whittington produced My

Bloody Hands, about a crooked cop fed up with the corruption around him, including his

own. However, he and his editors knew the novel wasnt quite right, so Fawcett told him to

keep the advance and work on something else. Four years later, while visiting a prison

with a friend who was interviewing an inmate for True Detective, Whittington, noting his

surroundings, realized the protagonist of My Bloody Hands shouldnt be a corrupt cop but

a citizen on the take and content to keep on doing so. So he went home, changed the

title, and, over the next month, finished the novel, which included an opening set in a

similar prison. Consequently, he would say he was never sure if Forgive Me Killer took one

month or four years to write. As for his usual working process, Whittington normally started

with the climax, crisis or denouement and worked backwards, teasing and terrifying the

reader, while establishing the plot that would unlock the story. Consequently, the novels

shape would dictate its effect. Whittington liked to quote Spillane: The first page sells the

book being read, the last page sells the one youre writing.

For someone so intensely involved in the writing process, Whittingtons work,

despite dubious portrayals of women, could be oddly political. As he once said, Not one

of my heroes is ever permitted, by his own disenchanted sanity, to believe in the sanity of

the social order around him. Regardless of how dangerous their situation, Whittingtons

protagonists have only themselves to rely upon, and their true selves cannot help but be

revealed. Faced with that moment of truth, Whittingtons libertarian heroes [Cannot] put
on a happy face. He is pushed to the place where he can trust only himself, even when he

recognizes the impossible odds he faces.

Like many other noirists, Whittington would find greater favor in France. Though,

come the 1980s, with no new Whittington novels in sight, pundits there were beginning to

think he had ascended to noir heaven, his death unnoticed by unappreciative Americans.

Meanwhile, French periodicals like 813 and Magazine Litteraire were celebrating him, the

latter calling him a master of the roman noir, and the best of the second generation of

crime writers. Of course, Whittington was no stranger to French crime readers, with

numerous novels published by Gallimards Serie Noire, beginning with Youll Die Next

(Carr Noir) in 1954, followed by the likes of Hell Can Wait, published in 1956, four years

before it appeared in the U.S., and The Humming Box in 1957. And from 1951 onwards,

French magazines Le Fantome and Verrou had been publishing translations of his stories.

Rafael Sorin in Le Monde compares him to Goodis, Tracy and Gault, adding , Even the

most minor of Whittingtons earliest narratives reread today does not fail to charm.

Whittington, who acknowledges the influences of Cain, Frederic Davis and Day Keene is

the most violent writer of this genre. His tomb of death can be the appliance freezer,

alligators, mosquitoes carrying fatal virus. But his worst enemy is la femme. She who kills

for money and devours those who succumb to her charms.

But Whittington also had his American admirers. Anthony Boucher- writing in the

New York Times of Youll Die Next: I couldnt have held my breath any longer in this

vigorous tale whose plot is too dexterously twisted even to mention in a review.- and the

eccentric suspense writer Harry Stephen Keeler, who said, Whittington is only writer I

know who can make a sex scene last six pages without ever going out of bounds. But it

would only be in the 1980s, thanks to Black Lizard, that his novels Forgive Me, Killer, The

Devil Wears Wings, Fires That Destroy, A Moment to Prey, A Ticket to Hell and Web of

Murder were reprinted, that Whittington would be rehabilitated for a new readership. While
articles acknowledging his influence and the quality of his work began to appear in

magazines like The West Coast Review of Books, Twentieth Century Crime and Suspense

Writers, Twentieth Century Western Writers.

Given todays market, its doubtful anyone, no matter how committed, could repeat

Whittingtons accomplishments. Whether in terms of output or the quality of what

Whittington, on the top of his game, could produce. Today, despite the internet, there arent

the same outlets and few if any that can pay the same rates, if at all. Likewise, theres

considerably less money to spend on writers unconnected to corporate publishers.

Consequently, few, given the choice or chance, would seek to travel down that road. Even

back in the 1980s Whittington, reflecting on his most prolific years, maintained there were

fewer than 500 people in the U.S. make their living from full-time freelance writing, which

made him, since 1948, one of fortunes 500. Though he described writing as a blast, he

admitted there was a downside, saying, With all the fallout, fragmentation, frustration and

free-falls known to man, Ive careened around on heights I never dreamed of, and

simmered in pits I wouldnt wish on my worst enemy, and survived.

With these recent reprints and laudatory words, Whittington, who died in 1989 at

age 74, might yet receive the recognition he clearly deserves. As hardboiled pundit Bill

Crider said about Whittingtons A Night For Screaming, he could begin with a tense

situation and then dial up the tension on every succeeding page. He can put his

protagonist into a situation that seems as bad as it can get, and then he can make it

worse. And after that, he can make it worse still. So welcome to Whittingtons world, as

psychologically gripping and off-kilter as Jim Thompson or David Goodis, and, plot-wise,

as unrelenting as James M. Cain. And even though he never did become the next

Fitzgerald, when it came to hardboiled noir, Whittington, at his best, was as good as

anyone and far better than most.