Hank McPherrar, pulp writer: noviembre 2015

jueves, 5 de noviembre de 2015

THE BIRTH OF OUR FAVORITE PRIVATE EYE

"My name is Ross Underwood and get into problems is my business.
Problems, yeah.
Problems have been the only sign of continuity in my life. They come wherever I go and whatever I tryed to do. So I ended up turning them into my job. A good job, some might say. A bad one, anothers. It's what I do, anyway. And I've been at this so long, that I do not know anything else to do.
I tried, believe me, but it was useless."
(First lines of And Probably No One Left, 1947)

HANK BIO

Henry Edward McPherrar (New Jersey, May 25^th of 1910 – Mexico City, August 6^th of 1975) best know as Hank McPherrar, was a North American writer. He also signed his works as Ed McPherrar and as H.E. McPherrar

Towards the end of the 1920s he starts a short and erratic career as a pugilist and performs a few jobs for the second line of the mafia. In 1935 he worked as a chronicler of happenings and boxing for sensationalist newspapers such as the New Street Journal and the San Diego Sun while at the same time sending short stories to pulp magazines like Dime Detective, Black Mask, .44 Western, Wild West Week and Astounding Stories.

At the end of the 30s he stops writing –or at least publishing– and he moves to Mexico, presumably to escape being drafted for WWII, where he stays until 1946. Little is known of those years but he would return regularly to Mexico until his death.

Upon his return to the United States he goes to live in San Francisco and writes cheap novels of the science fiction, western and, most of all, hardboiled thriller. Especially the detective series featuring Ross Underwood. For the next 3 decades he would write 3 to 4 novels a year.

He also worked as a screenwriter in Hollywood but his constant alcohol problems impeded him from developing much of a carreer there. However he was the dialogue writer for some movies of Sam Fuller, Sam Pekinpah and Peter Bogdanovich.

His novel “And Probably No One Left” sold thousand of copies and was a finalist for the 1947 Booker Award, even though he still would never become a hardback novelist.

He died in a confusing stabbing incident in a bar called “El Jarrito” in Mexico City, which has a drink, the Hanky-Yankee, made with a base of mezcal, beer and lemon, to remember him.