Acquisitions (107): Damon Runyon

Jimmy Breslin: Damon Runyon: A Life (1991)

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Jimmy Breslin (1928-2017)

Jimmy Breslin: Damon Runyon: A Life (1991)
[Habitat ReStore North Shore, Wairau Park - 8/4/24]:

Jimmy Breslin. Damon Runyon: A Life. 1991. A Laurel Trade Paperback. New York: Dell Publishing, 1992.

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Damon Runyon: Runyon on Broadway: A Runyon Omnibus (1950)

Runyon on Broadway

I remember buying a very battered old copy of the book above, Runyon on Broadway, at a school library sale when I was still in my teens. I made various attempts to read it, and must have worked my way through Don Iddon's introduction plenty of times. Somehow I always bogged down when I got to the stories, though.

Damon Runyon: Guys and Dolls (1931)

My father had an old paperback copy of Guys and Dolls, the book that started the whole Runyon phenomenon. I didn't read that, either.

What was my surprise, then, when I picked up the book the other day and found it not only easy to read but also extremely entertaining! After fifty-odd years of staring out at me reproachfully from the shelves, the value of of this volume I shelled out a few cents for has been vindicated at last ...

Damon Runyon: From First to Last (1931)

Being an incorrigible completist, I'd picked up a copy of the second Runyon omnibus, Runyon from First to Last, at some point along the way. That, too, is now coming into its own.

So who is this Damon Runyon, and what exactly is his claim to fame? It all rests on three fairly simple innovations, really:

1. Telling his stories entirely in the present tense, with no shifts into past, past continuous, past historic, or any of the other problematic areas of English grammar.
2. Giving his characters simple, easy-to-remember sobriquets such as "Harry the Horse" or "Madame la Gyp", while keeping his central narrator-persona completely anonymous.
3. Applying the tried-and-true O. Henry formula - the surprise last line capping each carefully crafted narrative - to the distinctly unappetising world of the murderous hoodlums and petty grifters who (allegedly) infested New York during the Prohibition era.

Much debate has gone on over whether these really are innovations. It's been claimed that De Quincey employed present tense for narrative effect long before Runyon. It's difficult, however, to see many other obvious resemblances between the two writers - apart from a morbid preoccupation with the gorier details of violent crime, that is. But then the same could be said of most detective novelists.

The use of the name-epithet, too, can be traced back to Homeric epic ("swift-footed Achilles", "fair-cheeked Briseis", "Hector tamer of horses"), but the blind bard seems too distant in both time and gravitas to pose any serious threat to Runyon's originality there.

As a hugely successful and widely syndicated newspaper reporter, Runyon certainly knew what he was talking about when it came to raceside and ringside scams. His deeper knowledge of gangsters may be questioned, but then the sentimental nature of many of his stories doesn't really accord very well with the realities of the world of Al Capone and Lucky Luciano, either.

It's certainly a fantasy world his stories take place in: a setting every bit as unbelievable as the Drones Club or Blandings Castle of P. G. Wodehouse. As with Wodehouse, though - a writer to whom he bears a distinct resemblance both in creative ingenuity and narrative skill - it's a fantasy world we want to believe in.

Jimmy Breslin: Essential Writings (Library of America, 2024)

What, then, of Jimmy Breslin? If it weren't for the recent publication of the library of America anthology pictured above, I'm afraid I might never have heard of him. And yet he seems to have been, in his day, one of the most celebrated (or notorious) newspaper columnists and media personalities in the United States.

I picked up his biography of Runyon for fifty cents in a throwout bin, so it seems that both of them have been similarly devalued by the march of time. It's certainly rather an odd book. He seems more interested in outdoing Runyon as a storyteller than chronicling his life and times.

The result is definitely very readable - if a trifle mannered at times. I don't know how reliable a source it is for matters of detail, but I certainly felt that I had a far better grasp of the realities of American life in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries after reading it.

For the rest, all I can really advise is that you give Runyon a try. Runyon on Broadway has most of his really good stories in it (Runyon First to Last is more of a grab-bag): any one of the many selections listed below will give you the flavour of his writing, though.

It's probably an acquired taste, but - once you've acquired it - more than somewhat satisfying.

Joseph L. Mankiewicz, dir.: Guys and Dolls (1955)

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Damon Runyon

Alfred Damon Runyan
['Damon Runyon']
(1880-1946)

Books I own are marked in bold:

Stories:


1. Guys and Dolls (1931)
2. Blue Plate Special (1934)
3. Money From Home (1935)
4. More Than Somewhat (1937)
   Introduction by E.C. Bentley
   1. Breach of Promise
   2. Romance in the Roaring Forties
   3. Dream Street Rose
   4. The Old Doll's House
   5. Blood Pressure
   6. The Bloodhounds of Broadway
   7. Tobias the Terrible
   8. The Snatching of Bookie Bob
   9. The Lily of St. Pierre
   10. Hold 'em, Yale
   11. Earthquake
   12. 'Gentlemen, the King!'
   13. A Nice Price
   14. Broadway Financier
   15. The Brain Goes Home
   • Included in: Runyon on Broadway. 1937, 1938, 1938 & 1950. London: Constable and Company Ltd., 1957.
5. Furthermore (1938)
   introduction by E.C. Bentley
   1. Madame La Gimp
   2. Dancing Dan's Christmas
   3. Sense of Humour
   4. Lillian
   5. Little Miss Marker
   6. Pick the Winner
   7. Undertaker Song
   8. Butch Minds the Baby
   9. The Hottest Guy in the World
   10. The Lemon Drop Kid
   11. What, No Butler?
   12. The Three Wise Guys
   13. A Very Honourable Guy
   14. Princess O'Hara
   15. Social Error
   • Included in: Runyon on Broadway. 1937, 1938, 1938 & 1950. London: Constable and Company Ltd., 1957.
6. Take It Easy (1938)
   1. Tight Shoes
   2. Lonely Heart
   3. The Brakeman's Daughter
   4. Cemetery Bait
   5. It Comes Up Mud
   6. The Big Umbrella
   7. For a Pal
   8. Big Shoulders
   9. That Ever-Loving Wife of Hymie's
   10. Neat Strip
   11. Bred for Battle
   12. Too Much Pep
   13. Baseball Hattie
   14. Situation Wanted
   15. A Piece of Pie
   16. A Job for the Macarone
   17. All Horse Players Die Broke
   • Included in: Runyon on Broadway. 1937, 1938, 1938 & 1950. Introduction by E. C. Bentley. Memoir by Don Iddon. London: Constable and Company Ltd., 1957.
7. My Wife Ethel (1939)
   • Included in: "The Turps". London: Constable and Company Ltd., 1951.
8. My Old Man (1939)
9. The Best of Runyon (1940)
10. Damon Runyon Favorites (1942)
11. Runyon à la Carte (1944)
    • Included in: Runyon from First to Last: A Second Runyon Omnibus 1947, 1948 & 1950. London: Constable and Company Ltd., 1954.
12. The Damon Runyon Omnibus (1944)
13. In Our Town (1946)
    1. Our Old Man [aka On Good Turns]
    2. Samuel Graze
    3. Pete Hankins
    4. Jeremiah Zore
    5. Mrs. Judson
    6. The Happiness Joneses
    7. Mrs. McGregor
    8. Doc Brackett
    9. Officer Lipscomber
    10. Marigold and Maidie So
    11. Sterling Curlew
    12. Doc Mindler
    13. Mrs. Pilplay
    14. Sheriff Harding
    15. Boswell Van Dusen
    16. Dr. Davenport
    17. Mrs. Bogane
    18. Sam Crable
    19. Ancil Toombs
    20. Amy Vederman
    21. Peter Chowles
    22. Judge Juggins
    23. Banker Beaverbrook
    24. Judge Joes
    25. Angel Kake
    26. Bet Ragle
    27. Hank Smith
14. The Three Wise Guys and Other Stories (1946)
15. Damon Runyon Favorites (1946)
16. Trials and Other Tribulations (1947)
17. Runyon First and Last (1949)
    • Included in: Runyon from First to Last: A Second Runyon Omnibus 1947, 1948 & 1950. London: Constable and Company Ltd., 1954.
18. Runyon on Broadway (1950)
    • Runyon on Broadway: Omnibus Volume Containing All the Stories from More Than Somewhat; Furthermore; Take It Easy. With a Memoir by Don Iddon. 1937, 1938, 1938 & 1950. London: Constable and Company Ltd., 1957.
19. More Guys and Dolls (1950)
    1. Maybe a Queen
    2. Leopard's Spots
    3. Joe Terrace
20. The Turps (1951)
    • "The Turps". Drawings by Josef and Lieutenant-Colonel Frank Wilson. London: Constable and Company Ltd., 1951.
21. Runyon from First to Last (1954)
    The First Stories:
    1. The Defence of Strikerville
    2. Fat Fallon
    3. Two Men Named Collins
    4. As Between Friends
    5. The Informal Execution of Soupbone Pew
    6. My Father
    Stories à la Carte:
    7. Money from Home
    8. A Story Goes With It
    9. Broadway Complex
    10. So You Won't Talk!
    11. Dark Dolores
    12. Delegates at Large
    13. A Light in France
    14. Old Em's Kentucky Home
    15. Johnny One-Eye
    16. Broadway Incident
    17. The Idyll of Miss Sarah Brown
    18. The Melancholy Dane
    19. Barbecue
    20. Little Pinks
    21. Palm Beach Santa Claus
    22. Cleo
    23. The Lacework Kid
    The Last Stories:
    24. Blonde Mink
    25. Big Boy Blues
    Written in Sickness:
    26. Why Me?
    27. The Doctor Knows Best
    28. No Life
    29. Good Night
    30. Bed-Warmers
    31. Sweet Dreams
    32. Passing the Word Along
    33. Death Pays a Social Call
    • Runyon from First to Last: A Second Runyon Omnibus: Containing All the Stories Written by Damon Runyon and Not Included in “Runyon on Broadway.” 1947, 1948 & 1950. London: Constable and Company Ltd., 1954.
22. A Treasury of Damon Runyon (1958)
23. The Bloodhounds of Broadway and Other Stories (1985)
24. Romance in the Roaring Forties and other Stories (1986)
25. On Broadway (1990)
26. Guys, Dolls, and Curveballs: Damon Runyon on Baseball. Ed. Jim Reisler (2005)
27. Guys and Dolls and Other Writings. Introduction by Pete Hamill (2008)

Uncollected stories:


28. The Art of High Grading. Illustrated Sunday Magazine (January 2, 1910)
29. The Sucker. San Francisco Examiner (July 10, 1910)
30. Burge McCall. Collier's (July 11, 1936)
31. Lou Louder. Collier's (August 8, 1936)
32. Nothing Happens in Brooklyn. Collier's (April 30, 1938)

Collected columns:


33. Short Takes (1946)

Poetry:


34. The Tents of Trouble (1911)
35. Rhymes of the Firing Line (1912)
36. Poems for Men (1947)
    • Poems for Men. 1947. Permabooks Edition. New York: Duell, Sloane & Pearce, Inc., Inc., 1951.

Plays:


37. [with Howard Lindsay] A Slight Case of Murder (1940)

Biography:


38. [with W. Kiernan] Capt. Eddie Rickenbacker (1942)

Secondary:


39. Breslin, Jimmy. Damon Runyon: A Life. 1991. A Laurel Trade Paperback. New York: Dell Publishing, 1992.

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• category - American Fiction: Authors

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