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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.
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.
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 ...
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:
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
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.
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.
Books I own are marked in bold:
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Stories:
- Guys and Dolls (1931)
- Blue Plate Special (1934)
- Money From Home (1935)
- More Than Somewhat (1937)
-
Introduction by E.C. Bentley
- Breach of Promise
- Romance in the Roaring Forties
- Dream Street Rose
- The Old Doll's House
- Blood Pressure
- The Bloodhounds of Broadway
- Tobias the Terrible
- The Snatching of Bookie Bob
- The Lily of St. Pierre
- Hold 'em, Yale
- Earthquake
- 'Gentlemen, the King!'
- A Nice Price
- Broadway Financier
- The Brain Goes Home
- Included in: Runyon on Broadway. 1937, 1938, 1938 & 1950. London: Constable and Company Ltd., 1957.
- Furthermore (1938)
-
introduction by E.C. Bentley
- Madame La Gimp
- Dancing Dan's Christmas
- Sense of Humour
- Lillian
- Little Miss Marker
- Pick the Winner
- Undertaker Song
- Butch Minds the Baby
- The Hottest Guy in the World
- The Lemon Drop Kid
- What, No Butler?
- The Three Wise Guys
- A Very Honourable Guy
- Princess O'Hara
- Social Error
- Included in: Runyon on Broadway. 1937, 1938, 1938 & 1950. London: Constable and Company Ltd., 1957.
- Take It Easy (1938)
- Tight Shoes
- Lonely Heart
- The Brakeman's Daughter
- Cemetery Bait
- It Comes Up Mud
- The Big Umbrella
- For a Pal
- Big Shoulders
- That Ever-Loving Wife of Hymie's
- Neat Strip
- Bred for Battle
- Too Much Pep
- Baseball Hattie
- Situation Wanted
- A Piece of Pie
- A Job for the Macarone
- 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.
- My Wife Ethel (1939)
- Included in: "The Turps". London: Constable and Company Ltd., 1951.
- My Old Man (1939)
- The Best of Runyon (1940)
- Damon Runyon Favorites (1942)
- 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.
- The Damon Runyon Omnibus (1944)
- In Our Town (1946)
- Our Old Man [aka On Good Turns]
- Samuel Graze
- Pete Hankins
- Jeremiah Zore
- Mrs. Judson
- The Happiness Joneses
- Mrs. McGregor
- Doc Brackett
- Officer Lipscomber
- Marigold and Maidie So
- Sterling Curlew
- Doc Mindler
- Mrs. Pilplay
- Sheriff Harding
- Boswell Van Dusen
- Dr. Davenport
- Mrs. Bogane
- Sam Crable
- Ancil Toombs
- Amy Vederman
- Peter Chowles
- Judge Juggins
- Banker Beaverbrook
- Judge Joes
- Angel Kake
- Bet Ragle
- Hank Smith
- The Three Wise Guys and Other Stories (1946)
- Damon Runyon Favorites (1946)
- Trials and Other Tribulations (1947)
- 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.
- 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.
- More Guys and Dolls (1950)
- Maybe a Queen
- Leopard's Spots
- Joe Terrace
- The Turps (1951)
- "The Turps". Drawings by Josef and Lieutenant-Colonel Frank Wilson. London: Constable and Company Ltd., 1951.
- Runyon from First to Last (1954)
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The First Stories:
- The Defence of Strikerville
- Fat Fallon
- Two Men Named Collins
- As Between Friends
- The Informal Execution of Soupbone Pew
- My Father Stories à la Carte:
- Money from Home
- A Story Goes With It
- Broadway Complex
- So You Won't Talk!
- Dark Dolores
- Delegates at Large
- A Light in France
- Old Em's Kentucky Home
- Johnny One-Eye
- Broadway Incident
- The Idyll of Miss Sarah Brown
- The Melancholy Dane
- Barbecue
- Little Pinks
- Palm Beach Santa Claus
- Cleo
- The Lacework Kid The Last Stories:
- Blonde Mink
- Big Boy Blues Written in Sickness:
- Why Me?
- The Doctor Knows Best
- No Life
- Good Night
- Bed-Warmers
- Sweet Dreams
- Passing the Word Along
- 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.
- A Treasury of Damon Runyon (1958)
- The Bloodhounds of Broadway and Other Stories (1985)
- Romance in the Roaring Forties and other Stories (1986)
- On Broadway (1990)
- Guys, Dolls, and Curveballs: Damon Runyon on Baseball. Ed. Jim Reisler (2005)
- Guys and Dolls and Other Writings. Introduction by Pete Hamill (2008)
- The Art of High Grading. Illustrated Sunday Magazine (January 2, 1910)
- The Sucker. San Francisco Examiner (July 10, 1910)
- Burge McCall. Collier's (July 11, 1936)
- Lou Louder. Collier's (August 8, 1936)
- Nothing Happens in Brooklyn. Collier's (April 30, 1938)
- Short Takes (1946)
- The Tents of Trouble (1911)
- Rhymes of the Firing Line (1912)
- Poems for Men (1947)
- Poems for Men. 1947. Permabooks Edition. New York: Duell, Sloane & Pearce, Inc., Inc., 1951.
- [with Howard Lindsay] A Slight Case of Murder (1940)
- [with W. Kiernan] Capt. Eddie Rickenbacker (1942)
- Breslin, Jimmy. Damon Runyon: A Life. 1991. A Laurel Trade Paperback. New York: Dell Publishing, 1992.
Uncollected stories:
Collected columns:
Poetry:
Plays:
Biography:
Secondary:
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- category - American Fiction: Authors