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Fredric Brown

kevinburtonsmith

Pseudonyms include Bob Woehlke
(1906-72)

“Somehow, even before I opened that closet door I knew something was waiting for me there. Don’t ask me how I knew; I just did. When you’ve got a major mental warp, you don’t question the minor ones.”
— “Murder In Miniature”

“There are no rules. You can write a story, if you wish, with no conflict, no suspense, no beginning, middle or end. Of course, you have to be regarded as a genius to get away with it, and that’s the hardest part — convincing everybody you’re a genius.”
— Fredric Brown

Murder can be fun, indeed.

According to his wife, Fredric William Brown hated to write. So he did everything he could to avoid it–he’d play his flute, challenge a friend to a game of chess, or tease Ming Tah, his Siamese cat. Plotting was a stickler, too. If Brown had trouble working out a certain story, he would hop on a long bus trip to nowhere and just sit and think and plot for days on end.

But when Brown finally did return home and plant himself in front of the typewriter, Jesus! The man did it all!

Hard-boiled mystery, paradoxical sf, short fantasy, black comedy-and sometimes, all of the above. That’s what makes Brown’s work so damned fun. He crossed genres like a demon, plotted like a madman, and continually stretched the boundaries of any given genre into his own strange, private geography.

Already a family man with a wife and two kids, he was working as a proofreader for various magazines (including The Layman’s Magazine of the Living Church) and as a typesetter for the Milwaukee Journal (and after, supposedly, a stint working for the Pinkerton Detective Agency). It was during this period that Brown started writing, both non-fiction (a regular column about proofreading in The American Printer) and fiction (short mystery stories for pulps such as Street & Smith’s Detective Story, Thrilling Detective and Detective Fiction Weekly). After nearly a decade, wrote The Fabulous Clipjoint, the first of seven hard-boiled novels featuring the nephew/uncle detective team of Ed and Am Hunter. The Edgar Award-winning novel was about young Ed’s quest to solve his drunken father’s murder; the further adventures have the familial duo investigating less personal — yet just as deadly — matters.

However, Brown’s mystery work isn’t limited to the exploits of the Hunters. There’s also The Far Cry, a chilling tale of a loveless marriage, spiritual malaise and an eight-year-old murder. And The Lenient Beast, about a kindly vigilante on a moral murder-spree. And The Screaming Mimi, about an alcoholic reporter’s quest to find a Jack the Ripper-like killer roaming the streets of Chicago. And Madball, and His Name Was Death, and many, many others. (That’s not even mentioning the science fiction Brown wrote, which many people remember him for today.) For a man who loathed the act of sitting his ass in front of a typewriter, he certainly manage to crank out an impressive number of volumes (see list below).

No matter what Brown book you pick up, you can count on two things:

An O. Henry-style twist ending from hell.

Outrageous wordplay. Brown’s shock endings still shock, even forty or fifty years after their creation. (I challenge anybody to out-guess a Brown story before its end. You simply can’t do it, even after years of Hollywood cheapo-shock ’em fare fine-tuning your expectations.) Amazingly, the same goes for his novels — The Far Cry, for instance, packs a 10-alarm firecracker of an ending at the end of a 60,000 word novel. You try that sometime.

As for the second charge, a cursory glance at the titles in any Brown story collection will give you a taste of his pun-ishment of the English language. (“Nothing Sirius,” “Pi in the Sky” and “A Little White Lye” are among his best groaners.)

Brown spent a lot of effort and money on his titles, too. Writes Robert Bloch in his introduction to The Best of Fredric Brown:

“I recall [Fred] once paying ten dollars for the right to use one suggested by a friend for a mystery yarn; the resultant story was called ‘I Love You Cruelly.'” According to longtime friend Walt Sheldon, Brown would construct an entire story from a single, lurid title. “[One] title was ‘I’ll Cut Your Throat Again, Kathleen.’ I had a story to fit this title and he sold me the title for five bucks. When my story was published the editor of the magazine had changed the title to ‘Blood on My Hands.’ Fred gleefully refused to return my five bucks.”

In other words, Fredric Brown was a man who hated to write, but absolutely loved putting words together. It’s a paradox he would have probably enjoyed.

Brown’s work can be difficult to find, but it’s certainly worth the effort. (Someday, some brave, genius publisher — hint, hint! — is going to reissue all of his works in handsome paperback editions à la Jim Thompson.) I’ve collected nearly 2/3 of the Brown oeuvre; and actually, I hope I don’t find the rest all at once. I like to parcel out my Fredric Brown and savor a little bit at a time, like a fine Merlot. And like the best wines, vintage Brown doesn’t lose its flavor. In many ways, Brown was very much a writer of the 1990s, stuck in the thin, professorial body of a writer from the 1950s.

(Actually, in 1984, Dennis McMillan began to publish the ambitious multi-volume Fredric Brown Pulp Detective Series, collecting all the best of his previously-unreprinted work, mostly, but not exclusively, in the crime field, and other publishers have given it a shot, with mixed results – editor)

By the way, even if you’re a hardboiled-type who doesn’t give a rat’s ass for science fiction, you’d probably still like Brown’s weird take on the genre. His sf tales are full of the same mind-blowing paradoxes, clever word plays, and jaw-dropping plot twists that make his mysteries so enjoyable. A great place to start is with What Mad Universe, a wild send-up of every science fiction cliché of the 1940s and 50s. Or, try Nightmares and Geezenstacks (if you can find it), a short but brilliantly-packed collection of Brown’s trademark short-shorts: mind-blowing, paradoxical pulp tales, told in 500 words or less.

BUT THAT’S NOT ALL, FOLKS!

Apparently Brown was also a semi-regular contributor to The Layman’s Magazine of the Living Church, where he worked as a proofreader. In its short run from February 1940 until September 1941, Brown placed five pieces in the magazine put out by the Episcopal Church: a puzzle, a vignette and three short mystery stories, two of which featured “young Doctor Young,” a crime-solving small town reverend (he’s a Doctor of Divinity).

UNDER OATH

NOVELS

SHORT STORIES

COLLECTIONS

FILMS

TELEVISION

COMIC ADAPTATION

BIBLIOGRAPHY

FURTHER INVESTIGATION

Respectfully submitted by Duane Swierczynski. Additional bibliographic information by Kevin Burton Smith (I know, I know). Special thanks to Damien for pointing out why everyone needs an editor, and to Darrell Kastin for the word to the wise.

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