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Day Keene

kevinburtonsmith

Pseudonym of Gunnar Hjerstedt
Other pseudonyms include Lewis Dixon, Alvin F. Hunter, William Richards, Clark Nelson, Daniel White, John Corbett & Donald King
(1904-1969)

“Keene is a natural storyteller; he keeps things moving right along, and no reader is likely to bored.”
— Bill Crider in 1001 Midnights

“Even in his minor books, you can see a fine wry intelligence at work… he was a very good writer.”
— Ed Gorman

Day Keene was born Gunnar Hjerstedt in Chicago in 1904, half-Swedish and half-Irish, and 100 per cent writer, moving seemingly effortlessly from market to market. After an initial burst of success in the pulps, he switched writing for radio in the thirties, moved back to the pulps in the forties, and became a familiar sight on the paperback racks of the fifties. he never quite reached the lofty, bestselling ranks of, say, John D. MacDonald, but he came awful close at times, comfortably ensconced alongside fellow paperback warriors as Wade Miller,  Bruno Fischer, Harry Whittington, Charles Williams, and Gil Brewer.

Hjerstedt started out as an actor in the twenties, doing mostly repertory work, which is where he eventually became friends with fellow actors Melvyn Douglas and Barton MacLane. But he also wanted to write, and according to legend, he flipped a coin. He first tried his hand at writing short stories in the early 1930s. He only sold a few crime and detective tales, mostly to Detective Fiction Weekly, and a couple of the stories he did sell featured the Chicago detective agency of McPherson, McCreedy and McCoy. The stories were all published under his own name, but he soon abandoned the pulps for the far more lucrative world of radio.

By the mid-thirties, he was writing regularly providing scripts for such shows as Little Orphan Annie, The First Nighter (1935-1937), Behind the Camera Lines (1936) and perhaps most notably, Kitty Keene, Inc. (1937-41), a soap opera about a female private eye, which had a pretty decent run.

But after nearly ten years in RadioLand, Hjerstedt returned to the printed word, this time as “Day Keene”, an adaptation of his mother’s name, Daisy Keeney and not–as some have assumed– because of his work on Kitty Keene, Inc.

Once again, he targeted the crime and detective pulps, and soon proved he could handle the sex stuff and tough stuff as well as anyone.  But his wry wit and sly humour–not to mention his talent for creating three-dimensional and often flawed male characters–made him stand out in a field dominated by one-dimensional slabs of beef. Keene’s short fiction appeared regularly in such magazines as Black Mask, Ace G-Man Stories, Short Stories, Detective Tales, Dime Mystery and Manhunt, frequently as receiving top billing. For the next dozen years or so, Keene would seemingly have at least one story, and often two or three, appearing every month somewhere.

But change was in the wind, and once again, Keene, recently relocated to Florida, moved on professionally as well. By the late forties, the pulp market was starting to falter, and Keene, eying the burgeoning paperback market, moved on to longer works, cranking out paperback originals and even a few hardcovers.

Sure, he churned out some crap, but what’s amazing is how much of it was good stuff. He eventually penned over fifty novels, for such publishers as Avon, Gold Medal, Graphic and Ace, where he contributed more than a few doubles. he had several series character in the pulps, most notably hard-boiled pharmacist Doc Egg, Manhattan homicide detective Herman Stone, private eyes Matt Mercer and Tom Doyle, The Super Feds, and Silent Smith (aka “The Silver Fox”). but he only created one recurring book character, Los Angeles-based private eye Johnny Aloha, who appeared in Dead in Bed (1959) and Payola (1960).

Although now mostly forgotten except by fans of pulp fiction, in his heyday, Keene’s work was generally well received, both commercially and critically, in various fields, not just in this country but notably in France, where many of his mystery and crime novels were first published.

As Cullen Gallagher of Pulp Serenade recalled,

“I was surprised by how often (Keene) was reviewed in The New York Times. What wasn’t surprising was that it was mostly (by) Anthony Boucher, one of the most famous and important mystery reviewers of the 20th century, and perhaps one of the best critics in general.”

Later on, as the paperback market (and tastes) began to change, he shifted gears once again, this time to writing for television, working on such shows as Burke’s Law, Hawaiian Eye and Colt 45. A few of his novels even made it into hardcover, including Chautauqua (1960), which Ed Gorman tagged as “an exceptionally well-done book.” It became the basis for the 1969 Elvis thudder The Trouble With Girls, one of the King’s last acting roles.

Which goes to show you never can tell.

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Respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith, with special thanks to Al Guthrie & Marcel Bernadac for their help.

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