Tell me your troubles and doubts

Elliott Chaze's stomping 1953 noir classic Black Wings Has My Angel is available in a new edition from New York Review Books. If you dream of becoming a writer the introduction by Barry Gifford will set you straight.

Chaze was a fairly large man, seventy-two years old when I met him. He was cranky, bitter about having been mostly ignored as a serious writer but making attempts throughout our visit to pretend he didn't really care.

That's one of the brighter bits. But the novel sings. Go buy it. Chaze is very dead so he'll never know it's being rediscovered but that shouldn't deny you the pleasure.