Friday, November 4, 2016

"A No Good Dame"


Our dedicated staff of interns and graduate assistants are still feverishly preparing Volume One of the memoirs of Arnold Schnabel in time for the holiday gift-giving season! In the meantime here's the opening sentence of yet another sadly out-of-print classic from the battered Royal portable typewriter of Arnold's pal Horace P. Sternwall:

What a bunch of schlemiels I was thinking. Sitting around playing poker while a good looking dame like me was sitting over here on the couch drinking highballs, smoking Sweet Caporals, and cooling her heels. I guess it was then that I decided I was gonna take them for every penny they were worth, and that included Johnny — 'Cleveland Johnny' Doyle, my so-called fiancé — the big chump.”

A No Good Dame
, by "Helen P. Steinmetz" {Horace P. Sternwall} (Acme Books, 1953; one printing only, never republished).

(Cover art by Rudy Nappi. Scroll down the right-hand side of this page to find a listing of links to the opening passages of many other immortal but deleted books by Horace P. Sternwall.)

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