Login
Login

Earle Basinsky

{{short description|American crime novelist (1921-1963)}}

{{Infobox writer

| name = Earle Basinsky

| image =

| caption =

| birth_name = Earle Morris Basinsky, Jr.

| birth_date = {{Birth date|1921|12|26}}

| birth_place = Vicksburg, Mississippi

| death_date = {{Death date and age|1963|03|12|1921|12|26}}

| death_place =Vicksburg, Mississippi

| spouse =

| resting_place =

| occupation = Novelist

| nationality = American

| period = 1950s

| genre = Hardboiled crime fiction, detective fiction

}}

Earle Morris Basinsky, Jr. (1921–1963) was an American crime novelist and protégé of Mickey Spillane. He wrote two novels, 1955's The Big Steal and 1956's Death is a Cold, Keen Edge, and five short stories.

Biography

Basinky was born in 1921 in Vicksburg, Mississippi to Earle Basinsky, Sr., and Aline Basinsky. He attended law school at the University of Mississippi in 1939 but left in 1942 to join the United States Army Air Forces,{{cite book|title=Lives of Mississippi Authors, 1817-1967|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RfXGJBB1HvoC&pg=PA458|year=1981|publisher=Univ. Press of Mississippi|isbn=978-1-61703-418-3|pages=23–}} eventually earning the rank of captain.{{citation needed|date=February 2021}} While stationed in Greenwood, Mississippi for pilot training, he met and befriended Mickey Spillane, who was then in Greenwood serving in the Army.{{cite book|author1=Max Allan Collins|author2=James L. Traylor|title=Mickey Spillane on Screen: A Complete Study of the Television and Film Adaptations|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sc1HDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA9|date=30 April 2012|publisher=McFarland|isbn=978-0-7864-6578-1|pages=9–}} He married Mary Johanna Poehlmann in 1945.{{cite web | title = Earle Baskinsky | url = https://www.mswritersandmusicians.com/mississippi-writers/earle-basinsky | website = Mississippi Writers and Musicians | accessdate = 2020-02-14}} After the war, he moved briefly to Brooklyn, New York, where he worked with Spillane. In 1946, apparently during his time with Spillane in New York, Basinsky published two short stories in comic books: "Killer's Choice" in Vic Verity, and "Knife Act" in Don Fortune Magazine. He returned to Vicksburg and worked at his father's printing shop, but was encouraged to return to writing when Spillane visited in 1953.{{cite web | title = Earle Basinsky & Charlie Wells | url = http://hermes.lib.olemiss.edu/mystery/exhibit.asp?display=10§ion=2 | website = Murder with Southern Hospitality: An Exhibition of Mississippi Mysteries | accessdate = 9 February 2020 | archive-date = 9 June 2010 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20100609200241/http://hermes.lib.olemiss.edu/mystery/exhibit.asp?display=10 | url-status = dead }}

Like Charlie Wells and David A. Gerrity, Basinsky benefitted from Spillane's friendship and advice as a more seasoned author, as well as a connection to publishers.{{cite book|author=Mickey Spillane|title=The Last Stand|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wYUpDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT18|date=20 March 2018|publisher=Titan|isbn=978-1-78565-687-3|pages=18–|contribution=Mickey Spillane at 100|contributor=Max Allan Collins}} As he did with several other young writers,{{cite book|author1=Max Allan Collins|author2=James L. Traylor|title=One Lonely Knight: Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=c1JbAAAAMAAJ|year=1984|publisher=Bowling Green State University Popular Press|isbn=978-0-87972-301-9}} Spillane supported Basinsky's work with encouragement and cover blurbs praising Basinsky on his novels. Spillane also put in a good word to Basinsky's future publisher E.P. Dutton, writing that "This is my buddy 's book. He was there when I, the Jury was written."{{cite book|author=Thomas L. Bonn|title=Heavy Traffic & High Culture: New American Library as Literary Gatekeeper in the Paperback Revolution|url=https://archive.org/details/heavytraffichigh0000bonn|url-access=registration|date=1 July 1989|publisher=Southern Illinois University Press|isbn=978-0-8093-1478-2|page=[https://archive.org/details/heavytraffichigh0000bonn/page/211 211]}}

Basinsky's first novel was 1955's The Big Steal, about a policeman who spirals down a dark path after being falsely accused of stealing ransom money. After losing both his job and his wife, he tracks down the real villain and gets violent revenge. A 1955 review of The Big Steal in Saturday Review called it an "incredible windup."{{cite magazine|title=Saturday Review|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xM8GAQAAIAAJ|year=1955|volume=38|issue=2|publisher=Saturday Review Associates}} The Big Steal was translated into French and published by the Serie Noire imprint as Le Magot.{{cite web | title = Earle Basinsky: Le Magot | url = http://www.gallimard.fr/Catalogue/GALLIMARD/Serie-Noire/Le-magot | website = Gallimard | accessdate = 2020-02-14}}

In 1956, his second novel, Death Is a Cold, Keen Edge, was released. It follows a psychopathic World War II veteran on a murder spree.

The original cover illustrations of Basinsky's novels, done by artist Robert Maguire, have been called some of "the most evocative and memorable of the period" by Lee Server, author of the Encyclopedia of Pulp Fiction Writers.{{cite book|author=Lee Server|title=Encyclopedia of Pulp Fiction Writers|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=k54nLojgIrwC&pg=PA266|date=14 May 2014|publisher=Infobase Publishing|isbn=978-1-4381-0912-1|pages=266–}}

Critical appraisals of Basinsky's books ranged from positive to unenthusiastic. Critic Bill Pronzini, in 1001 Midnights: The Aficionado's Guide To Mystery and Detective Fiction, called Basinsky's novels "vivid (and) idiosyncratic."{{cite book|author1=Bill Pronzini|author2=Marcia Muller|title=1001 Midnights: The Aficionado's Guide To Mystery and Detective Fiction|url=https://archive.org/details/1001midnightsafi00pron|url-access=registration|date=August 1986|publisher=Arbor House|isbn=978-0-87795-622-8}} In Pronzini's later book Gun in Cheek: An Affectionate Guide to the "Worst" in Mystery Fiction, he said that Basinsky was better than his fellow Spillane protégés in that he shared his mentor's "knack for raw and stomach-churning violence," but that his writing was also cliche-ridden and narratively clumsy, with "a shameless desire to wax poetic every now and then."{{cite book|author=Bill Pronzini|title=Gun in Cheek: An Affectionate Guide to the "Worst" in Mystery Fiction|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iJE_DgAAQBAJ&pg=PA79|date=19 April 2017|publisher=Courier Dover Publications|isbn=978-0-486-81479-7|pages=79–}} Anthony Boucher, writing in the June 26, 1955 New York Times Book Review, noted that The Big Steal's dedication read "For Mickey Spillane, who insisted, and for Nathan Jr., who suffered," and, instead of reviewing the book, simply stated that "personally, I'm on Nathan Jr.'s side."

Basinsky also published three short stories in crime-fiction pulp magazines in 1957 and 1958, titled, The Broken Window (February 1957), The Prison Break (October 1957), and Decision (March 1958).{{Cite web |last=Fedell |first=Vera Ann |date=2022-08-26 |title=VICKSBURG FACTS: Earle Basinsky, Vicksburg’s crime novelist |url=https://www.vicksburgpost.com/2022/08/26/vicksburg-facts-earle-basinsky-vicksburgs-crime-novelist/ |access-date=2024-01-09 |website=The Vicksburg Post |language=en}} Critic Peter Enfantino, writing about them for Mystery File: The Crime Fiction Research Journal, said that they were "all short and unremarkable, flawed by outlandish premises and silly expositories."{{cite web | title = The Short Fiction of Earle Baskinsky | url = http://www.mysteryfile.com/Dutton/MMM_Basinsky.html | website = Mystery File: The Crime Fiction Research Journal |last=Enfantino|first=Peter | accessdate = 2020-02-14}}

Basinsky died on March 12, 1963, in Vicksburg.

Writings

Novels

  • The Big Steal (E.F. Dutton, 1955)
  • Death Is a Cold, Keen Edge (Signet, 1956)

Short Stories

  • "Killer's Choice" (in Vic Verity #4, May 1946){{cite magazine |last=Basinsky |first=Earle|page=2 |date=May 1946 |title=Killer's Choice |url=https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=25366 |magazine=Vic Verity|volume=1|issue=4 |location=Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania |publisher=Vic Verity Publications |access-date=2020-02-17}}
  • "Knife Act" (in Don Fortune Magazine #4, November 1946){{cite magazine |last=Basinsky |first=Earle|page=23 |date=November 1946|volume=1|issue=4 |title=Knife Act |url=https://digitalcomicmuseum.com/preview/index.php?did=15186 |magazine=Don Fortune Magazine |location=Rockford, Illinois |publisher=Don Fortune Publishing Company |access-date=2020-02-17}}
  • "The Broken Window" (in Manhunt, February 1957)
  • "The Prison Break" (in Mike Shayne, October 1957)
  • "Decision" (in The Saint, March 1958)

References

{{reflist}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Basinsky, Earle}}

Category:1921 births

Category:1963 deaths

Category:20th-century American novelists

Category:American crime fiction writers

Category:American male novelists

Category:Writers from Mississippi

Category:Novelists from Mississippi

Category:20th-century American male writers

Category:Pulp fiction writers

Category:United States Army Air Forces personnel of World War II