Pulp Fiction Writer David Goodis

David Goodis (1917-1967) was a pulp fiction writer of noir crime novels and short stories in the 1940s and 1950s. He was pretty much forgotten until recently after a couple of literary critics rediscovered his work. This led to the reprinting of a few of his novels. The following excerpt from his 1946 novel Dark Passage exemplifies the genre: "You know me. Guys like me come a dime a dozen. No fire. No backbone. Dead weight waiting to be pulled around and taken to places where we want to go but can't go alone. Because we're afraid to be alone. Because we can't face people and we can't talk to people. Because we don't know how. Because we can't handle life and don't know the first thing about taking a bite out of life. Because we're afraid and we don't know what we're afraid of and still we're afraid. Guys like me."