If I was thinking a little more clearly I would've used a pseudonym with my books. The most obvious reason: with a last name starting with Z, my books will be stacked on the bottom shelf of the mystery section, less obvious reason, everyone spells my name wrong--my publishers, reviewers, even friends of mine blogging about my books. I found a mostly good review for Small Crimes on the March 28th London Times review by Marcel Berlins, with my name given as "David Zeltresman" (and damn, I hate 'David', but there's a long and unseemly story behind that).
Anyway, this is part of what Berlins wrote, and given that the only writers I can think of that were writing these types of grim noir novels in the 30s and 40s were James M. Cain, David Goodis and Cornell Woolrich, I'm taking this as a high complement! (also, I corrected the spelling of my name in this quote):
Small Crimes is the kind of grim noir novel they used to write in the Thirties and Forties. There are no good guys, only men who are mean, vicious, tough, corrupt and amoral. Action is frenzied and bloody, women easy but vulnerable, dialogue curt and the plot not necessarily convincing. David Zeltserman serves up the formula with enthusiasm and some fine writing.
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4 comments:
I thought my name was perfect, starting with a "C" and all, but I seem to wind up on the bottom shelf most of the time, too. Doesn't seem to matter to Michael Crichton, though.
Bill, I still should've used Stefan King as a pseudonym!
Dave, your brain is working pretty much on the same wavelength as mine: when considering a book similar in tone to Robert Bakker's Raptor Red, I thought it might be a good idea to use a pseudonym like Baker just to sidle up to his novel on the shelves.
Never wrote the book -- its time will come, I'm sure -- but it's an idea, anyway.
Sam, since it looks like I'm going to have crime novels stacked up with Serpent's Tail through probably 2012, I'm starting to write other genres, and what I'm going to do is use my characters as pseudonyms--so if you see Vampire Novels written by Kyle Nevin, you'll know where they're from.
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