“Sums up the hard-boiled ethos as well as anything I’ve ever read... As far as classic hard-boiled fiction, GET CARTER is sui generis, the place where British noir begins.”
You may have noticed but we’ve had a bit of a fallow stretch here at Syndicate Books. But down isn’t out and in this case it isn’t even really down. 2020 will see an exciting array of new projects announced and important writers and books restored to readers. This will include the announcement of Difficult Lives, a new imprint of Syndicate Books focusing on biographical, critical, and memoir writing from the crime and mystery fiction genre. If the imprint name sounds familiar that’s because the anchor title on this list is a new and expanded edition of James Sallis’ seminal work of noir biography, Difficult Lives.
There will be more on those projects in the coming weeks but today the focus is on the birthday boy, Ted Lewis, Syndicate’s first author and pioneer of the modern British crime novel (not to mention one of its all-time finest practitioners). Lewis, who passed at the too-young age of 42 in 1982, would have been 80 today and fans will always wonder what the enigmatic Lewis might have produced after his final novel, the mind-blowing and nearly perfect psychological thriller, GBH.
Enigmatic is a word worth noting above. Lewis, despite the iconic Michael Caine-driven film adaptation of his most famous novel and graphic design work on high profile projects like the Beatles’ Yellow Submarine, has remained an obscure figure. Aside from these professional moments the life of Ted Lewis has truly become something of a mystery unto itself. It’s a fairly stubborn mystery too. A few have tried their hand at reconstructing his story over the years and these projects have all bogged down at some point or another.
That is until Nick Triplow. Nick is a literary detective with the soul and pen of a poet. His now critically acclaimed Getting Carter: Ted Lewis and the Birth of Brit Noir is truly a remarkable achievement. Published two years ago in the UK, Getting Carter artfully presents over a decade of research with Triplow’s uncanny understanding of the interior life of his often quite difficult subject.
Nick was a big help in Syndicate’s push to resurrect Lewis. A weekend in Barton-upon-Humber and a Triplow-led tour of Lewis’ old haunts (including an overnighter at one of Lewis’ favored boozer, The George) helped bring the details of the project into focus. It imbued an otherwise somewhat lonely pursuit with a bigger sense of purpose. Nick’s afterword to Jack Carter and the Mafia Pigeon was, at the time of its release, the best single piece of literary summation of Lewis’ contributions.
That afterword isn’t even 1% of what Triplow achieved in Getting Carter. So it is with great pleasure that Syndicate Books can announce that we’re bringing Nick’s wonderful book out as a part of the Difficult Lives debut list. This book, already acclaimed in the UK, will see its North American release on 9/1/2020. Look for more details on that very soon.
And last but certainly not least: Get Carter, or as it was originally titled, Jack’s Return Home, turns 50 this year. To celebrate the 50th birthday of our boy, Jack, Syndicate Books is assembling all of his menacing one-liners and mod cool under one roof. The omnibus edition,The Complete Get Carter: Jack’s Return Home, Jack Carter’s Law, and Jack Carter and the Mafia Pigeon, will be bring the trilogy together in one volume, with introductions by Get Carter director Mike Hodges, novelist Max Allan Collins (who must be credited with turning us on to Lewis in the first place) and the aforementioned afterword by Nick Triplow. It seems right to restore Ted’s original title to the cover in this, its golden anniversary.
So stay tuned. We’re back in business and soon we’ll all be changing trains at Doncaster on our way back to the land of Ted Lewis and Jack Carter.