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Ed Park is the author of the novel Personal Days. He is a founding editor of The Believer and teaches creative writing at Columbia University.
Reviewing two very good rock and roll novels – Martin Millar’s Suzy, Led Zeppelin, and Me and John Darnielle’s Master of Reality – I finally cracked open Lewis Shiner’s Glimpses (1993), an amazing, sustained performance, which I savored over the course of a month or two – the chapter as nightcap. In contrast, I basically inhaled the University of Chicago Press’s three republished Parker books by Richard Stark. They came in the mail one day; I opened up The Outfit, just to see what it was like (I was very busy and had no time for pleasure reading), and read into the wee hours. A few chapters in, I realized I’d started with the second book in the series, but it didn’t matter. There was simply no stopping me. After it was over, I read The Hunter and The Man With the Getaway Face. Now I’m just waiting for spring and the next batch of reissues.
