Characters and Plots in the Novels of Horace McCoy

Tennessee-Born Horace Mccoy Joined The American Air Service In Wwi Was Wounded Flying Over France Became A Reporter-Actor In Dallas. In Hollywood He Was Popular As A Handsome Actor Then Toiled As A Prolific Movie-Script Writer. Mccoy Burst Into Fame With His First Novel They Shoot Horses Dont They? About Depression-Era Marathon Dancers. His No Pockets In A Shroud Features A Social Climber Bribed To Have His Marriage Annulled By The Brides Rich Father Then Establishing A Radical Magazine. I Should Have Stayed Home Exposes Hollywood Moguls And Rich Old Women Exploiting Would-Be Actors And Actresses. Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye Features Warfare Between A Professional Criminal And Corrupt Law-Enforcement Agents. When Made Into A Movie It Starred Jimmy Cagney. Additional Films Were Based On Mccoys Fiction. Mccoy Visited England And France Where Translations Of His Works Were Admired By Existentialists. Scalpel His Best-Seller Features Tom Owen A Successful Wwii Military Surgeon At Odds With His Superiors Including General Patton. Owen Returns To His Western Pennsylvania Roots To Investigate His Brothers Death Is Drawn Into High-Society--Temporarily? Well-Educated Owen Perhaps Resembles What Mccoy Aspired To Be. But Love Of Cars Wine Travel And The High Life Clipped His Wings. He Left Corruption City A Sixth Novel In Fragmentary Form--Completed By A Ghost Writer And Blasting Yet Another Set Of Unclean Cops And Thieving Politicians. Mccoys Popularity In Europe May Be Better Than In America A Land He Loved And Wished Were Cleaner. This Book Begins With A Chronology Of Major Events In The Life Of Horace Mccoy (1897-1955) And Then In One Alphabetized Sequence Synopsizes The Plots Of His Six Novels And Identifies Each Of Their 494 Characters--Often With Critical Comments By Publishing Scholars Including Gale. It Concludes With A Select Bibliography Showing The Range Of Scholarship On Mccoy Then An Index.