Up and Down These Mean Streets favorite Jim Tully gets another chance to climb up off the mat and be a contenda — a public radio deal from last November with an illo-filled article. He’s not going to be counted out easy.
Tully biographer Mark Dawidziak, last seen here as a proof-reading shamus, let me know about this latest burst of publicity for the pugnacious little redhead.
A few months ago I did a read and reread on some Tully, courtesy trade paperback reprints from Kent State University Press — the boxing novel The Bruiser didn’t do that much for me but Circus Parade (a favorite of Charles Willeford) had the stuff, and while I was skeptical that Shanty Irish might tend too sentimental for my tastes, I enjoyed it — there are a couple of chapters about swapping stories in a bar that perfectly capture that kind of magic.
I suppose you could just hang out in bars and drink, but the characters and their stories that wander in and out the bar doors add something you just can’t match by staying home with a bottle of hooch.
