{"product_id":"pick-up","title":"Pick-Up","description":"\u003ch3\u003eDescription for PICK-UP by Charles Willeford:\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eThis underground classic of hard-boiled noir fiction follows two addiction-addled drifters as they struggle to make ends meet in the streets of 1950s California\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eFirst published as an unheralded paperback original, \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003ePick-Up\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan\u003e is an authentic underground classic, an explosive bulletin from the urban underbelly of mid-1950s America. It was Charles Willeford's second novel, after a rough and wandering earlier life that had taken him from Depression-era hobo camps and soup kitchens to wartime battlefields.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThe unblinking story of two lost and self-destructive drifters—a failed painter working as a counterman in a cheap diner and a woman in flight from domestic violence—trying to find a place for themselves in the back streets of San Francisco, \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003ePick-Up\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan\u003e is hardboiled writing at its nihilistic best: Willeford's preferred title for the book was \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003eUntil I Am Dead\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan\u003e. Its bleak vision of life beyond the edge is haunted by rape, racism, alcoholism, suicide, and inescapable poverty, yet shot through with a tenderness and compassion sustained against all odds in a society offering few breaks to its outcasts and misfits. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003ePick-Up\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan\u003e's many twists and violent turns culminate in an ending that continues to surprise, confirming it as what critic Woody Haut has called \"a razor-sharp narrative that rips open the genre.\"\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Connies Bookshelf","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":52473856458968,"sku":null,"price":12.23,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0648\/9099\/4904\/files\/PickUp.jpg?v=1789590476","url":"https:\/\/conniesbookshelf.com\/products\/pick-up","provider":"Connies Bookshelf","version":"1.0","type":"link"}