British Radio Drama Book

Written during the early 1940s and discovered by his granddaughter 55+ years later, "Pulp Writer" is the memoir of Paul Powers, who found success as the creator of numerous western heroes during the 1930s, the heyday of pulp fiction weeklies. A high school and art school drop-out, he got his start as a professional writer submitting jokes to newspapers, and in time learned to master the short fiction formulas that would put him in demand by one of the most popular of the story magazines, "Wild West Weekly."

His story is often poignant. Son of a small-town doctor in Kansas, he is something of a dreamer, his aspirations to be a "writer" considered elitist by the rest of the town. More than a little naive and still very young when he makes a break for freedom, he is self-taught in the ways of the world. He quits a brief job as a bellboy in a hotel when he learns that some guests expect the services of prostitutes. There's also some irony. While escaping the parochial world of his upbringing, he finds praise and appreciation from the likes of those he left behind, young men who had their yearning for adventure fulfilled in the shoot-em-up stories Powers spun from his typewriter.

Laurie Powers' account of her discovery of her grandfather's career, his papers, and this unpublished manuscript, provide a fascinating story of its own. She also shares her discovery of the largely forgotten world of pulp publications and the massive audience of readers who consumed them. Her book brings back to life an era - the Great Depression - that has been remembered in a lot of other ways. For anyone interested in popular culture, this is a rewarding read.