“Hard Rain Falling” by Don Carpenter (1966) – 308 pages

 This is the story of an author and his novel “Hard Rain Falling”.

 Don Carpenter was born in Berkeley, California in 1931 and spent most of his life in California.   He published his first novel “Hard Rain Falling” in 1966, and the book received high praise from critics and fellow writers although it didn’t sell that many copies.  This was a continuing theme in Carpenter’s career as a writer. 

 Soon after this, Carpenter went to Hollywood to work as a screen writer.  First he wrote TV scripts, a script for ‘High Chaparral’ and one for ‘The Outsider’ as well as others.  Then he turned to the movies, writing the script for a movie called ‘Pay Day’ starring Rip Torn as a country singer.  As with his novels, the movie got good reviews but didn’t sell many tickets.  Carpenter wrote three novels based on his Hollywood screenwriting experiences.  I read one of those novels, “A Couple of Comedians” a long time ago.  I remember liking it a lot, but don’t remember any details.  Carpenter wrote 8 novels and a couple of short story collections during his career. 

 In the early Eighties, Carpenter contracted a particularly severe form of tuberculosis and there were other serious medical problems as well.   He continued to write, but was losing his eyesight.  In 1995 at the age of 64, he killed himself with a bullet to the chest.  All of his novels were out of print at the time of his death. 

 That could have been the end of the story.  However, “Hard Rain Falling” was re-issued in 2009 by New York Review Books (NYRB) with an introduction by George Pelecanos as part of its Classics series .

 I recently read “Hard Rain Falling”.  It is about two young guys, Jack Levitt and Billy Lancing, who meet in a pool hall in the early Fifties.   When Jack Levitt was a baby, neither of his parents wanted him; besides they both were dead within a few years of his birth.  So he was brought up in an orphanage, later spent much of his teenage years in a reform school. In reform school, a warden punishes him by locking him in the Hole for three months of solitary confinement. Here is a description of Jack.

“He had penetrating, flat, almost snakelike blue eyes which ordinary citizens found difficult to look into…even when he smiled there was too much ferocity in his expression to relax anyone.”

 Billy Lancing, light-skinned but definitely black, is a pool hustler, one of the best around the Portland, Oregon area where much of the story takes place, Billy is a smart young guy navigating a world of racists. 

 They both inevitably get into trouble with the law, maybe due to high spirits more than anything else.  Jack passes out drunk at a party at a rich guy’s house he and his friends have broken into, later gets a statutory rape charge which he probably could have gotten out of if he could have afforded a decent lawyer.  Billy is one of the few pool-shooters with money until his luck runs out.    They both wind up in prison in San Quentin and become roommates.

 So “Hard Rain Falling” is a tough novel about two guys who are outside society, outside the law.  Don Carpenter gets all the details right.  This is no ‘social problem’ novel where these guys are over-sentimentalized, and society is blamed for all their problems.  These guys are actually enjoying the things they can grab in this world, and we enjoy them along them.  Sure Jack and Billy are foolish sometimes, but aren’t we all?  At the same time, “Hard Rain Falling” is not one of those tough guy novels where the characters are tougher and meaner than people really are, so tough you can never get inside their minds.  Carpenter’s achievement is that he has complete empathy for these guys who are living pretty much on the street and in prison.   

 When you read the novel, you live life along with Jack and Billy, and you encounter all their ups and downs.  This novel is not for the faint of heart

 Where does Don Carpenter fit in United States fiction?  “Hard Rain Falling” is a work of detailed psychological realism.  I would put Don Carpenter in the following continuum. Theodore Dreiser to John Steinbeck to Nelson Algren to Don Carpenter to Richard Price.   I admire all of these authors, and Don Carpenter is worthy to be included.