"A fascinating literary and historical document, the most insightful look at the Beat Generation." --Dan Wakefield, author of "New York in the Fifties" and "Going All the Way"First published in 1978, "Jack's Book" gives us an intimate look into the life and times of the "King of the Beats." Through [...]

For both the film buff and the general moviegoer a handbook that unlocks the secrets of a hundred "noir" movies "Gifford knows his "noir." The essays are better than some of the films he writes about." - Elmore Leonard For a tour of "noir" cinema this handbook is the perfect companion and Barry Giff[...]

"Gifford uses the charged story of . . . an apprentice smuggler as an occasion for his own literary and cinematic smuggling--from Conrad, Hemingway, Camus, John Hawkes, Howard Hawks, Welles and Ozu, among others--and to discover a new literary form."--"The New York Times Book Review""A poet's nuance[...]

A novel of violence, of love, and introspection, " The Up-Down" follows a man who leaves home and all that's familiar, finds true love, loses it, and finds it again. Pace's voyage is outward, among strangers, and inward into the fifth direction that is the up-down, in a sweeping, voracious human tal[...]