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Decharne, Max

September 18, 2017 by admin

WORK TITLE: Vulgar Tongues
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE:
CITY: London, England
STATE:
COUNTRY: United Kingdom
NATIONALITY:

https://serpentstail.com/max-decharne.html * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_D%C3%A9charn%C3%A9

RESEARCHER NOTES: 

LC control no.: n 2001033043
LCCN Permalink: https://lccn.loc.gov/n2001033043
HEADING: Décharné, Max
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008 010402n| acannaabn |n aaa
010 __ |a n 2001033043
040 __ |a DLC |b eng |c DLC
100 1_ |a Décharné, Max
670 __ |a Décharné, Max. Straight from the fridge, dad, 2001: |b CIP t.p. (Max Décharné) pub. info. (lead singer of the Flaming Stars; journalist for Mojo and Bizarre)
953 __ |a lh07

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PERSONAL

Male.

ADDRESS

  • Home - London, England.
  • Agent - George Lucas, InkWell Management, 521 5th Ave., Ste. 2600, New York, NY 10175.

CAREER

Musician, singer, songwriter, and recording artist, 1989-; journalist and writer. Gallon Drunk, vocalist and drummer, 1991-93; Flaming Stars, founder, vocalist, and keyboard performer, 1994-; Earls of Suave, performer; touring artist in the United States, Canada, Europe, and Japan. Malice Aforethought Press, cofounder, 1986; guest on media programs.

Sound recordings with Gallon Drunk include You, the Night . . . and the Music, released by Clawfist, 1992, and From the Heart of the Town, Clawfist, 1993. Recordings with the Flaming Stars include Songs from the Bar Room Floor, 1996; Sell Your Soul to the Flaming Stars, 1997; Pathway, 1999; A Walk on the Wired Side, 2001; Sunset & Void, 2002; Named and Shamed, 2004; and Born under a Bad Neon Sign, Big Beat Records, 2006. Compilation albums include Bring Me the Rest of Alfredo Garcia, 1997; The Six John Peel Sessions, 2000; Tijuana Bible, 2000; Ginmill Perfume, Alternative Tentacles, 2001; and London after Midnight: Singles, Rarities, and Bar Room Floor-Fillers, 1995–2005, Big Beat Records, 2006.  Single and extended-play recordings include “Hospital, Heaven or Hell,” 1995, and “Only Tonight,” 1999.

WRITINGS

  • Beat Your Relatives to a Bloody Pulp and Other Stories: Selected Ravings of Maxim Décharné, Malice Aforethought Press 1989
  • The Prisoner of Brenda and Other Stories, Malice Aforethought Press 1991
  • I Was a Teenage Warehouse and Other Stories, Thirst Editions 1997
  • Straight from the Fridge, Dad: A Dictionary of Hipster Slang, No Exit (Harpenden, England), 2000 , published as Straight from the Fridge, Dad: A Dictionary of Hipster Slang Broadway Books (New York, NY), 2001, published as Straight from the Fridge, Dad: A Dictionary of Hipster Slang No Exit (Harpenden, England), 2009
  • Hardboiled Hollywood: The Origins of the Great Crime Films, Oldcastle Books (Harpenden, England), 2004
  • King's Road: The Rise and Fall of the Hippest Street in the World, Weidenfeld & Nicolson (London, England), 2004
  • A Rocket in My Pocket: The Hipster's Guide to Rockabilly Music, Serpent's Tail (London, England), 2011
  • Capital Crimes: Seven Centuries of London Life and Murder, Random House (London, England), 2012
  • Vulgar Tongues: An Alternative History of English Slang, Serpent's Tail (London, England), 2016

Author of pamphlets, including The Importance of Being Harnessed and The Night They Invented Shampoo, published by Malice Aforethought Press. Contributor to periodicals, including Bizarre, Mojo, Observer (London, England), Sunday Times, and Times Literary Supplement.

SIDELIGHTS

Max Décharné is a British musician and recording artist for whom the words may outshine the melodies. In fact, he was a writer before he joined the rock band Gallon Drunk in 1991. He toured North America with that group before leaving in 1993 to create the Flaming Stars. Décharné recorded several albums and performed with other groups, including the Earls of Suave, but his writings reveal a number of other serious enthusiasms as well.

Décharné’s earliest publications were short stories published by his own imprint, Malice Aforethought Press. The press issued numerous limited edition pamphlets of his short fiction, much of which was later collected in three full-length volumes. Décharné also wrote journalism pieces, which reflected a deepening interest in language, specifically slang. His research on slang directed him toward colloquial language in film, on the street, in music, and in stories of true crime.

Hipsters and Slang

Straight from the Fridge, Dad: A Dictionary of Hipster Slang is a 200-page collection of words and phrases that, even by the author’s loose standards, are very broadly defined as slang. Décharné culls examples from pulp fiction, film noir, popular music lyrics from blues to country to rock and roll, and more. He covers five decades of street lingo, emphasizing that hipster slang of the sixties was often repurposed from the jazz world of the Roaring Twenties.

In an article that he published in the London Observer in 2016, Décharné refers to slang references dating back into the 1700s. He describes the dialect “as a kind of low-level guerrilla warfare directed at straight society” intended to define a self-identified in-crowd and exclude outsiders. Décharné also reminds readers that slang is a fluid dialect in a constant state of change, and the unwary user can easily be dated by shopworn terminology. Two years after his own book was published, the word hipster had already taken on a negative connotation: what once seemed “cool” was now “used as an insult.”

Rockabilly Reconsidered

When Décharné develops a passion, he pursues it to extraordinary depths. Another of his passions is called “rockabilly” music, and he has amassed a substantial personal collection of it. His research and performances of rockabilly tunes resulted in A Rocket in My Pocket: The Hipster’s Guide to Rockabilly Music. In an article that he posted at PopMatters, Décharné defines rockabilly as “hillbilly music with 5,000 volts shot through it,” performed “mostly by teenagers” who “were chasing something you couldn’t ever quite catch up with, nail down or explains to your parents.”

The author credits a young Elvis Presley with “the first pure rockabilly record ever made” (in 1954), but his book profiles fifty or more other artists in detail and dozens more “mentioned in passing,” Michael Cala wrote in the New York Journal of Books. He also profiles dozens of producers and hundreds of small independent record labels, along with the films, television programs, and radio stations that promoted it. Décharné covers female artists often overshadowed by their male counterparts and “records and artists that only a true rockabilly fanatic would know,” Cala observed. “It took a British fan of American music to create” what he called “one of the most complete and entertaining histories (and discographies) of rockabilly in print.”

Hardboiled Hollywood and Capital Crimes

Décharné’s fascination with slang was accompanied by intense study of gangster movies, pulp fiction, and true crime stories. Hardboiled Hollywood: The Origins of the Great Crime Films offers commentary that goes beyond the noir melodramas of the 1940s and the strictly defined limits of true crime. Décharné reveals the identity of the serial killer who inspired the character of Norman Bates in Psycho and separates fact from fiction in the saga of Bonnie and Clyde. He explains how and why the screen versions of true crimes were sometimes modified to downplay the gore, satisfy the censors (or the stars), and cater to audience tastes. According to a review by Michaelangelo Matos at AV Club, Décharné “investigates his material with real gusto, and with a comprehensive, informative obsession.” Booklist contributor Connie Fletcher found the volume “vastly entertaining.”

For Décharné, one crime spree led to another. Capital Crimes: Seven Centuries of London Life and Murder bypasses the most heavily publicized crimes, for the most part. He favors cases that illustrate “changing social and legal attitudes” across time, according to John Van der Kiste’s review in Bookbag. When Roger Legett was exposed as a juror-for-hire in 1381, he was publicly beheaded by the equivalent of a modern “neighborhood watch.” When Richard Hunne was imprisoned in 1514 for an argument with church officials and found dead in his cell, his dead body was tried, convicted of heresy, and burned at the stake. Décharné includes twenty examples not often remembered today. “The emphasis,” wrote Van der Kiste, “is partly on judicial and social history, and to an extent on the city of London itself.” The city, or at least one section of it, is featured more favorably in Décharné’s amiable walk down memory lane, King’s Road: The Rise and Fall of the Hippest Street in the World.

Vulgar Tongues

Décharné completed a circle when he returned to his initial interest in slang. Vulgar Tongues: An Alternative History of English Slang traces the history of slang in the English language from Shakespeare’s day to the present. Readers may be surprised to learn that terms like rap and hip-hop are centuries old; that vulgar idioms for body parts, sex acts, and sex workers enabled repressed people to talk about topics otherwise taboo or even illegal; or that ambiguous labels for cops and robbers and crimes formed a secret communication system for the criminal underworld until they became common knowledge. Allan Fallow commented in his Washington Post review that Décharné “never loses sight of slang’s deeper cultural role: Argot can veil a speaker’s intent, define a group’s identity or enable humans to voice the unspeakable.” Décharné also observes that the language that once rose up from the streets to the mainstream now descends from the marketing gurus with something to sell. He suggests, according to Charles R. Larson’s review at Counter Punch, “anything that can be made commercial eventually will.”

Reviewers generally enjoyed Décharné’s latest foray into etymology, though some would have preferred a greater emphasis on analysis. Lynne Truss noted in the New Statesman that his achievement represents “a spectacular feat, collating information from a mind-boggling range of sources from jazz lyrics to dime novels, from 18th-century brothel directories to 1960s criminal autobiographies.” His bibliography references no fewer than 500 sources. Fallow called Vulgar Tongues “a triumph of philological research and mordant social commentary.”

In his Observer article, Décharné mentioned “a new wave of puritanism . . . that increasingly seeks to ban anything it holds to be suspect.” He predicts that “ultimately, slang will have no place in this world, because the best of it is guaranteed to offend someone somewhere.” Décharné believes “it is [still] all right to publish these terms in a book,” but he cautions readers to “mind your language when you talk about it.”

BIOCRIT

PERIODICALS

  • Booklist, March 1, 2004, Connie Fletcher, review of Hardboiled Hollywood: The Origins of the Great Crime Films, p. 1120.

  • Bookwatch, October, 2004, review of Hardboiled Hollywood; July 1, 2017, review of Vulgar Tongues: An Alternative History of English Slang.

  • Economist, February 3, 2001, review of Straight from the Fridge, Dad: A Dictionary of Hipster Slang, p. 8.

  • Kirkus Reviews, April 1, 2017, review of Vulgar Tongues.

  • Library Journal, November 15, 2001, Michelle Foyt, review of Straight from the Fridge, Dad; February 1, 2010, Michael O. Eshleman, review of Hardboiled Hollywood, p. 78.

  • New Statesman, December 16, 2016, Lynne Truss, review of Vulgar Tongues, p. 90.

  • Publishers Weekly, November 30, 2009, review of Hardboiled Hollywood, p. 198; February 27, 2017, review of Vulgar Tongues, p. 86.

ONLINE

  • AV Club, https://www.avclub.com/ (January 28, 2010), Michaelangelo Matos, review of Hardboiled Hollywood.

  • Bookbag, http://www.thebookbag.co.uk/ (October 27, 2017), John Van der Kiste, review of Capital Crimes: Seven Centuries of London Life and Murder.

  • Counter Punch, https://www.counterpunch.org/ (July 14, 2017), Charles R. Larson, review of Vulgar Tongues.

  • Historical Novel Society, https://historicalnovelsociety.org/ (October 27, 2017), review of Capital Crimes.

  • New York Journal of Books, http://www.nyjournalofbooks.com/ (November 15, 2011), Michael Cala, review of A Rocket in My Pocket: The Hipster’s Guide to Rockabilly Music.

  • Observer Online, https://www.theguardian.com/ (October 23, 2016), Max Décharné, “Slang: The Changing Face of Cool.”

  • PopMatters, http://www.popmatters.com/ (October 20, 2011), Max Décharné, “The Hottest Thing in the Country.”

  • Telegraph Online, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/ (November 27, 2005), Andrew Martin and Duncan Fallowell, reviews of King’s Road: The Rise and Fall of the Hippest Street in the World.

  • Washington Post Online, https://www.washingtonpost.com/ (May 31, 2017), Allan Fallow,  review of Vulgar Tongues.

  • Straight from the Fridge, Dad: A Dictionary of Hipster Slang No Exit (Harpenden, England), 2000
  • King's Road: The Rise and Fall of the Hippest Street in the World Weidenfeld & Nicolson (London, England), 2004
  • Capital Crimes: Seven Centuries of London Life and Murder Random House (London, England), 2012
  • Vulgar Tongues: An Alternative History of English Slang Serpent's Tail (London, England), 2016
1. Vulgar tongues : an alternative history of English slang LCCN 2016497628 Type of material Book Personal name Décharné, Max, author. Main title Vulgar tongues : an alternative history of English slang / Max Décharné. Published/Produced London : Serpent's Tail, an imprint of Profile Books Ltd, 2016. Description xii, 388 pages ; 23 cm ISBN 9781846685613 (hardback) 1846685613 (hardback) CALL NUMBER PE3711 .D43 2016 CABIN BRANCH Copy 1 Request in Jefferson or Adams Building Reading Rooms - STORED OFFSITE 2. Capital crimes : seven centuries of London life and murder LCCN 2012545519 Type of material Book Personal name Décharné, Max. Main title Capital crimes : seven centuries of London life and murder / Max Décharné. Published/Created London : Random House, 2012. Description xiii, 402 p., [8] p. of plates : ill. (some col.), ports. ; 24 cm. ISBN 9781847945907 (hbk.) 1847945902 (hbk.) Shelf Location FLM2016 052552 CALL NUMBER HV6950.L7 D43 2012 OVERFLOWJ34 Request in Jefferson or Adams Building Reading Rooms (FLM2) 3. Straight from the fridge, Dad : a dictionary of hipster slang LCCN 2010481885 Type of material Book Personal name Décharné, Max. Main title Straight from the fridge, Dad : a dictionary of hipster slang / Max Décharné. Edition Rev. and updated ed. Published/Created Harpenden : No Exit, c2009. Projected pub date 200910 Description 189 p. : ill. (some col.) ; 26 cm. ISBN 9781842432884 (pbk.) 1842432885 (pbk.) CALL NUMBER PE3727.B43 D43 2009 Alc Copy 1 Request in Reference - Main Reading Room (Jefferson, LJ100) 4. King's Road : the rise and fall of the hippest street in the world LCCN 2006373376 Type of material Book Personal name Décharné, Max. Main title King's Road : the rise and fall of the hippest street in the world / Max Décharné. Published/Created London : Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2005. Description xxi, 391 p., [16] p. of plates : ill. ; 25 cm. ISBN 0297847694 Links Contributor biographical information http://www.loc.gov/catdir/enhancements/fy0632/2006373376-b.html Publisher description http://www.loc.gov/catdir/enhancements/fy0632/2006373376-d.html CALL NUMBER DA688 .D37 2005 Copy 1 Request in Jefferson or Adams Building Reading Rooms 5. Straight from the fridge, dad : a dictionary of hipster slang LCCN 2001035043 Type of material Book Personal name Décharné, Max. Main title Straight from the fridge, dad : a dictionary of hipster slang / Max Décharné. Published/Created New York : Broadway Books, 2001. Description xii, 192 p. ; 21 cm. ISBN 0767908406 (pbk.) Links Contributor biographical information http://www.loc.gov/catdir/bios/random051/2001035043.html Sample text http://www.loc.gov/catdir/samples/random043/2001035043.html Publisher description http://www.loc.gov/catdir/description/random048/2001035043.html CALL NUMBER PE3727.B43 D43 2001 Copy 1 Request in Jefferson or Adams Building Reading Rooms 6. Straight from the fridge dad : a dictionary of hipster slang LCCN 2001339780 Type of material Book Personal name Décharné, Max. Main title Straight from the fridge dad : a dictionary of hipster slang / Max Décharné. Published/Created Harpenden, England : No Exit, 2000. Description viii, 212 p. ; 18 cm. ISBN 1842430009 CALL NUMBER PE3727.B43 D43 2000 Copy 1 Request in Jefferson or Adams Building Reading Rooms
  • A Rocket in My Pocket: The Hipster's Guide to Rockabilly Music - 2011 Serpent's Tail, London
  • Hardboiled Hollywood: The Origins of the Great Crime Films - 2004 Oldcastle Books, Harpenden

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Print Marked Items
Vulgar Tongues
The Bookwatch.
(July 1, 2017):
COPYRIGHT 2017 Midwest Book Review
http://www.midwestbookreview.com/bw/index.htm
Full Text:
Vulgar Tongues
Max Decharne
Pegasus Books
80 Broad Street, 5th Floor, New York, NY 10004
9781681774640 $26.95 www.pegasusbooks.com
Vulgar Tongues: An Alternative History of English Slang is a lively survey of the English language that narrows its
focus to slang, covering how such language often begins as a form of defiance and evolves into its own culture when it
is adopted by mainstream English speakers as part of daily language. While readers might think this trend to be
relatively new or particular to the English language; in fact slang has existed for centuries around the world, and
embraces a range of populations, purposes, and subcultures. This fun pairing of linguistics and history will delight any
who want a different focus on the origins and social and political purposes of slang.
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Vulgar Tongues." The Bookwatch, 1 July 2017. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA501397184&it=r&asid=98a1d575816cd261a8e5f87f4cf29662.
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Decharne, Max: VULGAR TONGUES
Kirkus Reviews.
(Apr. 1, 2017):
COPYRIGHT 2017 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Decharne, Max VULGAR TONGUES Pegasus (Adult Nonfiction) $26.95 6, 6 ISBN: 978-1-68177-464-0
From 17th-century cant to modern-day music slang, an erudite miscellany that tracks centuries of playful mutations
endured by the English language.Chapters divide the book thematically with each covering one morsel of the slang
lexicon, such as the Shakespearean "Beast with Two Backs" and its other naughty euphemisms. Decharne (Capital
Crimes: Seven Centuries of London Life and Murder, 2012, etc.) boasts an impressive library of sources, such as
Francis Grose's Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue (1785), and devotes the majority of his efforts to pinpointing
the first printed occurrences of various words. These publications are valuable but inherently problematic, as a word's
popular usage may not always line up with its first printed date. As the author writes, "the trouble with slang, and
language generally, is that it doesn't stay still; meanings shift and mutate with the passing of time or the coming of new
associations, and yesterday's plain speech can become today's double entendre." From Grose to Samuel Johnson,
Decharne arranges a rich array of Georgian and Victorian vulgarity. Regarding the modern era, the author cedes a large
portion of the book to popular music and its associated lingo, from the Beatles to N.W.A. These are some of the most
inspired moments of the book, but they outweigh the historical sections and suggest that most slang as it is currently
known began in a recording studio. While it's interesting to learn about the origins of band names like the Pogues and
the Buzzcocks, one can't help but feel Decharne's career as a music writer seeping through as he inadvertently shows
how thin the line is between etymological history and pop-culture trivia. The author sticks to his role as archivist and
rarely gives his own thoughts on why people are drawn to slang: sociological analysis is often glossed over in an effort
to delight with more strange words for R-rated things. His exhaustive research is at times exhausting and frequently
reduced to mere lists of words and their definitions. Bawdy and jive, well-researched but underanalyzed.
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Decharne, Max: VULGAR TONGUES." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Apr. 2017. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA487668519&it=r&asid=ef07b1d1c76ee460bf59b28bc1b2e5f3.
Accessed 6 Oct. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A487668519
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Vulgar Tongues: An Alternative History of
English Slang
Publishers Weekly.
264.9 (Feb. 27, 2017): p86.
COPYRIGHT 2017 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
Vulgar Tongues: An Alternative History of English Slang
Max Decharne. Pegasus, $26.95 (400p)
ISBN 978-1-68177-464-0
Lovers of language will be engrossed by Decharnes (Hardboiled Hollywood) excavation of the history of Englishlanguage
slang. Based on his work, humans should be grateful for slang, or we wouldn't have been able to discuss sex
over the ages (without being persecuted). We'd have no limericks, certainly, and this book would be much shorter.
(Aside for trivia fiends: if your English friends say they're "discussing Uganda," they're almost assuredly not.)
Decharne notes that the first English-language gay slang dictionary was published in the late 20th century, but he traces
English slang terms for homosexuality as far back as the 18th century. Slang was, not surprisingly, ubiquitous in the
criminal underworld, and there's a vast array of terms for drunkenness and drug-taking. One wrinkle in the book: since
the author is English, U.S. readers may stumble over a few obscure references. But there are also interesting peeks into
Cockney rhyming slang, a "much quoted, and much misunderstood" form. Slang used to "come from the street," but
Decharne laments that it is now fighting against the "fake language" concocted by the PR industry, diluting ? slang's
gritty charm. If his dark predictions are true, this well-stocked and exhaustively researched compendium has arrived
just in time to preserve the flavor of undiluted slang. Agent: George Lucas, InkWell Management. (June)
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Vulgar Tongues: An Alternative History of English Slang." Publishers Weekly, 27 Feb. 2017, p. 86. General OneFile,
go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA485671211&it=r&asid=cebb70498cffc10ddf98f89a2df3caf5.
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Decharne, Max. Hardboiled Hollywood
Connie Fletcher
Booklist.
100.13 (Mar. 1, 2004): p1120.
COPYRIGHT 2004 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist_publications/booklist/booklist.cfm
Full Text:
Apr. 2004. 249p. illus, index. No Exit; dist, by Trafalgar, $27.50 (1-84243-070-X). 791.4.
"When in doubt, have a man come through the door with a gun in his hand" was Raymond Chandler's advice to pulpfiction
writers. Chandler's witticism is central to the main theme of this freewheeling work of film criticism and social
history. Decharne shows how the guys with guns have jump-started the Hollywood money machine from The Great
Train Robbery on, despite screams of protest from pressure groups like the Hays Office and the Legion of Decency.
Thirteen chapters focus on classic individual crime films, ranging from Little Caesar to L.A. Confidential. Each chapter
analyzes the ways movies translated the news (Chicago gangsters, the Mafia, serial killers) into hardboiled dramas and
gives fascinating details about filming and the struggles over censorship. With reprints of lurid pulp-novel covers and
movie posters and a bibliography including books, articles, and the commentary from Get Carter and L.A. Confidential.
<> and informative.
Fletcher, Connie
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Fletcher, Connie. "Decharne, Max. Hardboiled Hollywood." Booklist, 1 Mar. 2004, p. 1120. General OneFile,
go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA114285231&it=r&asid=081c218cd1b23d396d579dfe2b998128.
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Decharne, Max. Hardboiled Hollywood: The
True Crime Stories Behind the Classic Noir Films
Michael O. Eshleman
Library Journal.
135.2 (Feb. 1, 2010): p78.
COPYRIGHT 2010 Library Journals, LLC. A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution
permitted.
http://www.libraryjournal.com/
Full Text:
Decharne, Max. Hardboiled Hollywood: The True Crime Stories Behind the Classic Noir Films. Pegasus. 2010. c.304p,
index. ISBN 978-1-60598-078-6. $25; pap. ISBN 978-1-60598-083-6. $14.95. CRIME
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
British band member Decharne (of the Flaming Stars) here looks at 11 crime and detective films from the 1930s
through the 1990s: Little Caesar; The Big, Sleep; In a Lonely Place; Kiss Me, Deadly; Hell Is a City; Psycho; Point
Blank; Bonnie & Clyde; Get Carter; Dillinger; and L.A. Confidential. These aren't all noir films or Hollywood studio
pictures, but that doesn't matter. Decharne considers how the real criminals who inspired writers and how the writers'
stories were then translated to the big screen. For example, Psycho was based on Ed Gein, a 1940s Wisconsin farmer
with a domineering mother, who dug up and cut up corpses and kept the pieces in his home. Decharne does an excellent
job of dispelling the myth peddled by the makers of Bonnie & Clyde that the real-life protagonists were harmless and
instead shows them as the vicious thugs they were. VERDICT Excellent research, eminently readable; this great book
is perfect for both film buffs and hardcore fans of true crime or crime fiction. Highly recommended.--Michael O.
Eshleman, Bethel, AK
Eshleman, Michael O.
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Eshleman, Michael O. "Decharne, Max. Hardboiled Hollywood: The True Crime Stories Behind the Classic Noir
Films." Library Journal, 1 Feb. 2010, p. 78. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA218370632&it=r&asid=d36844c17d6c561a37264016047181f3.
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A Captain Cook worth a butcher's hook
Lynne Truss
New Statesman.
145.5345-5347 (Dec. 16, 2016): p90.
COPYRIGHT 2016 New Statesman, Ltd.
http://www.newstatesman.com/
Full Text:
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
Vulgar Tongues: an Alternative History of English Slang
Max Decharne
Serpent's Tail, 400pp. 14.99 [pounds sterling]
In 1950, the postwar crime reporter Percy Hoskins (of the Daily Express) published a book whose title was
appropriated by a British television series in the late 1960s and 1970s. This book--No Hiding Place! promised to be
"the full authentic story of Scotland Yard in action", and it remains a compulsive read today, not least for its helpful
guide to underworld slang, presented in an appendix "for the benefit of the young detective".
From this, we learn such standard slang terms as "bracelets" for handcuffs, "dabs" for fingerprints and "milky" for
cowardly, but also less guessable coinages, such as: "He did a tray on the cave-grinder" (he got three months' hard
labour), "kybosh" (one shilling and sixpence) and "on the jam-clout" (shoplifting).
At this distance in time, such unlikely stuff probably raises more questions than it answers. For example, why would
"on the jamclout" mean shoplifting, when "jam-clout" surely means sanitary towel? Was Hoskins being had on? Were
unscrupulous criminals shooting him a line?
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Consulting other, later slang dictionaries, I couldn't find the expression at all, but if we go back to the trusty Eric
Partridge, in A Dictionary of the Underworld (1949), we find him quoting a source from 1933: "One member of a team
makes a small purchase and holds the clerk's attention while the other steals." Aha. You will notice that Partridge
doesn't specify the type of small purchase, perhaps out of delicacy, but I think we are finally getting closer to the
etymology, if we use our loaves to join the dots.
This is the trouble with books on slang. However exhaustive they are, they always leave you asking, "But why?" Max
Decharne's engaging book Vulgar Tongues is<< a spectacular feat, collating information from a mind-boggling range of sources from jazz lyrics to dime novels, from 18thcentury brothel directories to 1960s criminal autobiographies>>.
Take a word such as "chippie", meaning whore. Decharne gives us a couple of quotations from Dashiell Hammett's Red
Harvest (1929) and Raymond Chandler's The High Window (1942)--which is where you would expect him to find
some. But his killer examples are the title of the jazz record "Chasin' Chippies" by Cootie Williams and His Rug
Cutters (1938) and an exchange from a i960 Chester Himes novel set in Harlem, The Big Gold Dream:
"I was watching out for my girls,"
Dummy replied.
"Your girls?"
"He's got two chippie whores,"
Grave Digger replied. "He's trying to
teach them how to husde."
Confronted with such impressively wide reading, it seems churlish to ask for more. Yet I find it frustrating that
someone so immersed in jive talk doesn't ask bigger questions about it. Every chapter (on sex, crime, the police, and so
on) is written in the same way, and with the same basic purpose: to impress the reader with the variety and colourful
nature of historical slang, and to prove through a plethora of examples that words that you thought were coined in 1965
had been around (sometimes meaning something else) since the 19th century, or at least since the Jazz Age. "Groovy"
was not coined by Paul Simon for his "59th Street Bridge Song", for example. Originally it meant what you would
assume it to mean: in a groove, boring, square.
Slang words often start out as the property of an in-group and, when they escape into the daylight, they can either catch
on or transform themselves horribly (take the dire fate of "hipster"). At other times, the slang meanings of normal
words simply die and are forgotten. While reading this book, I heard on BBC Radio 3 the announcement of a "Young
Brass Award" and choked on my teacake ("brass", in the old days, being yet another word for whore).
What I wanted from Decharne was impossible. I wanted him to think about the purpose of slang. I was brought up
speaking mostly slang and, in most social situations even today, I have to edit my speech, for fear of sounding like Eliza
Doolittle in My Fair Lady--speaking in a middle-class accent but using expressions such as: "What I say is, them as
pinched it, done her in." Once, as a guest on CNN's American Morning, I panicked while trying to think of a way of
saying "punch their face in" and resorted to "showed them a bunch of fives", which was considerably more baffling as
far as the lovely news anchor Soledad O'Brien was concerned.
The slang of my mum's generation is the default language of my thoughts. Whenever I hear of someone going on exotic
trips, I want to say (as my nan would have done), "You get about in your tea half-hour." When I'm racing upstairs with
the dogs, I often exhort them, "Come on, come on, up the apples!"
So, for me, slang is mainly about belonging (and nostalgia), but also about borrowed wit. People pick up slang and use
it to make themselves sound more clever and original, but self-evidently it's not original at all. When you use slang
expressions, you are reaching lazily for the pre-existing. This puts a unique pressure on slang. More so than any other
branch of language, it has to evolve or die. Decharne never asks the question, but in all the cheap novels he cites in this
book, do the authors expect their readers to understand the slang, or to be dazzled (or even worried) by it? Slang seems
to operate to its full advantage when it collides with people who have no idea what it means.
I was so pleased that Decharne cites the Howard Hawks film Ball of Fire (1941). Written by Billy Wilder and Charles
Brackett, it gives us Gary Cooper as a strait-laced professor of English brought face-to-face with a showgirl called
Sugarpuss O'Shea (Barbara Stanwyck), whose effortless slang expressions include, "shove in your clutch" (go away)
and "What's buzzin', cousin?" (what's occurring?)--although the best line in the film is given to her mobster boyfriend,
played by Dana Andrews: "She sulks if she has to wear last year's ermine."
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The main effect of reading Vulgar Tongues, in my case, was to make me feel inadequate and poorly read. Why had I
never heard of You Can't Win (1926), the "classic" hobo memoir by Jack Black, or Robin Cook's "landmark" debut
novel, The Crust on Its Uppers (1962)? Good heavens, I didn't even know that Cootie Williams had a band called the
Rug Cutters!
I disagree a bit with the book's subtitle--An Alternative History of English Slang as so many of the words and phrases
turn out to be American in origin. I also think that it's a shame that no one pointed Decharne towards No Hiding Place!
by Percy Hoskins, with its invaluable appendix giving us "on the riprap" (cadging) and "on the ear 'ole" (also cadging).
But you finish this book agreeing with John Simpson, the recently retired chief editor of the Oxford English Dictionary,
who campaigned throughout his tenure to gather words from wider sources. His predecessor Robert Burchfield
preferred to wait for words and expressions to be used in respectable quarters, such as the Times newspaper and the
literary novel. I'm guessing that you could waste several decades waiting for the expression "shove in your clutch" to
turn up in the novels of A S Byatt. Meanwhile, the language would be much the poorer without it.
Lynne Truss's books include "Eats, Shoots and Leaves" (Fourth Estate)
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Truss, Lynne. "A Captain Cook worth a butcher's hook." New Statesman, 16 Dec. 2016, p. 90+. General OneFile,
go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA477991996&it=r&asid=56f941e4ba0ed74f0c35aec3fd4f90ce.
Accessed 6 Oct. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A477991996
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Straight from the Fridge, Dad: A Dictionary of
Hipster Slang. (Reference)
Michelle Foyt
Library Journal.
126.19 (Nov. 15, 2001): p60.
COPYRIGHT 2001 Library Journals, LLC. A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution
permitted.
http://www.libraryjournal.com/
Full Text:
Decharne, Max. Straight from the Fridge, Dad: A Dictionary of Hipster Slang. Broadway. Nov. 2001. c.224p. ISBN 0-
7679-0840-6. pap. $12.95. REF
Decharne's fun and appealing reference source offers words, phrases, and sentences derived from early 20th-century
jazz musicians, crime figures, etc., as represented in such sources as film, pulp novels, blues, and country songs dating
from the early 20th century through the mid-1960s. Often noir in tone, these colorful gems include examples
illustrating the context. Although originally published in Great Britain, the book draws heavily on American slang.
Decharne does not always authenticate the definitions with documentary proof, as with the entry "beat the boards,"
which he defines as "tapdance." Other times, an entry may include a series of sensational examples: "My solid pigeon,
that drape is a killer-diller, an E-flat Dillinger, a bit of a fly thing all on one page," says a young woman complimenting
a pretty dress. The book lacks editorial principles like those of the very impressive Random House Historical
Dictionary of American Slang (Vol. 1: LJ 8/94; Vol. 2: LJ 11/15/97), which provides a pronunciation key, indicates who
or what group currently uses the entry, arranges the entries alphabetically according to the primary word, and offers
variant forms and cross references. Nonetheless, Decharne's book includes many entries that do not appear in Random
House. Highly recommended for reference collections serving writers, historians, hipsters, and anyone who enjoys
language.--Michelle Foyt, Russell Lib., Middletown, CT
Foyt, Michelle
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Foyt, Michelle. "Straight from the Fridge, Dad: A Dictionary of Hipster Slang. (Reference)." Library Journal, 15 Nov.
2001, p. 60. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA81222283&it=r&asid=aeaab29ffa5b12ec6d6e4de0bfb1fb4f.
Accessed 6 Oct. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A81222283
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Hardboiled Hollywood: The True Crime Stories
Behind the Classic Noir Films
Publishers Weekly.
256.48 (Nov. 30, 2009): p39.
COPYRIGHT 2009 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
Hardboiled Hollywood: The True Crime Stories Behind the Classic Noir Films
Max Decharne. Pegasus (Norton, dist.), $25 (304p) ISBN 978-1-60598-076-8; paper $14.95 ISBN 978-1-60598-083-6
Decharne, a member of the British band the Flaming Stars, tackles some literary noir scenarios and true murder tales as
prime inspirations for some of the finest crime films produced in Hollywood. He analyzes the thrill gangsters held for
the masses when screenwriters put them into films from the 1930s until the present, producing overnight stars like
Edward G. Robinson, James Cagney, and Humphrey Bogart. Although sometimes the book seems like a tame clip job,
it does provide the rare eye-opening revelation about the featured films and the real-life or literary events behind their
creation: the story of Al Capone behind Little Caesar; the experiences leading Raymond Chandler to write his novel
turned movie The Big Sleep; the realities and myths behind the protagonists of Bonnie and Clyde; and the 1950s Los
Angeles world of crime and scandal behind the novel and movie L.A. Confidential. Rehashing several familiar
Tinseltown tidbits and uncovering very little new material about these landmark offerings, Deharne's work is not an
essential reference volume for the entertainment book shelf. (Jan.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Hardboiled Hollywood: The True Crime Stories Behind the Classic Noir Films." Publishers Weekly, 30 Nov. 2009, p.
39+. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA213957778&it=r&asid=a443008afb68eaf112083c6fe617518f.
Accessed 6 Oct. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A213957778
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Talkin' the talk; Jousting with jive talk
The Economist.
358.8207 (Feb. 3, 2001): p8.
COPYRIGHT 2001 Economist Intelligence Unit N.A. Incorporated
http://store.eiu.com/
Full Text:
MAX DECHARNE'S "Straight From the Fridge, Dad: A Dictionary of Hipster Slang" (No Exit Press, [pound]9.99) is a
lively and amusing collection of jive words and phrases. As Mr Decharne admits, this is hipster slang broadly defined.
A true jive aficionado might feel better served by Babs Gonzales's "Boptionary", mentioned by Mr Decharne, which
comprises 53 choice phrases "spread out over two small but immaculately cool pages".
As well as authentic jazz-talk, "Straight From the Fridge, Dad" includes the hardboiled jargon of pulp fiction and film
noir, song lyrics and a liberal smattering of 1960s rat-pack argot. Jazz purists may bridle at the number of Dean Martin's
throwaway lines recorded here, but there's certainly no denying his hipster fluency. In a conversation with Nat "King"
Cole, Martin inquired: "Say, is it a solid fact that you guys can beat your chops, lace the boots and knock the licks out
groovy as a movie whilst jivin' in a comin'-on fashion?" Preparing for occasions like that one, when a simple "Yes"
wouldn't seem an acceptable reply, Mr Decharne's dictionary might well come in handy.
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Talkin' the talk; Jousting with jive talk." The Economist, 3 Feb. 2001, p. 8. General OneFile,
go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA69842076&it=r&asid=fd05020183f10724ff79069d963af9fe.
Accessed 6 Oct. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A69842076
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Hardboiled Hollywood
The Bookwatch.
(Oct. 2004):
COPYRIGHT 2004 Midwest Book Review
http://www.midwestbookreview.com/bw/index.htm
Full Text:
Hardboiled Hollywood
Max Decharne
No Exit/Trafalgar Square Publishing
PO Box 257, Howe Hill Road
North Pomfret, VT 05053-0257
ww.trafalgarsquarebooks.com
184243070X $27.50 1-800-423-4525
Film fans with an affinity for crime films and a host of such viewing under their belts won't want to miss Max
Decharne's studious Hardboiled Hollywood, a studied behind-the-scenes examination of the real-world origins of these
tales. Real life crimes were often considered too brutal to turn into films, so Hollywood modified the stories for screen
and sensitive audiences, creating fictional couples, classic good/evil confrontations, and embellishments which went
beyond reality. Decharne's guide provides a change to compare actual sources with finished film results and is a 'must'
for avid viewers.
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Hardboiled Hollywood." The Bookwatch, Oct. 2004. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA123754873&it=r&asid=5fe6de28400b38ba2cf39f2a6236f0d1.
Accessed 6 Oct. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A123754873

"Vulgar Tongues." The Bookwatch, 1 July 2017. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do? p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA501397184&it=r. Accessed 6 Oct. 2017. "Decharne, Max: VULGAR TONGUES." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Apr. 2017. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA487668519&it=r. Accessed 6 Oct. 2017. "Vulgar Tongues: An Alternative History of English Slang." Publishers Weekly, 27 Feb. 2017, p. 86. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do? p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA485671211&it=r. Accessed 6 Oct. 2017. Fletcher, Connie. "Decharne, Max. Hardboiled Hollywood." Booklist, 1 Mar. 2004, p. 1120. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do? p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA114285231&it=r. Accessed 6 Oct. 2017. Eshleman, Michael O. "Decharne, Max. Hardboiled Hollywood: The True Crime Stories Behind the Classic Noir Films." Library Journal, 1 Feb. 2010, p. 78. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do? p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA218370632&it=r. Accessed 6 Oct. 2017. Truss, Lynne. "A Captain Cook worth a butcher's hook." New Statesman, 16 Dec. 2016, p. 90+. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do? p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA477991996&it=r. Accessed 6 Oct. 2017. Foyt, Michelle. "Straight from the Fridge, Dad: A Dictionary of Hipster Slang. (Reference)." Library Journal, 15 Nov. 2001, p. 60. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do? p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA81222283&it=r. Accessed 6 Oct. 2017. "Hardboiled Hollywood: The True Crime Stories Behind the Classic Noir Films." Publishers Weekly, 30 Nov. 2009, p. 39+. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do? p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA213957778&it=r. Accessed 6 Oct. 2017. "Talkin' the talk; Jousting with jive talk." The Economist, 3 Feb. 2001, p. 8. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA69842076&it=r. Accessed 6 Oct. 2017. "Hardboiled Hollywood." The Bookwatch, Oct. 2004. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do? p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA123754873&it=r. Accessed 6 Oct. 2017.
  • Washington Post
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/vulgar-tongues-is-pimped-out-with-the-dopest-research/2017/05/31/559cc64a-460f-11e7-98cd-af64b4fe2dfc_story.html?utm_term=.302aecbe890a
    Word count: 1174

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    Books
    ‘Vulgar Tongues’ is pimped out with the dopest research
    By Allan Fallow May 31
    English slang is a field rich for tillage, as Max Décharné proves in “Vulgar Tongues,”<< a triumph of philological research and mordant social commentary>>. To grok it righteously, though, we must abandon any notion that slang terms are somehow new.

    (Pegasus)
    Acting fly, for example. Fairly recent coinage, right? Vigorous head shake from Décharné: The word was current in London 200 years ago, when lexicographer Francis Grose — the author’s hero and inspiration — defined it as “Knowing. Acquainted with another’s meaning or proceeding.”

    Or perhaps you think it’s hip to flaunt your geek cred, unaware that the word appeared in Shakespeare’s “Cymbeline” (though with a geeky final “e” appended).

    Even rap has been kicking around for more than two centuries. It showed up (as rap out, along with hip-hop and punk ) in Samuel Johnson’s 1755 “Dictionary of the English Language” — which defined it with startling contemporaneity as “To utter with hasty violence.”

    Décharné, a British music critic and language freak who moonlights as the keyboardist for the Flaming Stars, has wolfed down encyclopedic gobbets of American pop culture. In 2000, spurred by “a lifetime’s obsession with the language of vintage pulp crime fiction, film noir and jazz, blues, hillbilly, rockabilly and rock ’n’ roll music,” he published “Straight from the Fridge, Dad: A Dictionary of Hipster Slang.” He broadens that ambit ambitiously in “Vulgar Tongues,” which aims (both high and low) to tell the story of how “the English language of Shakespeare’s day fragmented and twisted into all kinds of shapes, as people like pickpockets, beggars, sailors, musicians, gangsters, whores, politicians, gypsies, soldiers, gays and lesbians, policemen, rappers, cockneys, biker gangs and circus folk seized the King’s or Queen’s English by the throat and took it to places it would probably regret in the morning.”

    Author Max Décharné (Katja Klier)
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    That facetious bill-of-fare deflects the intense scholarship that Décharné has poured into “Vulgar Tongues,” whose bibliography cites more than 500 books and periodicals (but whose index sinfully omits individual slang terms). We watch hipster devolve from a “proud flag of suavedom” in the 1940s bop era to a dismissive insult in 2017. (At least it didn’t sink from cool to embarrassing at the speed of twerk.) We learn that 76 years before Simon and Garfunkel sang about “feeling groovy,” the term denoted someone “stuck in a groove, or a rut . . . settled in habit; limited in mind.” And we look over Herb Caen’s shoulder as he coins beatnik in his San Francisco Chronicle column of April 2, 1958, borrowing the root from “the beat generation” and the suffix from the USSR’s recently launched Sputnik satellite. (To Caen’s everlasting astonishment, the word gained traction instantly; he opened the April 3 edition of the paper to find a headline about a “beatnik murder.”)

    Despite such rampant granularity, “Vulgar Tongues” <>, “from the scurrilous and the obscene all the way through to the shocking and the tragic.” But as Décharné froths himself up about digital monitoring and other modern threats to free speech — notably the “new wave of puritanism [that] has emerged . . . under the cloak of political correctness” — he wobbles offstage on a disquieting note: “Ultimately, slang will have no place in this world, because the best of it is almost guaranteed to offend someone, somewhere.”

    To which I can only say, “Right on, bro — I’m acquainted with your meaning or proceeding.”

    Allan Fallow is a writer and book editor in Alexandria, Va.

    VULGAR TONGUES
    An Alternative History of English Slang
    By Max Décharné

    Pegasus. 388 pp. $26.95

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  • Counter Punch
    https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/07/14/review-max-decharnes-vulgar-tongues-an-alternative-history-of-english-slang/
    Word count: 1066

    JULY 14, 2017
    Review: Max Décharné’s “Vulgar Tongues: An Alternative History of English Slang”
    by CHARLES R. LARSON
    FacebookTwitterGoogle+RedditEmail
    Often, what we call slang means dirty words. And dirty words were usually not dirty at the time of their origin or even considered to be so by the people who initially employed them (usually a sub-group of our society). Then these vulgar terms ran into various versions of Puritanism and/or censorship, and suddenly—after the people who considered them dirty fidgeted when they heard them or read them—they were outlawed and considered obscene. Yet, as Max Décharné writes in his fascinating study, Vulgar Tongues: An Alternative History of English Slang, this situation makes no sense at all today, especially, because on the Internet we can read about or view every kind of unimaginable (or perhaps for some imaginable) acts, even though we still feel compelled to watch our language, avoid the very words we are already familiar with. Who do we think we are fooling? There’s some hypocrisy here, but I’ll let that pass.

    Most slang—especially what is not considered dirty—originated in specific sub-groups of our society. The list of obvious possibilities includes vagabonds, rogues, prostitutes, gangsters, hoodlums, hoods, and thieves, generally not considered mainstream or proper but on the margins of society. But as Décharné exhaustively illustrates, other more savory groups as musicians, policemen, the military, even geeks and nerds, have typically employed a specific vocabulary related to their work. Sometimes the vocabulary arises from an activity—such as drinking too much booze (an obvious slang term)—with considerable overlapping of profession and activity (music and drugs, for example).

    Décharné begins his work by quoting the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), with three definitions of Slang, n: “a. The special vocabulary used by any set of people of a low or disreputable character; language of a low and vulgar type. b. The special vocabulary or phraseology of a particular calling or profession; the cant or jargon of a certain class or period. c. Language of a highly colloquial type, considered as below the level of standard educated speech, and consisting either of new words or of current words employed in some special sense.”

    Those three categories pretty much cover the turf, even though more often than not those not included in one of these groups become interested in finding the definitions of words of a prurient nature. In my early adolescent, I looked up all the four-letter words I was familiar with only to discover that the dictionaries did not include those words. Then one day, I discovered Eric Partridge’s Dictionary of Slang, published in 1937, and there I began to discover what I was looking for. Voilà! That dictionary led me to other specialized dictionaries, and I was on my way.

    It wasn’t long before I began to encounter fxxx in books I was reading and shortly later limericks, such as the following, that Décharné believes dates to the early 1940s, “likely of army origin.”

    There was a young gaucho named Bruno
    Who said ‘Screwing is one think I do know.
    A woman is fine,
    And a sheep is divine,
    But a llama is Numero Uno.”

    Well, it didn’t take long before the guys I palled around with were all making up their own limericks. But that’s what happens with slang and especially risqué language.

    Décharné makes it absolutely clear that such language moves in waves through time from commonly expressed, to underground or forbidden, to aboveground again. In a chapter devoted to the oldest profession, he tells us that the first listing for cunt in the OED puts it in use in 1230: “…for hundreds of years this was not remotely a taboo or slang word, but merely everyday speech. It was a cognate with similar words in many European languages,” but then it shifted to improper, obscene. In 1691, a book was published that Décharné refers to as the forerunner of the modern telephone directory, but its subject was sex: A Catalogue of Jilts, Cracks, Prostitutes, Night-Walkers, Whores, She-friends, Kind Women, and Others of the Linnen-Lifting Tribe, who are to be Seen Every Night in the Cloysters in Smithfield, from the Hours of Eight to Eleven, during the Time of the Fair.

    Fact is, many of the book and song titles cited in Vulgar Tongues are utterly delightful. Songs like “Banana in Your Fruit Basket” and “My Pencil Won’t Write No More,” a book titled Feeling You’re Behind, and the cult-movie Reefer Madness. Double entendres have always abounded as one way to get around the censors. This has been especially true with popular music and the advent of professional recording studios in the United States, beginning with Rock’N’Roll, in the 1960s.

    Décharné is legitimately worried about the new wave of Puritanism that emerged in the 1980s, carrying the name political correctness. But his conclusion illustrates the resilience of slang, unconventional language, always with us, always morphing into something else: “Slang used to come from the street, from the working stiffs, the grafters, the frails, the jack-rollers, the winchester geese, the hep-cats, the old lags, the mollies, the lobsters and the jug-bitten. Much of the time, it still does, but it is fighting against a tidal wave of fake language deployed by committees of marketing executives or by focus groups in the pay of politicians, all desperately seeking to look cool. In today’s online information blizzard, countless of billions of words are sent out into the fray in the hope of causing a Twitter storm, perhaps trending on Facebook, or else gaining a ludicrous number of plays on You Tube, alongside the tap-dancing kittens and latest celebrity Wardrobe malfunction.”

    He’s right. <>

    Max Décharné: Vulgar Tongues: An Alternative History of English Slang
    Pegasus, 400 pp., $26.95

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    More articles by:CHARLES R. LARSON
    Charles R. Larson is Emeritus Professor of Literature at American University, in Washington, D.C. Email = clarson@american.edu. Twitter @LarsonChuck.

  • AV Club
    https://aux.avclub.com/max-decharne-hardboiled-hollywood-1798164205
    Word count: 389

    REVIEWS
    Max Décharné: Hardboiled Hollywood

    Michaelangelo Matos
    1/28/10 12:00amFiled to: BOOKS
    10
    BOOK REVIEW
    Lead
    B-
    Hardboiled Hollywood

    AUTHOR
    Max Décharné
    PUBLISHER
    Pegasus
    Only a handful of the 11 movies that Berlin-based British writer Max Décharné chronicles in Hardboiled Hollywood: The True Crime Stories Behind The Classic Noir Films are actually noir films in the classic sense—black-and-white ’40s and ’50s melodramas involving private eyes and no-good dames. Instead, Hardboiled Hollywood is as concerned with gangster films such as Little Caesar and Get Carter as it is the post-Raymond Chandler/Philip Marlowe diaspora. Décharné also includes a few British movies—not Hollywood, per se—and only some of the stories he relates are about true crime, so these “true crime stories about noir movies” are something rather different than what his subtitle promises.

    On its own terms, though, Hardboiled Hollywood is a brisk, sporadically entertaining genre piece. Décharné clearly relishes crime writing and film-watching of all stripes, and he frequently finds choice quotes from relatively unplundered archival material, such as the British movie mag Films & Filming on the fusillade of early-’60s Psycho rip-offs (“according to Roget’s Thesaurus we can still expect to see Auto-, Dipso, Klepto-, Megalo-, Mono-, and Pyro-maniac”), or the Spectator’s response to Nicholas Ray’s In A Lonely Place (“If the director had taken the trouble to be French, we would be licking his boots in ecstasy”). He makes persuasive cases for overlooked films like Val Guest’s Hell Is A City and John Milius’ Dillinger. And with a keen eye, he lays out the ways in which Hollywood’s production-code standards prevented, then allowed, harder-edged movies to see release.

    Décharné frequently approximates the hard-boiled style of the writers he’s chronicling, which can be overly cute at times, as in the Kiss Me Deadly chapter: “Hammer and the dead girl take a one-way trip down the side of the canyon without the aid of a safety net and his car’s chances of ever winning ‘Best in Show’ at an auto rally are shot all to hell.” Nevertheless, he <> with the bad men of the screen.

  • New York Journal of Books
    http://www.nyjournalofbooks.com/book-review/rocket-my-pocket-hipster%E2%80%99s-guide-rockabilly-music
    Word count: 1554

    A Rocket in My Pocket: The Hipster’s Guide to Rockabilly Music

    Image of A Rocket in My Pocket: The Hipster's Guide to Rockabilly Music
    Author(s):
    Max Décharné
    Release Date:
    November 15, 2011
    Publisher/Imprint:
    Serpent’s Tail
    Pages:
    336
    Buy on Amazon

    Reviewed by:
    Michael Cala
    “There are at least 50 acts whose work is covered in detail, with scores mentioned in passing. Their impact on popular music was significant at the time, and the author has made an excellent case that they deserve rediscovery today. Of course, it took a British fan of American music to create this superb ode to a historic and highly entertaining (and very danceable) genre of American popular music.”

    Historically, the British have been highly appreciative of American popular music. At one point, they reintroduced us to a long-neglected homegrown product—the blues—that few white Americans were familiar with until the blues and folk booms of the 1950s and 1960s took the country by storm.

    For example, if it weren’t for 1960s British blues bands like the Yardbirds and John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers, there would likely not have been an American blues-n-roots renaissance following the “British Invasion,” nor would the blues, reincarnated and transmuted into many diverse forms, be as popular as it is today.

    Max Décharné is also British and has done for rockabilly—the briefly flowering synthesis of American musical styles initially popularized by Elvis Presley—what earlier British musicians and critics have done for the blues.

    The author has been collecting rare rockabilly records on labels both famous and obscure since the 1970s. He also plays it; and in A Rocket in My Pocket, he distills 40 years of an intimate knowledge of American country, Western swing, boogie-woogie, rock and roll, and rockabilly into a highly readable and informative package, marred only occasionally by use of unreferenced British acronyms. British spellings (“favourite,” “color,” “towards,” etc.,) of course, are standard.

    Max Décharné begins by detailing the genesis of Elvis’s rockabilly sound as an amalgam of Western Swing, rhythm and blues, bluegrass, and country blues music. The author then makes a compelling case for the development of rockabilly during the 1950s from these earlier musical forms.

    Like its blues counterpart, rockabilly’s history is rooted in Memphis, Tennessee. In a little studio known as the Memphis Recording Service (later, Sun Records), some of the first and best country and rockabilly (and blues) was recorded by company owner and producer Sam Phillips.

    Phillips was the first to record Elvis singing rockabilly tunes in the studio with Scotty Moore and Bill Black, beginning with Arthur Crudup’s bluesy “That’s Alright Mama,” and a jazzed up version of bluegrass creator Bill Monroe’s “Blue Moon of Kentucky.” Phillips recorded an amazing roster of artists at Sun Records including Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash, and rockabilly diva Wanda Jackson.

    Of note, the author covers quite a few women of rockabilly in addition to Jackson, women who are barely mentioned in most pop music histories, like the underrated Barbara Pittman, or Janis Martin, Mimi Roman, and Alis Lesley—all of whom were billed at one time or another as “the female Elvis.”

    Unfortunately, says the author, rockabilly was associated so strongly with male performers that the women of rockabilly—except maybe for Wanda Jackson—never achieved national prominence or chart positions.

    Of all the Sun Records performers, Elvis’s influence on rockabilly was arguably the most significant—and infectious. The author notes that every other record label began scouting for its own version of Elvis, and teenagers nationally took to the craze for what many called “hillbilly” music, calling Elvis the “Hep Cat.”

    Until he was “sanitized” by his manager, “Colonel” Tom Parker, and aimed at an adult audience by 1960, Elvis was the textbook definition of “hep” for a generation of teenagers tired of listening to their parents’ music.

    As a result, bluegrass, rock and roll and country performers took up the craze and were recorded by the many small labels created to accommodate the record buying audience. Perhaps in emulation or deference to Texas Swing maestro Bob Wills, who recorded a number of swing and pre-rockabilly songs with “boogie” in their titles, many rockabilly tunes continued this tradition.

    Scores of bands with “hillbilly” in their titles would perform songs invariably titled a “boogie”—“Fast Train Boogie,” “Mississippi Boogie,” “Girl Crazy Boogie,” etc. One Sun Records artist who attained a measure of rock and roll and rockabilly popularity was Billy Lee Riley, whose recording, “Rocket in My Pocket,” was taken by the author for this book’s title. (Riley also recorded a novelty tune, “Flying Saucers Rock and Roll,” that became the title for a book on eccentrics in rock and roll. That book is reviewed in these pages.)

    The author presents a history that is at once sweeping and yet highly detailed. He cites <>.

    Likewise, the personalities he presents—everyone from Sun’s Sam Phillips to Meteor Records founder Leonard Bihari and countless rockabilly artists—through newspaper and radio interviews, magazines, ands reminiscences of the artists, takes us from hotbeds of hillbilly music from Tennessee to Texas.

    There are a number of entertaining anecdotes throughout the book, and Mr. Décharné tells a good tale. For example: When Sam Phillips sold Elvis’s contract to RCA Records just two years after signing him, everyone thought he had lost his mind; however, Phillips was a shrewd businessman who knew he could use the proceeds of the contract sale to promote his struggling label and its rockabilly artists including Perkins, Lewis, and Cash.

    Thanks to the success of these artists, as well as perhaps a dozen other successful acts (some of whom performed blues and r&b before Phillips settled on recording mostly white country singers), Phillips created Sun Records International—an empire of music and business interests that would outlast him.

    This book’s subtitle tells us it’s aimed at hipsters, but of course it’s written by a member of the choir for other choir members, as the author lists scores of artists and bands, particulars of recording sessions, label creations and failures (like the short-lived Meteor Records), and much more.

    The “more” includes emphasis on the importance of films aimed at teens that featured rock and roll and rockabilly, in addition to R&B. “Rock Around the Clock,” featuring Bill Haley and the Comets, and “The Girl Can’t Help It,” featuring Gene Vincent and Eddie Cochran (and Little Richard!) were the two most influential films, although drive-in quickies like “Hot Rod Gang” and “Rockabilly Baby” also fueled the musical craze. Acts not normally associated with rockabilly, like the Everly Brothers and Roy Orbison, are also covered in detail.

    Mr. Décharné also devotes much ink to the many regional and national television and radio programs that fueled the rock and roll and rockabilly fires, like Dick Clark’s American Bandstand, and Ted Steel. He also documents the appearance of Elvis and other rockabilly performers on “adult” variety entertainment programs like “The Ed Sullivan Show,” “The Milton Berle Show,” “The Steve Allen Show,” and variety programs hosted by the Dorsey Brothers and others from the Big Band era.

    On radio, Memphis’s Dewey Phillips, known as “Daddy-O Dewey,” promoted rockabilly acts just as hard as he promoted the black R&B and blues acts that were so much a part of the Memphis music scene. Of note, Dewey Phillips (no relation to Sam) was a racial integrationist at a time when few white southern DJs would have had the nerve to advance “race music” to the degree that Phillips did on his program.

    For those who only know the neo-rockabilly of acts like the Stray Cats or Sha-Na-Na, this is <>. There are at least 50 acts whose work is covered in detail, with scores <>. Their impact on popular music was significant at the time, and the author has made an excellent case that they deserve rediscovery today.

    Of course, <> this superb ode to a historic and highly entertaining (and very danceable) genre of American popular music.

    Michael Cala has written extensively on folk, blues, and American roots music, including numerous reviews of books, recordings, and concerts, as well as blues and jazz artist profiles. In 2013–2014, he and his wife Anne raised funds to buy 1920s blues pioneer Mamie Smith a headstone—she lay buried in unmarked ground for 68 years —and to establish a cemetery maintenance fund in her name. Mr. Cala also writes about photography and health topics. He is a regular contributor to Blues Music magazine, writes for ad agencies and other commercial clients, and contributes articles about American music and history to digital and print venues including No Depression.

  • The Telegraph
    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/3648294/Epicentre-of-the-British-youthquake.html
    Word count: 845

    Epicentre of the British youthquake
    Andrew Martin reviews King's Road by Max Décharné.
    Andrew Martin12:01AM GMT 27 Nov 2005
    This book (as bulky as you might expect a work on the whole of London to be, rather than a single street) starts with a gallop through Chelsea's prehistory: the time before flared trousers.
    As evidence that the area had acquired a bohemian reputation by the late 17th century, Max Décharné quotes from William Congreve's play Love For Love, in which Mrs Foresight asks somebody, 'I suppose you would not go alone to the World's End', a reference to the pub at which you can still reward yourself after walking the whole length of the King's Road from the Royal Court Theatre in Sloane Square. Many Londoners have done this, and with a strong sense of not looking quite as groovy as they would like. It's been that way ever since the event of which the 50th anniversary has triggered this book: the opening of Bazaar, the first of Mary Quant's King's Road boutiques.
    So central is the the King's Road to the British youthquake that Décharné ends up having to describe the whole phenomenon, from Bill Haley to punk. Add in the fact that he likes to keep track of his King's Road heroes as they progress towards it from less glamorous locations and the result is a rather staccato narrative of fact-packed paragraphs, frequently linked by the word 'meanwhile'. In fact, you can read the whole story of the King's Road in Décharné's 'meanwhiles': 'Meanwhile… in Ilfracombe… a young actor called John Osborne was working with a theatre outfit called the Saga Repertory Company…' 'George Melly, meanwhile, was already right in the thick of things…' 'Meanwhile, somewhere in South London, a young man from Leicester called Colin Wilson was working away…' 'Oz magazine, meanwhile, was in serious trouble…'
    Yet King's Road has its strengths. Décharné is a thorough researcher, with a charming enthusiasm for his raw material. He seems to become transfixed by a 1913 map of Chelsea, for instance, noting that number 488 King's Road, destined to become 'Sixties boutique supreme', Granny Takes a Trip, was then called - with what seems like amazing self-effacement - 'Theodore Matthiae, Baker', while the 'ultra-hip Sixties restaurant' Alvaro's, was as yet 'Webb Sons & Clark Limited, Wholesale Cheesemongers'.
    Décharné's prose has a touch of the Austin Powers, but this is offset with dry humour, and anyway what would you expect from a rock drummer who is also the author of Straight From The Fridge, Dad - A Dictionary of Hipster Slang? All musical and sartorial styles are pithily summarised: in the mid-Sixties, it was 'velvets and frills and fin-de-siècle dandyism' from Granny Takes A Trip, while in the early Seventies, John Lloyd's Alkasura was where it was at, with its 'glammed up, stack-heeled Seventies flash'. Of the prolonged taste for domestic realism created by Look Back in Anger, which opened at the Royal Court in 1956, Décharné writes 'the kitchen was in no danger of sinking'. He has an ear for drollery in his many interview subjects, and there are some lovely quotes from the late John Peel, who describes punk as 'such a welcome breath of foul air'.
    Related Articles
    Duncan Fallowell reviews King's Road 27 Nov 2005
    He's particularly authoritative on punk, largely brewed up at Sex, the shop at 430 King's Road run by Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood. Johnny Rotten was a regular there. He and Sid Vicious later shared a flat in Chelsea Cloisters on Sloane Avenue, which was also the last London address of the frazzled rocker Syd Barrett, ex of Pink Floyd, who would sit and watch seven televisions at once. The Rotten/Vicious flat was apparently 'cockroach-infested', but the days of Chelsea's cockroaches were numbered. Margaret Thatcher would shortly move from just off the King's Road to Downing Street, and the property boom she instigated is the root cause of the present quietus in Chelsea where, as Décharné concedes, cultural interest has been drowned in a tide of money.
    Much of this tale is familiar, but much of it is not, and the book works best as a string of bizarre anecdotes. Décharné quotes an account, from the NME gossip column in 1974, of Keith Richards inspecting a pair of trousers under the eye of a shop assistant at Granny Takes A Trip. ' "Yeah," drawls the lad, examining them at suitably protracted length, "yeah, I'll try these man… Where'sa changin' room?" "Er, you're in it Keith," [says the assistant]. After attempting for several minutes to undo his own trousers in order to try on the new ones, he apparently abandoned the attempt, saying, "Oh, lissen, man… I carn 'andle this. I'll take the fings on spec." ' Décharné presents this as 'a cautionary story about the dangers of attempting to go shopping while out of your brain on Class A drugs'.
    You have been warned.

  • The Telegraph
    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/3648296/Walk-on-the-wild-side.html
    Word count: 926

    HOME»CULTURE»BOOKS
    Walk on the wild side
    Duncan Fallowell reviews King's Road by Max Décharné.
    Duncan Fallowell 12:01AM GMT 27 Nov 2005
    In the mid-1960s, I was a London schoolboy and we had long lunchtimes. The idea was to play house games or attend clubs but some of us trailed off to bookshops in the Charing Cross Road or to the boutiques of Chelsea. For any teenager in any era, walking through central London is a major experience, but to be 16 years old in the King's Road in 1965 was to be chosen by the gods.
    At that time the dandy style still held, but it was in the King's Road that I saw my first hippies - smart ones with silk scarves tied horizontally round their long hair like Apaches. They were offering sweets to passers-by, saying "peace and love". These days, a schoolboy offered a sweet by a stranger backs off, complains of abuse and seeks compensation. Not then. I took the sweet, ate it, enjoyed it, and took another. That's the 1960s in a nutshell - saying yes.
    When I set up independently in London in 1970, I chose Chelsea's more raffish partner, Notting Hill, but the King's Road was still where you went for that shot of "up". Later, we used to go to a gay/bi club in Covent Garden called Shagarama. One day, it changed its name to the Roxy and became the first punk club - but we carried on going there and so got drawn into the King's Road's Vivienne Westwood/Sex Pistols phase. And even now, when chain shops have obliterated its originality, to walk down the King's Road is the nearest thing I know in London to going on holiday. It still has an echo of that Brummellesque buzz.
    So it was with something akin to joy that I pounced on this homage to it. All the signals were good. Quality imprint, dolly-bird cover, colourful endpapers, photographs I'd not seen before, and fabulously - in deference to a lost world of style - a sewn binding. My excitement did not survive even the first 50 pages. The principle of only reviewing books you can be positive about is a good one but, like all principles, it must not become so rigid as to defy reality. And this book is such a fine example of what's wrong with British publishing that its defects are worth noting.
    The first problem is that its author can't, or doesn't, write. The book reads like an internet print-out. Instead of developing stories, it lists incidents and products. If you aren't put off by the tone of nudge-nudge jocularity, the constant reiteration of facts and mannerisms ("a certain Keith Richards", "a certain Dudley Moore", "a certain Royal Court actor called Michael Caine") and grammatical errors will wear you down. The publishers are obviously not troubled by this. Books these days are not connected to writing. They are sold merely on the idea or gimmick and, once clicked into the system, everything afterwards functions on autopilot.
    Related Articles
    Andrew Martin reviews King's Road 27 Nov 2005
    Structure. It was a big mistake to organise the book chronologically rather than thematically. Instead of narrative and analysis, we have plate-spinning, year by year, of what shops and restaurants are opening or closing, what's on at the Royal Court Theatre, what records and films are being released and why they are, or are not, connected to the King's Road.
    Sources. Mainly contemporary newspapers and magazines, especially Films & Filming and What's On In London. Scarcely a letter or diary entry, and then only the most obvious. The author's own interviews are platitudinous. We never get behind the scenes.
    Content. The book is about the Angry Young Men of the 1950s, and the fashion and pop booms of the 1960s and 1970s. The King's Road's illustrious heritage in painting and literature in the previous 100 years is only briefly sketched. There's no sense of place. The road itself is never described geographically or architecturally. From the wonders of 17th-century Chelsea to the revolutionary cantilevers of Peter Jones - nothing. Those who own it and develop it are disregarded. Amazingly, the Cadogan family isn't mentioned once.
    No straight sex. There are phrases such as "sexual liberation" and trendy couples are itemised, but nothing more. For example, numberless pages are devoted to listing all the productions at the Royal Court, but of the shenanigans going on in the dressing-rooms between Vivien Leigh, Laurence Olivier and Joan Plowright, never a squeak.
    No gay sex. From the Colville Arms near Sloane Square to the Gigolo Club near World's End, the road pioneered gay lib, helped by the many bent waiters flushed out of Franco's Spain - silence on all that. No bisexuality - which was huge throughout King's Road circles. The Royal Court couldn't have functioned without it.
    Also not invited: Johnny Bindon, Johnny Moke, John Betjeman in Radnor Walk, April Ashley, Orson Welles in Argyll House (or was he next door?), the Aretusa club, the Water Rat, Just Men, the Chelsea Cobbler, soul and reggae, Deluxe and Boulevard magazines, the Duke of York's Barracks, Chelsea Pensioners, etc.
    Much which has nothing to do with the King's Road is included, however: the Establishment, Marquee and Vortex Clubs in Soho; the Indica Gallery in Southampton Row and the Robert Fraser Gallery in Duke Street; and countless films and records.
    One paragraph begins "Meanwhile over in Egypt…" Oh, please.

  • The Bookbag
    http://www.thebookbag.co.uk/reviews/index.php?title=Capital_Crimes:_Seven_centuries_of_London_life_and_murder_by_Max_Decharne
    Word count: 1066

    Capital Crimes: Seven centuries of London life and murder by Max Decharne

    Capital Crimes: Seven centuries of London life and murder by Max Decharne

    Category: True Crime
    Rating: 4.5/5
    Reviewer: John Van der Kiste
    Reviewed by John Van der Kiste
    Summary: Accounts of twenty London murder cases between 1381 and 1954, which reflect <> to crime and punishment over the centuries.
    Buy? Yes Borrow? Yes
    Pages: 402 Date: September 2012
    Publisher: Random House
    ISBN: 9781847945907
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    True crime has been one of the great growth areas of publishing in the last few years. As more than one author in the field as observed, everyone loves a good murder in a manner of speaking, and anybody who is looking for books on murders in London will find no lack of choice.

    This volume differs sharply from the others I have read so far. In fact, it must be one of the very few without a chapter on Dr Crippen and his wife, though the doctor merits two brief references in the text and index. Likewise there are only passing mentions to the already well-documented matter of Jack the Ripper.

    In taking twenty cases from the fourteenth century to the mid-twentieth, it does not merely concentrate on the victim or victims and the legal processes which brought the parties responsible to justice, but also tells us much about changing historical attitudes to murder and capital punishment over the years. This is demonstrated well by the opening chapter, which is concerned with the violent death of questor Roger Legett. A questor was an assizer or professional juror, who made a profit out of inquests by holding them, or alternatively giving false evidence – and to some, in effect no more than a money-grabbing busybody. He was set upon by a crowd during the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381 and beheaded in broad daylight, and such was the state of anarchy at the time that, like many others who were killed at around the same time, nobody was ever held to account for his death. In those days there was no police force, with law and order, such as it was, being a local community function not dissimilar to neighbourhood watch schemes today. In medieval times, if peasants were murdered it was not always regarded as a crime, and convicted murderers might be fined (two-thirds going to the King, the other one-third to the victim’s family) or mutilated rather than executed, although there was a rise in the use of the death penalty after the Norman conquest.

    At times of anarchy, if officials and dignitaries failed to find an effective refuge in sanctuary were summarily executed, the guilty men stood a strong chance of getting way with their crime. Sanctuary, by the way, was generally no safeguard at all. Any officials or members of the nobility could try to take refuge in a church or cathedral, but once they were discovered by the mob, they would almost certainly be dragged out without mercy and butchered on the spot.

    Richard Hunne, the victim in chapter two, was one of the first people to fall foul of ecclesiastical issues during the reign of Henry VIII. An argument with the church led to imprisonment, and in December 1514 he was found hanging in his cell. What initially looked like suicide was found to have been murder, possibly on the orders of the clergy. More bizarrely still his remains were brought before the church authorities, tried for heresy, found guilty and publicly incinerated at the stake. There is some scant consolation in reading about this squalid episode in learning that the crowds, far from jeering at the long-dead prisoner, showed considerable scorn for the executioner and those who had ordered such proceedings.

    From 1600 onwards, there are at least three murders for each century, all examined in detail. Some are fairly well-known, others less so. The mysterious death of Sir Thomas Overbury, a protégé of James I’s favourite, Sir Robert Carr, in the Tower of London in 1612, resulted in a scandal which considerably tarnished the reputation of the first Stuart King’s court. The killing of singer Martha Ray at Covent Garden in 1779 by the Reverend James Hackman must be one of the earliest documented cases of an unhinged stalker whose obsession with him victim culminated in tragedy, and in his case a botched suicide attempt, trial and hanging at Tyburn. Perhaps the most familiar case in these pages is that of Spencer Perceval, the only British Prime Minister to be assassinated, at Westminster in 1812. From the twentieth century, we have the episode of the East Finchley baby farmers in 1902, the fatal shooting of Palace Cinema manager Dudley Hoard in 1934, and a family argument in Hampstead in 1954 which led to Styllou Christofi, a Cypriot woman who spoke little English, strangling her daughter-in-law, trying to burn the body and almost setting the whole house on fire. After her trial, it was revealed she had had a fortunate escape from the gallows in Cyprus as a young woman by taking part in the killing of her mother-in-law when a burning piece of wood was rammed down her throat.

    Throughout this book <>, as well as on the killers and the victims. Each case is examined in detail, and there are black and white half-tone illustrations at the start of each chapter as well as a colour plate section in the middle. It should appeal not only to devotees of true crime but to those interested in London and social history as well.

    If this book appeals then you might also like to try Murders of London: In the steps of the capital's killers by David Long

  • Historical Novel Society
    https://historicalnovelsociety.org/reviews/capital-crimes-seven-centuries-of-london-life-and-murder/
    Word count: 138

    Capital Crimes: Seven Centuries of London Life and Murder
    BY MAX DÉCHARNÉ

    Find & buy on
    London, as one of the world’s principal cities for many years, has been the focus for incalculable crimes and misdemeanours, and the setting for human behaviour in all its depravity and cruelty. The author takes a number of murders and killings in London, known as capital crimes, i.e., which attracted the death penalty, from 1380 onwards. Each case is discussed in some detail, using contemporary sources wherever possible. This is interesting in itself, but with the accompanying analysis of London’s changing historical topography as well as the developments in society and society’s attitudes towards crime and punishment, each chapter is an absorbing read. The narratives are expertly written, informative, accessible and yet engaging.

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