There is nothing artistic about Mickey Spillane's work or even his almost 'performance artist' level of being a writer. For me, and I'm sure there were others, but I'm just not aware of them, Spillane is the first public image of what a writer should act like. There is no reason why one should separate the writer from their work. It was obvious to me that Spillane was not writing fiction, but an autobiography. That is not the case whatsoever. He was a fictional writer, and he went beyond that and made himself "Mickey Spillane" as a fictional character.
At the height of Spillane's fame and glory, he made this 10" album where side one is a short narrative by him, and with the author reading the text. The background is music by Stan Purdy, a composer that Spillane discovered somewhere in the music world. As far as I know, this is Purdy's only recorded work. In other words, he was Spillane's music composer under his wing or company. As mentioned, I don't think his work as a writer is that artistic, but on the other hand, Spillane was an artist in the sense he made himself bigger than his literature. The only writer I can think of who did something similar is Yukio Mishima. I wonder if Spillane knew of Mishima, as a writer, and in the same sense as the noir author, a performance artist?
Beyond the identity issue, this 10" album is great. The first side is entertaining because Spillane gives his story a sense of character in his performance. Side two is all music. And it's very much the Jazzy Crime TV/Film soundtrack that was very common during the 1950s. Not as cool or brilliant as Henry Mancini's "Peter Gunn" but still, a cool snapshot of that time and period. The packaging is brilliant. The front cover painting is by G.R. Wilson, and at this time and moment, I can't find anything else by this artist. Like Purdy, it seems he existed all for Mickey Spillane's purpose and vision.
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