This hardboiled collection of somewhat interconnected short stories revolves around men in prison. Tully paints a vibrant picture of their lives behind bars, how they got there, and how some of them die there. These stories are dark and gritty, maybe the hardest hitting of all of Tully’s books, yet they overflow with a deep felt compassion for the humanity that few writers could find within these broken men.
Jim Tully has largely been forgotten today, but during the 1920s and 1930s he was considered one of America’s best writers, routinely ranked with Hemingway and Fitzgerald as a true American voice.
This Ring eBooks edition of this forgotten American classic is DRM free.
What the Critics Said:
“The stories are told with a brilliant vividness and always with sympathy. Some of them are little masterpieces.” – The American Mercury
“Before this Mr. Tully has often exhibited his profound knowledge of the seamy side of life, and his firm convictions about it, but he has never shown us anything more seamy nor about which he feels more strongly than the prison life in “Shadows of Men.” – The Saturday Review
“If Tully were a Russian, read in translation, all the professors would be hymning him. He has all of Gorky’s capacity for making vivid the miseries of poor and helpless men, and in addition he has a humor that no Russian could conceivably have.” - H.L. Mencken
