Cornell Woolrich

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Cornell Woolrich was the great dark poet of the forties who presaged (and inspired) many of the great dark poets of the fifties, writers like Jim Thompson and David Goodis. Woolrich was a reclusive man. After a stint as a Hollywood screenwriter (and a failed marriage), he returned to New York, where he lived in hotel rooms for the rest of his life, first with his mother, then alone.

Whatever his circumstances, Woolrich produced some of the most suspenseful yarns ever written. Though he usually provides a rational explanation at the end, his books read like horror novels, with plots that drive the characters to doubt their own sanity. Even after the mystery has been neatly resolved, what stays with you is the yawning abyss of terror that splits open the everyday world. His urban-gothic mysteries would combine with the small town amorality of Jame M. Cain to influence the later paperback noir movement.