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LESLIE_FORD

                                          April 6, 2008
   I find a certain
   fascination in
   the fact that there
   are many dull, vapid
   writers that have
   published up to
   a hundred books before
   being permanently
   forgotten.

      Leslie Ford
      comes to mind.
      My mind, if          But then a web search does turn
      no one else's.       up a few hits: "Like white
                           gloves and seamed stockings,
                           Leslie Ford is greatly out of
   I've only read          fashion these days."
   a few Leslie
   Ford's.                     [ref]

   One was set in              (Seamed
   San Francisco,              stockings            So, Leslie Ford has
   and struck me               are out of           retained a slightly
   as the result               fashion?)            larger hold on public
   of a working                                     memory than, say,
   vacation.                                        Leslie Turner White.

      A few war-time touches                            I suspect identity
      were of interest:                                 politics: the later
      during air raids,                                 Leslie is male.
      the city goes silent.
                                                        But there might be
      The characteristic                                something more
      noises of SF are                                  subtle going on:
      supposed to be                                    White's claim to
      jukeboxes and                                     fame was The
      cable cars.                                       Adventure Story,
                                                        a genre less
                                                        calcified but more
   The other I read was                                 out-of-style than
   set in Washington                                    the mystery.
   (apparently more common
   for her), and the one                                DOWN_WITH_ARISTOCRACY
   thing that stuck in my
   mind was the difference
   in social status between
   Senators and Congressmen.

      An obvious detail, but it
      had never occurred to me.


           The most remarkable thing about those
           books was the near complete lack of
           anything worth remarking on.





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