Web of the City

by Harlan Ellison Narrated by Stefan Rudnicki

Overview

“Get it straight right now: these aren't kids playing games of war. They mean business. They are junior-grade killers and public enemies one through five thousand.”

In Rusty Santoro's neighborhood, the kids carry knives, chains, bricks, and broken glass. And when they fight, they fight dirty, leaving the streets littered with the bodies of the injured and the dead. Rusty wants out-but you can't just walk away from a New York street gang. And his decision may leave his family to pay a terrible price.

First published more than half a century ago and inspired by the author's real-life experience going undercover inside a street gang, Web of the City was Harlan Ellison's first novel and marked the long-form debut of one of the most electrifying, unforgettable, and controversial voices of twentieth-century letters. Appearing here with the short story “No Game for Children,” which Ellison wrote for the pulp magazines of the 1950s, Web of the City offers both a snapshot of a lost era and a portrait of violence and grief as timely as today's most brutal headlines. Includes an introduction read by the author.

Also includes the 1959 short story “No Game for Children”

Editorial Reviews

Pete Hamill

Harlan Ellison is the dark prince of American letters, cutting through our corrupted midnight fog with a switchblade prose. He simply must be read.

Leslie Charteris

Ellison writes with sensitivity as well as guts---a rare combination.
— creator of The Saint

Publishers Weekly

Originally published in 1958 under the title Rumble, Edgar-winner Ellison’s first novel—about a Brooklyn street gang—bears some plot parallels to the musical West Side Story. Rusty Santoro has stepped down as leader of the Cougars, but, unsurprisingly, finds that ending his connection with them and starting fresh is not so simple. His successor, Candle, is looking to send a message by administering a beating to Santoro, forcing Santoro to defend himself—and get back into the world of violence he is trying to escape. The ugliness only escalates from there, ultimately claiming a life. Readers should be prepared for a neophyte writer’s occasional awkward phrasing (e.g., “The spoor of conquest was high in Rusty now”) and action that’s pretty tame by today’s standards of urban crime fiction. “No Way Out” and two other short stories published in 1950s magazines round out the volume. (Apr.)

From the Publisher

"It’s hard to fathom that one of the most illustrious speculative-fiction writing careers—in addition to ten Hugos, Ellison has won so many other awards that even he probably can’t remember half of them—launched with this gangbanger tale in 1958. Ellison based the action on his own experiences in a Brooklyn gang. Along with Web, the volume includes three related gang stories—”No Game for Children,” “Stand Still and Die,” and “No Way Out.” More fodder for the argument that Ellison may have pioneered what we now call street lit. Classic cover art on this one, too. – Library Journal

“Take a look at Web of the City, you will be glad you did.” – Crimezine

“Hard Case has done an amazing job repackaging Web of the City with three additional tales of violence and dread.” – Bibliodiscoteque 

"It's a great read itself and even more fascinating when looked upon in the context of Ellison's hugely influential career." - Ain’t It Cool Holiday Gift Guide

Library Journal

It’s hard to fathom that one of the most illustrious speculative-fiction writing careers—in addition to ten Hugos, Ellison has won so many other awards that even he probably can’t remember half of them—launched with this gangbanger tale in 1958. Ellison based the action on his own experiences in a Brooklyn gang. Along with Web, the volume includes three related gang stories—”No Game for Children,” “Stand Still and Die,” and “No Way Out.” More fodder for the argument that Ellison may have pioneered what we now call street lit. Classic cover art on this one, too.

(c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940169721362
Publisher:	Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Publication date:	07/07/2015
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

INTRODUCTION

UNNECESSARY WORDS

There's really no point to writing an introduction to a novel. A book of short stories, sure, okay. A collection of essays, definitely. A scholarly tome, naturally. But what the hell should one have to say about an entertainment, a fiction, a novel? Nothing. It should speak for itself.

And I intend to let it.

Even so, I'd like to make one brief statement about the book. Bear with me; I won't be long.

There's a story told about Hemingway--I don't know if it's true or not, but if it isn't, it ought to be. The story goes that he was either on his way to France or on his way back from France, one or the other, I don't recall the specifics of the anecdote that well. He was on shipboard, and he had with him his first novel. Not THE SUN ALSO RISES; the one he wrote before that "first novel" that made him a literary catchword almost overnight.

Yes, the story goes, Hemingway had written a book before THE SUN ALSO RISES, and there he was aboard ship, steaming either here or there; and he was at the rail, leaning over, thinking, and then he took the boxed manuscript of the book ... and threw it into the ocean.

Apparently on the theory that no one should ever read a writer's first novel.

Which would mean--were all writers to subscribe to that theory--we'd never have had ONE HUNDRED DOLLAR MISUNDERSTANDING or THE CATCHER IN THE RYE or FROM HERE TO ETERNITY or THE SEVEN WHO FLED OR THE PAINTED BIRD or GONE WITH THE WIND or...?

Well, you get the idea.

I don't know whether to argue with the theory or not, but I suppose I'm lobbying against it by permitting (nay, encouraging) this reprint of myfirst novel, WEB OF THE CITY. It was my first book, written under mostly awful personal circumstances, and I'm rather fond of it. I've re-read it this last week, just to find out how amateurish and inept it is, and I find it still holds the interest. I even gave it to a couple of nasty types who profess to being my friends when they aren't sticking it in my back, and even they say it's worth preserving.

So the book is alive once more.

The time about which it speaks is gone--the early Fifties; and the place it talks about has changed somewhat--Brooklyn, the slums. But it has a kind of innocent verve about it that commends it to your attention. I hope, of course, that you'll agree with me.

In case you might wonder, I wrote it around the tail end of 1956 and the first three months of 1957. I was drafted in March of 1957 and wrote the bulk of the book while undergoing the horrors of Ranger basic training at Fort Benning, Georgia. After a full day, from damned near dawn till well after dusk, marching, drilling, crawling on my belly across infiltration courses, jumping off static-line towers, learning to carve people up with bayonets and break their bodies with judo and other unpleasant martial arts, our company would be fed and then hustled into a barracks, where the crazed killers who were my fellow troopers would clean their weapons, spit-shine their boots, and then collapse across their bunks to sleep the sleep of the tormented. I, on the other hand, would take a wooden plank, my Olympia typewriter, and my box of manuscript and blank paper, and would go into the head (that's the toilet to you civilized folks), place the board across my lap as I sat on one of the potties, and I would write this book.

After the first couple of fist fights, they stopped complaining about the noise and let me alone. But Sgt. Jacobowski called me, in his dragon's voice, "The Author." The way he pronounced it, it always came out sounding like The Aw-ter.

The editor who bought the book originally, who took the first chance on me as a novelist, was a wonderful guy named Walter Fultz. He was the editor at Lion Books, a minor paperback house that gave a lot of newcomers a break. Walter is dead now, tragically, before his time, but I think he would have liked to've seen how long-lived this book has become, and how the kid he gave a break has come along.

Lion Books went out of business before they could release WEB OF THE CITY, and the backlog of titles was sold here and there. Pyramid Books then bought the manuscript.

Videos