Henry Bellamann

I just finished reading Henry Bellamann's The Richest Woman in Town.

Is anyone familiar with him? Unfortunately just about everything he has written is out of print. He's best known for the novel Kings Row.

I picked up Kings Row because I read Inside Peyton Place by Emily Toth. In it she kept mentioning Kings Row as a book that Grace Metalious must have obviously read because she used a lot of elements from it in Peyton Place.

I got Kings Row, and I could see the obvious comparrisons to Grace's style, but I just loved the book. Since then I've been trying to get anything of Bellmann's that I could get my hands on. I've read Parris Mitchell of Kings Row, which his wife wrote using his notes after he passed away, and Floods of Spring, which is a companion to the Kings Row books.

They're stories about small towns and all of the craziness that goes on in the them, and I just can't get enough of them. Kings Row also surprised me with its subject matter. Incest, murder suicide, sadistic doctors, and homosexuality. It all seemed very daring for a book written in the early 40s.

I started reading King's Row many years ago and was a fair way through it when my my copy was confiscated. I was reading instead of working..it was that kind of job. Anyway I have always wanted to finish it as it was a very good book. In the near future I am going to get a copy through one of those internet second hand books sites. I am yet to see a copy in a second hand shop.

I can't quite remember where I was up to after nearly 40 years so I may have to start again...