Of Tender Sin

You’ll belong to me. And I’ll belong to Charlie… The three of us, we’ll have a wonderful time.

Alvin Darby is a 29 year old insurance clerk, with a comfortable apartment, a beautiful wife and enough money in the bank not to have to worry. So why does he wake up in the middle of the night tortured by the image of a woman with platinum blonde hair? And why is he suddenly convinced that his wife is having an affair?

Consumed by jealousy and determined to track down the woman with the platinum blonde hair, Alvin leaves his comfortable life to walk the streets of Skid Row intent on murder. Caught up in an underworld of drugs and crime, Alvin is soon out of his depth, and back with his old girlfriend Geraldine, whose seductive silver yellow hair and orange lips seem to hold the key to unlock the dark and terrible sin of his past.

Long unavailable, Of Tender Sin is a brilliant tale of paranoia and jealousy, femmes fatales and dark secrets. With its seering portrayal of the mean streets of Philadelphia and its underworld of drugs and crime, Of Tender Sin is as hard-hitting today as it was when it was first published in 1952.

Introduction by Adrian Wootton.

Goodis captures the bleak desperation of the urban jungle like no other writer before or since. – Neon

A lethally potent cocktail of surreal description, brilliant language, cracker barrel philosophy and gripping obsession. – Adrian Wootton

No-one does existential loners better – The Herald