Hard Rain Falling

A cult hardboiled noir classic of crime, punishment and the search for a meaningful life, with an Introduction by Stuart Evers ‘Tough and vital … Hard Rain Falling roars through dim Western streets like an articulate Hells Angel looking for a fight’ The New York Times When small-time teenage criminal Jack Levitt becomes friends with Billy Lancing, a young Black pool hustler, neither imagines they will meet again years later in St Quentin Prison – or that only one of them will make it out. But what does freedom really mean if you can’t escape the hand life has always dealt you? Don Carpenter’s shocking, poignant novel is a story of crime, punishment and trying to make sense of it all; of being down, but never quite out. ‘Explosive … Tarmac-tough dialogue and road-novel delinquent action is customised with a tender intensity … Carpenter brings gold to the grit’ Boyd Tonkin, Independent ‘A unique read; violent, tender, inexorable, and melancholic … The small lives contained herein are indelible’ Richard Price

A cult hardboiled noir classic of crime, punishment and the search for a meaningful life, with an Introduction by Stuart Evers ‘Tough and vital … Hard Rain Falling roars through dim Western streets like an articulate Hells Angel looking for a fight’ The New York Times When small-time teenage criminal Jack Levitt becomes friends with Billy Lancing, a young Black pool hustler, neither imagines they will meet again years later in St Quentin Prison – or that only one of them will make it out. But what does freedom really mean if you can’t escape the hand life has always dealt you? Don Carpenter’s shocking, poignant novel is a story of crime, punishment and trying to make sense of it all; of being down, but never quite out. ‘Explosive … Tarmac-tough dialogue and road-novel delinquent action is customised with a tender intensity … Carpenter brings gold to the grit’ Boyd Tonkin, Independent ‘A unique read; violent, tender, inexorable, and melancholic … The small lives contained herein are indelible’ Richard Price

Don Carpenter's Hard Rain Falling is a tough-as-nails account of being down and out, but never down for good--a Dostoyevskian tale of crime, punishment, and the pursuit of an ever-elusive redemption. The novel follows the adventures of Jack Levitt, an orphaned teenager living off his wits in the fleabag hotels and seedy pool halls of Portland, Oregon. Jack befriends Billy Lancing, a young black runaway and pool hustler extraordinaire. A heist gone wrong gets Jack sent to reform school, from which he emerges embittered by abuse and solitary confinement. In the meantime Billy has joined the middle class--married, fathered a son, acquired a business and a mistress. But neither Jack nor Billy can escape their troubled pasts, and they will meet again in San Quentin before their strange double drama comes to a violent and revelatory end.