Sunday Story Ratings #33: Marijuana and a Pistol
Marijuana and a Pistol by Chester Himes
Originally published 1940 in the Esquire; this edition 1995
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Collected in: Hard-Boiled: An Anthology of American Crime Stories (ed. Bill Pronzini & Jack Adrian)
MA15+
(D, V)
Drug Use {MA}
Violence {MA}
Representations
Gender:
Only one woman is mentioned in the text, and she is not present (only three people are directly mentioned). The male viewpoint character is in a downward spiral over his girlfriend dropping him for lack of money.
Sex:
Through what was written above, only.
Race & Ethnicity:
The author, himself black, noted for being a pioneer in the genre for writing black characters as people and for addressing race; no character in this short piece however is marked that I noticed.
Disability, Physical Diversity and Health:
No mention.
Notes
Upsetting in its brief, inexorable bleakness.