What Makes Sammy Run? (1941) is a novel about the dirty underside of Hollywood and also about the dog-eat-dog world of climbing the ladder to success that some people find themselves doing? As a psychological study, it is fascinating. Sammy Glick starts out as a poor teenager from the lower east side of Manhattan, but from the very first time that Al Manheim meets Sammy, he realizes he met someone different, someone who in the battle for survival of the fittest is the fittest and will climb over whoever he needs to just to get where he is going. This includes stealing articles and ideas, taking credit for someone else’s work, talking to the boss behind his supervisor’s back. At every stage, seemingly without a conscience, Sammy has the world by the balls with utter confidence that he will rise to the top and the fools he passes by in the slow lane of life are not to be pitied. The action eventually moves to Hollywood where (and this was published in 1941 at the height of Hollywood glamour) the dog eat dog world becomes even more evident and how, in the end, no one has anyone else’s back.
Pulp, Crime, & Mystery Books 