Gil Brewer Page

Gil Brewer (1922-1983) published some thirty novels under his own name from 1951 to 1967 with a four-year break from 1962 to 1966. After that, he continued to write under various pseudonyms. Stark House Press has more recently been reprinting some of Brewer’s novels, including some that were previously unpublished as well as at least three collections of his short stories. His specialty were novels featuring an ordinary and fairly decent guy led astray by a stunning femme fatale. That theme repeated itself throughout several of his earlier works.

His estate maintains a website ( http://gilbrewer.com/) which contains photographs, a list of his novels in alphabetical order with notes, and a biographical note by his widow, Verlaine Morris Lee Brewer, who he met in 1947 and remained with until his death some nearly forty years later. According to her note, which is summarized here, Brewer grew up in New York, served in the Army for three years and WW2, and then joined his family who moved to St. Petersburg. Brewer’s father was also a writer and an alcoholic who had a mental breakdown. Initially, after they married, Brewer worked behind a screen in the kitchen while she fried eggs. Brewer was close with a group of St. Petersburg authors who included Day Keene, Talmage Powell, Harry Whittington, Jonathan Craig, Robert Turner, and others. Apparently, he shunned publicity, but published over 400 short stories. According to Verlaine’s note, Brewer “drove himself mercilessly” and, after each boo,, fell into a nervous exhaustion where only alcohol and pills would help him sleep. In 1960, he suffered a full nervous breakdown and stopped writing for almost four years and stayed in a State Hospital for a period. After a car accident in his Porsche, he had severe injuries and used alcohol to drown the pain. “The last seven years of his life were miserable.” He couldn’t write anything usable anymore.

Bibliography (based on the bibliography found at the end of Stark House Press’ Satan is a Woman/13 French Street but in full chronological order)

Love Me and Die (1951; w/Day Keene, published as Day Keene)