An Editor's Note

Pete Dexter is my hero. He has not written a poor novel, he likes (or liked) to drink a shitload of booze, and the woman (women) in his life put up with his nonsense, at least in the long haul. Paper Trails, a thin volume courtesy of Ecco Press, reprints 80 of Dex's newspaper columns from his time in Philly, South Dakota, and Sacramento, and everyone reads like a Dex novel (some were the basis of his narratives). Paper Trails gives us violence, drunks and whores, but it also gives us dog fuckers (one upping Vick, dare say), forgery artists, cougars, sex, tractors, and jellyfish attacks. This in the book's first half. Lest I forget, in his smokin' intro he slags David Milch, Mailer, and cunt Jonathan Yardley, and I cackle out loud about once a minute. Hail to the king, and god save your tired, broken body; there's no one close to the man at getting right to the action.