The Dark World Of David Goodis

Sorry I haven’t posted in a while — I had a few things to take care of.

I recently finished a collection of three David Goodis novels in one volume: Nightfall, Cassidy’s Girl, and Nightsquad published by Stark House. All of them are excellent, but what strikes me most about Goodis is that, although he was a pulp writer, his stories aren’t really plot-driven.

Goodis writes about losers — people who are defeated, broken, or caught in circumstances they can’t control. His characters aren’t heroes; they are flawed, vulnerable, often powerless. It’s not just about crime or action; it’s about the bleak, noir atmosphere that permeates every scene. 

Reading Goodis is like stepping into a world where everyone has fallen, where despair and failure are part of life — and yet it’s compelling, darkly beautiful, and utterly unforgettable.

Nightfall (adapted into a 1957 film directed by Jacques Tourneur) follows an ordinary man who finds himself at the wrong place at the wrong time — stopping in front of a wrecked getaway car used by bank robbers. From that moment, his life spirals out of control. Goodis masterfully builds tension and a sense of inevitability, showing how quickly normal life can be shattered.

Cassidy’s Girl is perhaps the most tragic of the three. The protagonist is a former pilot whose plane crashed, killing some people. Haunted by guilt, he sinks into alcoholism and spends his days in bars with other outcasts. He has a woman who betrays him, works as a bus driver, and suffers another accident similar to his plane crash, leaving multiple victims. The police pursue him, and the story ends ambiguously. Goodis paints a world where misfortune repeats itself, and escape seems impossible.

Nightsquad tells the story of a former cop fired for robbing ordinary people. The mob hires him to track down certain individuals, while at the same time a notorious police unit called the Night Squad rehires him. He finds himself trapped between two forces, morally conflicted, and constantly under pressure. The novel captures the sense of being caught in a system that offers no easy choices.

David Goodis passed away at the young age of 49, which is especially tragic considering the depth and talent he had as a noir writer. He had already produced a significant body of work, but one can only imagine how many more dark, compelling stories and unforgettable characters he could have created if he had lived longer. His early death adds a somber layer to his legacy, echoing the sense of loss, despair, and inevitability that permeates his novels.

Several of Goodis’s novels were adapted into films, further cementing his influence on noir cinema:

• Dark Passage (1947), starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall

• Nightfall (1957), directed by Jacques Tourneur

• The Moon in the Gutter (1983), directed by Jean-Jacques Beineix

• Shoot the Piano Player (1960), directed by François Truffaut

These films translate Goodis’s signature mood and flawed characters to the screen, allowing his bleak, noir vision to reach a wider audience.

The French audience appreciated Goodis because his prose is deeply psychological and melancholic, and his characters are true reflections of human weakness, defeat, and despair. Unlike classic American crime novels, in Goodis’s work, it’s not the detective mystery or action that takes center stage, but the atmosphere, inner sadness, and moral ambiguity.

The French have always had a particular taste for dark, introspective, and stylized stories, which perfectly matched Goodis’s noir world. His protagonists are often unable to save themselves, and the world around them is cold and unforgiving, which the French found both fascinating and artistically valuable.