Kuttner was a frequent contributor to the pulp magazines that specialized in the weird, supernatural, horror, and science fiction genre. Beginning in 1936, with the minor classic “The Graveyard Rats,” Kuttner launched a steady stream of short stories aimed at Weird Tales, Mystery Tales, Thrilling Wonder Stories, and others.

Given the short lengths of Kuttner’s stories, he had to be prolific and he contributed reams of copy to the weird-menace (a sub-genre of horror where a seemingly supernatural plot is resolved with a pedestrian ending) pulps, Thrilling Mystery and Spice Mystery. His specialization for “spicy” or sexed-up stories led Kuttner to write most (two stories and one novelette) of the first issue of Marvel Science Stories, arguably the first “spicy” science fiction pulp.

Welcome to 'Man Drowning', a noir tale if ever there was one. First published in hardback by Harper & Brothers in 1952, it wouldn’t have been at all out of place in the Gold Medal paperback line of the same year.

Nick Banning, the book’s narrator, is a blue-collar guy and a war vet, like so many of the characters in noir books and films. And like them, he has problems, chief among them his almost uncontrollable anger and his obsessive love of a woman named Sherry, to whom he was once married. He finds Sherry in Arizona and tries to convince her, and himself, that he’s changed, that his obsession with her won’t lead him to do the kinds of things he did in the past. Sherry knows better, Nick knows better, the reader knows better, and his downward spiral has already begun.

This new Centipede Press edition of 'Man Drowning' is signed by Bill Crider, who wrote the introduction, and Ron Lesser, who provided the stunning cover artwork. Limited to just 200 copies for sale.

Centipede Press published three of Fredric Brown’s novels with similar artwork by Ron Lesser,

               First edition hardcover

               First edition hardcover

               First edition hardcover

               First edition hardcover

             Bookclub  hardcover

             Bookclub  hardcover