Readers of this site know that 'tough guy' writers are my pet peeve. Yes, some writers really were tough: Mickey Spillane, Nelson Algren, Eddie Bunker, Samuel 'Cut Deeper' Johnson, and Thomas Carlyle, to name a few. Cervantes had to be really tough in order to survive his years as a galley slave. Emily Dickinson was also very tough. In fact, she regularly took the train into Boston to participate in bare knuckle boxing matches staged by recent immigrants from Ireland. She boxed under the name "The Little Wren" and "The Battling Wren."
On the other hand, the punks these days that write about fight clubs and what have you -- they couldn't fight their way out of a wet paper bag! That's why the discovery of a new and genuinely tough writer is so exciting. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Al Nussbaum!
You can learn about Al Nussbaum at the website devoted to him and his friends: http://alnussbaum.com/ And that's not all! You know how disappointing it is to read about an old time "gun moll" -- but when you Google her image she looks like a rhinoceros? Bonnie Parker was no Faye Dunaway, that's for sure. Well, here again Al Nussbaum delivers. Feast your eyes!
"Jacqueline Ruth Rose was a former waitress from Paoli, Indiana. At age 19, Rose was wanted by the FBI for driving a getaway car in a bank robbery by One Eye Bobby Wilcoxson and Al Nussbaum." Read more about Jacqueline at the Al Nussbaum website. There's even a link to a story by Al Nussbaum himself, written after he got out of prison. It was published in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine.
