In 1929, a new kind of magazine appeared on newsstands, the gang pulps! And no magazine that preceded them gave the pulps a worse reputation. Month after month, the stories luridly recounted the exploits of the most sadistic killers, the most craven squealers, the most coldblooded gun molls, the most corrupt cops, the most ruthless gang bosses, the most brutal mob wars, that ever escaped the realm of the imagination — a genre of extremes. There had been outlaw heroes in crime fiction before, but none like this new breed, who toasted with bootleg liquor while their bloody victims lay dying on the floor. Almost immediately, the gang pulps came under attack from the censors. America’s morals lay dying on the pulpwood pages, they claimed. Centered in the crosshairs was Harold Hersey, famed pulp editor, creator of Gangster Stories, Racketeer Stories, Speakeasy Stories, and a raft of other gang magazines. The censors threatened him with prosecution. Clean up — or else! But the story of this clash has never before been told; nor have many of the stories been available since their original publication during the dying years of Prohibition. In “Glorifying the American Goon,” an in-depth introduction based on all-new research, the world of the gang pulps is explored: what the stories were about, what happened during the attack on Hersey, how he responded, and how the stories changed. But you won’t have to take our word for anything. Also included in Gang Pulp are nineteen rare stories, selected from both the pre- and post-censorship periods. Did Hersey clean up the stories? Judge for yourself in violent and profane pulp classics like “One Hour Before Dawn,” “Rough on Rats,” and “City of Bullets.”