
PARIS: [The Beats] believed in drugs, booze, and petty crime … That was not great writing. That was the National Enquirer of the fifties.
National Enquirer, tabloid newspaper founded in New York in 1926, known for its sensationalist reporting and flimsy journalistic ethics.
The National Enquirer already existed in the 1950s, so I’m not sure how The Beats are “the National Enquirer of the 1950s”. Surely the National Enquirer was the National Enquirer of the 1950s? For a supposedly smart character, Paris says some remarkably silly and ignorant things.