What? You guys don't cook? Tsk-tsk. And it would make sense
for all these down-on-their-luck DIY bachelor P.I.s to know
how to cook. Some might even enjoy it.
As for Healy, he was indeed, and by his own admission,
heavily influenced by Parker, especially in the early books.
He's since evolved beyond his influences, as good writers
always do.
Citing old, and in some cases pretty obscure or minor eyes
such as Bill Lennox, John Smith and Ed Rivers (and you could
toss in Carney Wilde, Pete Schofield, Jim Bennett and Johnny
Marshall) as P.I.'s in steady relationships does nothing to
diminish the impact or influence of Parker creating a viable,
long-term, steady relationship between two people that goes
beyond having someone around to do the cooking and the
laundry. (Though, to be fair, Parker wasn't alone. In the
last thirty years, Lawrence Block, Jeremiah Healy, Michael
Collins, Bill Pronzini and Joseph Hansen have all introduced
long-term relationships into their P.I. series, though not
all of them have placed as much emphasis on it as
Parker.)
But even mentioning the two or three rough chapters Chandler
wrote of
"Poodle Springs"is really stretching it. It would have been
interesting to see where Chandler took it, but he died. As
for Michael Shayne, that cookin' fool, yeah he was married
through the first six or seven books in the series, but that
certainly didn't last long, did it? And that relationship
always seemed rather perfunctory, probably because Phyllis
was, as James put it, a ditz.
Susan Silverman, on the other hand, may be a lot of things,
but ditz isn't one of 'em. Increasingly, annoyingly and
incredibly self-centered, yes, but not a ditz. Yeah, she
makes me grit my teeth too, sometimes, but once upon a time
she was a blast of fresh air. Imagine, into the world of
he-men private eyes comes a woman who's smart and sexy, and
does more than seduce or be a victim! No wonder the old
school boys, with their trenchcoat-and-fedora fetishes, felt
threatened. And Parker continues to keep her, for the most
part, believable, even if she's not always likable.
In fact, the early Susan Silverman might have been one of the
spiritual sparks for the horde of female eyes that came
swooping down upon us in the late seventies and early
eighties. Of course, the old school boys also felt threatened
by that. So blame Parker for that, too.
And come in sideways and blame Parker for Lehane's faults,
too. Yeah, Lehane was probably influenced a bit by Parker,
but even if Lehane stole every single bit of everything he
ever wrote from other writers, it's Lehane himself who should
be held accountable, not those he stole from. Bubba may be a
lame variation on Hawk or Mouse, but that's hardly Parker's
(or Mosley's) fault. And anyway, Parker writes short, quick
books for the most part, and is often accused of
underwriting, of not developing a character or situation
enough. Nobody could ever accuse the author of Long, Long,
Long of that.
Look, I know Parker isn't for everyone, but like it or not,
he put his mark on the last twenty or thirty years of crime
fiction, particularly the detective novel, in ways that few
others have. The relationship thing, the sidekick thing, the
move away from the California/New York axis thing (and his
defiant emphasis on it), the out of past and into the present
thing (Spenser, for all his bellyaching about the good old
days, is a man of his times). Other have done them, as well,
but only Parker did them all, in such a way that they
couldn't be ignored. Yes, he was influenced by Chandler
(and Hammett and Macdonald and even Spillane), but he also
went on to influence Healy and Lehane and Roberts and Grafton
and Barre and a ton of others. Like I said, good writers
always evolve beyond their influences.
Probably Parker's biggest crime against his current literary
reputation has been that he didn't pull a Buddy Holly and die
young, or become a bloated alcoholic has-been and stop
writing after a handful of books.
--
Kevin Burton Smith The Thrilling Detective Web Site http://www.thrillingdetective.com
Now online: Our December issue. The Thrillies. Christmas Gifts. New fiction. And Tim Broderick's ODD JOBS. -- # To unsubscribe from the regular list, say "unsubscribe rara-avis" to # majordomo@icomm.ca. This will not work for the digest version. # The web pages for the list are at http://www.miskatonic.org/rara-avis/ .
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