Reading this week has been a tag team affair between
Zeltserman's Fast Lane and Vollman's Butterfly Stories. By
shear force of the story alone, it was an unfair match. Fast
Lane won.
Like Goodis, Zeltserman can bring a minor character to life
in a few precise sentences. Like James Ellroy, he can
smoothly crank up the tension as the story progresses. You
can feel them sweat. Probably the most striking parallel is
with the works of Jim Thompson. Like Thompson, Zeltserman
excels at invoking an almost hypnotic fascination with a
character's hand basket ride into his own private hell.
One thing worth mentioning is the juxtaposition of humor and
horror. Without some sort of relief, a noir work risks losing
the reader by drowning in its own morbid ooze. Woolrich's I
Married a Dead Man is a good example. Dark humor is the
writer's preferred choice of relief. Willeford understood
this. Same with Al Guthrie and Vicki Hendricks. But the
technique is not risk-free. Humor can negate the desperation
of the noir condition and turn reader empathy to apathy. What
it takes is a graveyard, irony-dripping humor that
complements the text rather than contradicting it. In this
arena, Zeltserman is a master. He has not only read Jim
Thompson. He has improved on him. Thompson's Pop. 1280 is
almost always in danger of devolving into a farcical joke.
Fast Lane avoids this with a wicked humor integrated
perfectly into the increasingly dark world of Johnny
Lane.
miker
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Moody friends. Drama queens. Your life? Nope! - their life,
your story. Play Sims Stories at Yahoo! Games. http://sims.yahoo.com/
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