--- On Fri, 8/15/08, jacquesdebierue <jacquesdebierue@yahoo.com> wrote:
You are entirely correct. However, I suspect Patrick was thinking of
padding (as in Robert Parker) that is essentially extraneous to the
story, that doesn't really advance it or support it.
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Yes, Mario, you have that spot on. There are similar problems in many of Lawrence Block's books, too.
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But we should
know better than trying to tell an author what he can and cannot write
about. A brilliant writer can find gold in the most unlikely
combinations and in a priori dry and boring topics.
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The operative word here is "brilliant," and there are few who really know they're brilliant before they're dead. Certainly if the family is elemental to the story the concept will work. If they're extraneous to the story and only there to add "humanity" to the protagonist, they harm the entire project. I recently read Jim Thompson's book THE CRIMINAL, and the family elements of that book bring the entire impact to that very powerful ending. There is a brilliant writer whom I think at the time of his death had no idea what he had accomplished.
Patrick King
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