While I agree with Rafferty about the past and the present, I
can't help
but question his predictions about the future. First of all,
how could
anybody think that the serial killer novel was not as played
out as the
private eye novel? I once heard Ellroy point out that there
are more
serial killers in a year's worth of mysteries than there are
in the
world. And, if anything, that flow has since increased.
Although I
don't read a whole lot of these serial killer books, only
those that
come highly recommended, I do not see a whole lot of
variation between
them. Like all genre fiction, they have their rules and most
everybody
seems to be sticking to them very closely. Derek Raymond's "I
Was Dora
Suarez," Van Arman's "Just Killing Time" and Kerr's "A
Philosophical
Investigation" are among the few that do that little bit
more.
I haven't read anything by Carol O'Connell. Though I will
probably try
her books on Rafferty's suggestion, I am somewhat skeptical
of his
reasons for praising her. I don't see making your hero/ine a
comic book
hero or using horror and the supernatural as anything new,
much less
revolutionary, As far as the former, a comic book hero as
private eye
actually pre-dates Hammett; what else was Race Williams? Or
for that
matter, Mike Hammer? Not to mention all of the "Er"
heroes,
Executioner, Destroyer, etc. And I have to agree with Duane
about
Vacchs. If you are pointing to larger-than-life comic book
hero types
as the future, who would be a better example than Burke. As
matter of
fact, it is exactly that overblown nature which turned me off
to Burke.
I love Vacchs's non-series books (I can't recommend "Shella"
highly
enough) and I certainly am in awe of Vacchs himself for his
dedication
and selflessness in working for abused children, but I just
can't read
his Burke books.
As far as the supernatural, this has also been done.
Chesbro's Mongo
series struck a pretty good balance between the supernatural
and the
hardboiled, but all too often the supernatural is a cheap way
of getting
around a sticky plot point. For instance, in "Electric Mist,"
Burke's
use of the techniques of South American magical realism
suited, indeed
distinguished the book as we were left wondering whether
Robicheaux's
hallucinations were real or not. However, the phone call from
a dead
man in "Burning Angel" came off like an after the fact way of
correcting
a "who kiled the chauffeur in the Big Sleep" mistake in
chronology.
Bringing the supernatural into a hardboiled novel is all too
often the
equivalent of introducing the killer in the next to last
chapter.
But don't think I'm asking for realism. If I wanted realism,
there are
plenty of true crime books out there (which actually are a
genre of
their own, with their own strict rules). One of the blurbs on
the
paperback edition of Mitchell Smith's "Stone City" claimed
something
about "the most realistic book yet on our prisons." My first
thought
was, "How the hell would he know?" I mean, unless the
reviewer was
Eddie Bunker or Jack Henry Abbott, how would he know other
than through
other books and/or films what was real? And beyond that,
unless the
book was about prison reform, which it wasn't, what did it
matter? How
real it was did not matter to my enjoyment of the book.
Instead, I am
more concerned with internal consistency. (For the record,
"Stone City"
was very good and Smith did seem to do his research and make
the prison
seem realistic, which means it fit with what I had read in
other places,
including Bunker and Abbott.) Afterall "realism" is a
construct, soon
to be wiped away by the next realism. When "Hill Street
Blues" came
out, everybody praised its realistic depiction of a cop's
life. In no
way diminishing its continued dramatic appeal, that realism
now looks
staged against shows like NYPD Blue and "Homicide," which
will probably
themselves look constructed when compared to the next
standard of
realism.
I do, however, require internal consistency and
believability. I prefer
a sense of darkness. That is why, at least for me, the future
of
hardboiled lies in the darker, bleaker extremes, those that
approach,
and sometimes slip over into, surrealism. I find myself
reading more
British authors, who seem to be drawing more than Americans
on the dark,
bleak worldview of earlier American pulp writers like Goodis,
Thompson
and Willeford (or at least their film heir, Tarrantino). For
instance,
in his book on writing, "The Hidden Files," Derek Raymond
continually
holds them up as the standards of the genre. I've already
mentioned
"Dora Suarez" and "Phisophical Investigation"; I'm also
reading Rankin,
James and younger writers like Blincoe, Hawes, Bruen and
Raine (the Mask
Noir and Do Not Press writers). As far as Americans go, I
like the Neal
Carey books by Don Winslow and the growing genre of women
forced to look
out for themselves, inverting the usual femme fatale, male
innocent dupe
roles of film noir, in books like "Miami Purity" and
"Shooting Elvis"
(to be distinguished from the film noir from the perspective
of the
femme fatale in films like "The Last Seduction."
There is one American series that does seem to be offerring
something a
bit new and that is Jack O'Connell's (so far, I hope) trilogy
of "Box
9," "Wireless" and "Skin Palace." There are a few characters
who are
mentioned from book to book, but the continuity of the series
really
comes from its setting in the decaying city of Quinsigamond.
These are
dark, sometimes surreal, novels that have a great sense of
place and
character. I really can't think of any other series quite
like it.
Finally, anyone who liked reading the Rafferty article should
check out
James Wolcott's in the April Vanity Fair. His take on
the
post-Tarrantino genre of "scuzz" films (which I admit I am a
sucker for)
has a lot in common with Rafferty's view of hardboiled.
Mark
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