RARA-AVIS: Willeford and others

Levin, Doug (DLevin@DirectImpact.com)
Wed, 5 Aug 1998 17:48:54 -0400 I've just managed to catch up with the posts, and I was out of town
earlier in the month (oh in July). If anyone e-mailed off-list, please
write again--a crash resulted in lost mail.

First my two or three cents on Willeford. As some of you know, I wrote
the Willeford entry for the Dictionary of Literary Biography (those big
sky blue volumes in public and academic libraries) volume on hard-boiled
writers (there are other contributors on rara-avis as well); thus--and
some of you may cringe--my two cents vaguely becomes the word, at least
as far as DLB goes. I didn't make the magical realist comparison and it
is not one that comes to mind for me. I do, however, think that
"realism" as a criterion for judgement is problematic in general and
tough with Willeford (I like to think more in terms of internal
consistency, or true unto itself). In my piece, I make one passing
comparison to Nathanael West (which is echoed here and there in the
works--certainly the end of Woman Chaser has affinities with the end of
Day of the Locust), and another to Flanney O'Connor (though not the
religious/redemption thing; and of course I place him within
genre/publishing history). Willeford himself drew self-comparisons with
the French existentialists. Thus, he says at some point that Black Mass
of Brother Springer (aka Honey Gal) is better than anything the French
existentialists wrote (I'm working from memory--maybe he referred just
to Camus). While Willeford did publish pulpy paperback originals, he
was always aesthetically ambitious. Incidentally, when he was on a game
show in the late 50s (hosted by Mike Wallace), his topic was The Modern
Novel. I don't want to debate too much on canonicity and endurance.
One should note that The Library of America as a recent publishing
institution may set a sort of benchmark. In any event, the books are
durable and they have been widely purchased by public and academic
libraries. They did two volumes on American crime writing, and the
second (40s and 50s, I think) features four authors: Himes, Highsmith,
Thompson, and Willeford (Pick-Up). I'd probably say that Woman Chaser
is my favorite.

Briefly (or at least less long-winded, I hope) on other matters. Mario
made a couple observations in which I agree with his judgements, but not
entirely with his readings. I think he called Whitfield's Green Ice a
top noir book. I like the book a lot, but as I recall the protagonist
has this vague ambition to clean things up--seems a little utopian.
Mario also said similar things about Highsmith. I like Highsmith a lot,
but think her edginess (at least in the two Ripley books) comes from her
writing's light exuberance. Tom has a grand time, we see lovely sights,
and, well, some people have to die for the loveliness to continue, but
oh well. Like Willeford, Highsmith has a great original voice. I read
some more Constantine (Joey's Case), but think he is too serious and
real (to invoke a term I just derided) for my tastes just now--a very
fine writer though. Mario--you named another Constantine title in which
corruption in the town is rife--which one is this again? I'm now
reading another John Evans (Howard Browne) Paul Pine book (the first,
Halo in Blood)--great, great stuff. Not as a good, but a fun taste was
my first Talmage Powell--Start Screaming Murder. Any other words on
Powell?

Someone asked about Pirandello. I think Dover has two one-dollar books
by Pirandello, including one collection of stories.

I enjoyed the posts about con-game books. Maybe we could convince one
of our website managers--Kevin Smith or Bill Denton--to do some
bibliographies based on subgenres (e.g., con games, capers, carney
novels).

Finally, could someone post the Boucheron website again and people who
know say something about the event. What goes on? To whom does it
appeal? Is it worth the cost? Who's planning on going?

Doug
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