The accompanying picture in the Globe, Child's not wearing a leather jacket, more of a James Bond style suit. Very expensive looking. At least if there was a genuine picture catching him playing pool that could be something I could respect, as opposing to the typical tough guy posing (or worse, the one where the author looks like they're drugged out of their mind--saw one of those on a thrilling site a few years back). And with a pool cue he'd have a slim (very slim) chance of getting out of that darkened alley alive, at least assuming the AQ he wanted so desperately to tangle with weren't carrying firearms.
--Dave
--- In rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com, Kevin Burton Smith <kvnsmith@...> wrote:
>
> > Somehow I think if Child ever got his wish things wouldn't go too
> > well for him.
>
> Maybe he'd be tougher if he posed in a leather jacket or brandished a
> pool cue.
>
> I dunno. This whole notion that you have to be "tough" to write hard-
> boiled fiction is a little hard to take too seriously. Usually it's
> just harmless posing, a sort of wink-wink, but some people really fall
> for it. It's silly.
>
> Not as silly, perhaps, as the book I'm reading now, which goes out of
> its way to sound totally tough all the time ("red as a used tampon,"
> etc.), but still, ultimately, pretty silly.
>
> Anyone trying that hard is probably trying to over-compensate.
>
> Kevin Burton Smith
> www.thrillingdetective.com
>
>
>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 31 May 2009 EDT