Detectives Beyond Borders

Sunday, July 09, 2017

Le Trou, Donald Westlake, and everything: Atmosphere in noir and elsewhere

"`Don't you see? There's a plan there, but you have to convert it to the real world, to the people you've got and the places you'll be, and all the rest of it. You'd be the auteur."

-- May to Dortmunder in Jimmy the Kid, by Donald Westlake

Photos by Peter Rozovsky for Detectives Beyond Borders.

That photo at right is the closest thing to a noir photo I shot in New York Saturday, and that's only because it's black and white and has some dark shadows. OK, maybe the lack of natural light and the photo's underground setting have something to do with it. Oh, and the walkway in question runs under Times Square, but you might not know that unless I told you or unless you knew New York fairly well. But the point is that noir isn't just a literary form or a fatalistic view of life; it's also atmosphere.

It's Jeanne Moreau wandering through the streets of Paris in the rain looking for her lover in Elevator to the Gallows. It's Alain Delon smoking a cigarette in just about anything; Le Samourai will do for a start. Atmosphere of a different kind was at work in Le Trou, one of two movies that brought me to New York and the Film Forum.

Le Trou ("The Hole") is a 1960 French prison-break drama directed by Jacques Becker, and I suspect that many Americans will find that it doesn't feel like a prison movie. The five (!) prisoners crammed into a small cell at Paris' La Santé Prison don't fight or rape each other. Instead, they share the contents of packages they receive from the outside, and they cooperate on an escape plan. The atmosphere, that is, is one of teamwork rather than confrontation. And Becker fills the movie with the five men digging and reconnoitering and planning without, however, gimmicky attention boosters and false drama and wrong turns and screeching music to tell viewers how they ought to feel. (J. Hoberman's New York Times article touches on some of these questions, with a hat tip to Suzanne Solomon for putting the article in my way.)

I included the Westlake snippet above because the coincidence of coming to a discussion of auteur theory just when I was preparing a post about a French movie from 1960 was too good to pass up. But Le Trou may remind viewers of Westlake's comic Dortmunder novels and the Parker heist dramas he wrote as Richard Stark. Parker is a planner and Dortmunder is a planner, and so are Roland and Manu, two of the cellmates who plan the escape in Le Trou. The other three are something like the Kelps and Murches and Grofields and Deverses who fill out the teams that execute Parker's and Dortmunder's plans.

I had some quibbles with Le Trou's ending; see the movie, and we'll talk about it.

© Peter Rozovsky 2017

Labels: Donald Westlake, Dortmunder, Jacques Becker, movies, Parker, photography, Richard Stark

Wednesday, March 15, 2017

"When my man came in with the steaming cup of tea, I rolled out of bed and said (in a marked manner), `Oh, I say!'": How Richard Stark is like P.G. Wodehouse

P.G. Wodehouse's Jeeves, like Richard Stark's Parker, goes by a single name. Jeeves, like Parker, manages heists that do not go as planned (think of the silver 18th-century cow creamer in The Code of the Woosters, for instance, and the rare coins in The Rare Coin Score). Jeeves' work, like Parker's, is often complicated by incompetent amateurs.

Setting is frequently a major plot point, the focus of all action, whether Cockaigne or Totleigh Towers. Nocturnal break-ins abound in both the Jeeves stories and the Parker books, and Wodehouse's Bertie Wooster refers back to previous Jeeves and Bertie stories, just as Stark's Butcher's Moon is an all-star cast of characters from the Parker novels that had gone before.

More to come. In the meantime, in what other ways are Richard Stark and P.G. Wodehouse alike?

© Peter Rozovsky 2017

Labels: Bertie Wooster, Donald Westlake, Jeeves, P.G. Wodehouse, Parker, Richard Stark

Tuesday, February 21, 2017

Richard Stark, or a discussion about a writer that touches on writing

I never cease to be amazed by how seldom discussions of writers turn to writing and by how frequently readers seem to equate overwriting with good writing. That's why I was so pleased by the response to my citation on Facebook of a simple, beautiful bit of description from Richard Stark's novel Deadly Edge.

Here's the passage:

"Keegan had thick dry brown hair and the outraged expression of a barroom arguer."

Here's the discussion so far:

Sam Belacqua "barroom arguer" is a mouthful Unlike · Reply · 2 · 3 hrs

Peter Rozovsky It's a beautiful, telling, concise bit of description, far better than bits of crime novels often cited as examples of fine writing. The opening of The Last Good Kiss comes to mind. Like · Reply · 4 · 3 hrs

Diane Williams Shaw lots of rrr's! Unlike · Reply · 1 · 3 hrs

Peter Rozovsky R is the fourth most common consonant in English for a good reason! Like · Reply · 3 hrs

Jack Getze "He looked like a high risk, the kind of guy who falls asleep smoking in bed." -- Elmore, the opening of Cat Chaser. Unlike · Reply · 4 · 3 hrs

Peter Rozovsky That's terrific. I haven't liked Leonard as much as some readers do, but I may give Cat Chaser a try. One bad sign: A reviewer called it "quirky," but that's not Leonard's fault. Like · Reply · 1 · 3 hrs · Edited

David Magayna I don't care for that simile, but then who am I to "argue" with Richard Stark? I might have used "barroom agitator". Unlike · Reply · 2 · 3 hrs

Peter Rozovsky Your suggestion of "agitator" reinforces what a master stroke "arguer" is. The word is mildly jarring; no one would use it. That makes the reader sit up and take notice. A writer has to be pretty confident of his or her chops to try something like that. Like · Reply · 2 · 3 hrs

Peter Rozovsky "Agitator" is also a bit elevated for what barroom loudmouths do, isn't it? That's another reason Westlake's choice works, I think. He is yet another crime writer upon whom reviewers, critics, and writers heap praise, without, however, highlighting the writer's prose style. Like · Reply · 2 hrs

David Magayna Well, I approached it from two different angles. One, it rolls off the tongue easier and sounds better, but, Two, the guy he seems to be describing (in my head) is someone who doesn't look to argue a point, but just run his mouth and take the opposite viewpoint of whatever might be discussed. Like · Reply · 2 hrs

David Magayna And I guess "arguer" could fill that bill, too. Like · Reply · 2 hrs

Peter Rozovsky David Magayna Your guess describes the character perfectly, which is evidence that Stark made the right choice. To my mind, an agitator looks to start arguments, as opposed to an arguer, merely a peevish type who disagrees with everything. Stark knew what he wanted, and he knew the right word to get it. Like · Reply · 2 hrs · Edited

Lanny Larcinese Peter Rozovsky re your point "arguer" as master stroke: I agree, and such word selection is critical to authorial voice. It makes me crazy when others purport that words "that make the reader sit up and take notice" pull them "out of the story." When I see unique (not including torrents of weird) language I want to keep reading. Vanilla may work for intensely plot-driven, but when it comes to character, give me rich. I'm down with "arguer." See More Unlike · Reply · 1 · 1 hr

David Biemann How about, barroom goad? Too agitatorish? :) Like · Reply · 1 hr · Edited

Peter Rozovsky Hey, everybody: I'm enjoying this discussion. Do any of you mind if I turn it into a blog post? Like · Reply · 2 · 2 hrs

David Magayna Fine by me. Like · Reply · 2 hrs

Peter Rozovsky David: Thanks. I love discussions like this. I never cease to be shocked by how infrequently discussions of writers deal with writing. Like · Reply · 2 hrs

David Biemann ...and the outraged expression of a man four drinks into a five drink barroom argument (?) Barroom too much like broom (?) arguer - agree with the too many r's. Still works... just gives pause (?) Like · Reply · 2 hrs · Edited

Peter Rozovsky David Biemann Those are not bad, but Westlake's choice was better. He chose well when he chose the pen name Stark for the Parker novels. Like · Reply · 2 hrs David Biemann Less is better. Like · Reply · 2 hrs

Peter Rozovsky David Biemann I'm similarly predisposed. But the question is not less (or more) is better, but rather of creating a tone appropriate to the story and of sticking to that tone. Westlake did that, and, for all the deserved praise he gets, that aspect of his work is rarely recognized. I suspect this is because people don't know how to talk about writing. Like · Reply · 1 · 2 hrs

David Biemann True. Lines out of context are hard to judge on their merits in general but when you're creating context with them, it's a different story. Unlike · Reply · 1 · 2 hrs

David Biemann Did you see Erin Mitchell's, if you could ask any living author question? I wish Westlake were still around to join this conversation. Like · Reply · 2 hrs

Peter Rozovsky I'd have been happy to schmooze with Westlake, but he was good enough that his work can speak for him. Like · Reply · 1 · 2 hrs

Linda L. Richards It seems a bit self-conscious to me. Like he had to work a bit too hard to get there. Also it puts me in mind of The Rural Juror: a bit too much of a mouthful. Unlike · Reply · 1 · 1 hr

Peter Rozovsky I think the word shows signs of being a deliberate choice, so I understand your observation that it seems self-conscious. But that self-consciousness only accentuates how well chosen the word is, Like · Reply · 1 hr · Edited

Linda L. Richards To my mind, a metaphor should evoke something effortlessly. You read it and just get it in your gut or heart or wherever good metaphors are digested. To me, this type is heavy handed. Klunk. It lacks delicacy and/or subtlety and makes me think about it too much. Unlike · Reply · 1 · 41 mins

Peter Rozovsky I got it in my gut with a brief stopover in my brain. I've seen debates over whether style ought or ought not to be noticeable. It probably ought to be invisible most of the time except im rare instances where it calls the reader's attention to new possibilities. This example does that for me. Like · Reply · 24 mins

Steven Parker I go for "brawler", obvious I suppose, but it goes with being an arguer... Like · Reply · 1 hr

Peter Rozovsky Brawler is several steps beyond arguer and not at all what Stark wants to convey about the character. Like · Reply · 1 hr

Steven Parker I must admit I was visualizing Trump in that role: "“Trump had straw like hair and the outraged expression of a barroom brawler.” It's the eternal outraged expression that gets me... :-) Unlike · Reply · 1 · 24 mins

Steven Parker Besides, having run a few rock clubs while in my youth, in my experience the difference between an "outraged arguer" vs. "outraged brawler" is rougly 2 seconds! ;-) Unlike · Reply · 1 · 22 mins · Edited

Darren Shupe Perhaps not quite the same as resembling a blond Satan, but hey. ;) Unlike · Reply · 1 · 5 mins

Peter Rozovsky Though the image of Humphrey Bogart has driven the blond Satan description from most people's minds. My favorite part of the description is the Hammett says Spade looked "rather pleasantly" like a blond satan, which shows that in the hands of a deft enough writer, adverbs can do wonders. Like · Reply · Just now

Thanks to everyone who has weighed in. And here's a blog post in which I suggest that "reviewers and other people are uncomfortable talking about writing at best or wouldn't know good writing if they saw it at worst."

© Peter Rozovsky 2017

Labels: Donald Westlake, Parker, Richard Stark, writing

Sunday, July 24, 2016

Lionel White and definitely established mathematical odds: A classic heist novel revisited

Sixteen months after I made this post about the wince-making first scene of Lionel White's novel Clean Break (filmed by Stanley Kubrick as The Killing), I went back and read the whole novel; it's a hell of a novel. Rick Ollerman was right to invoke Richard Stark's Parker books in his comment below. The Killing (1955), and also White's The Big Caper, from the same year, are like Parker novels such as The Score, with their emphasis on the build-up to a heist and the ever present danger of interpersonal complications. White's story stays closer to film noir's roots in melodrama than Stark does, and the narrative pace is faster, but if you like one, you're liable to like the other. White appears to have published at least four novels in 1955. Perhaps the haste of publication deprived the book of the editorial scrutiny that would have remedied to faults I highlight in the post. \

==================

The occasional lapses in prose style in paperback original novels get me thinking about the conditions under which their authors wrote. I remind myself that the verbal lapses may be due to those conditions rather than to lack of talent. But here's the opening of Lionel White's 1955 novel The Clean Break, which Stanley Kubrick filmed as The Killing (the novel, not just its opening):

"The aggressive determination on his long, bony face was in sharp contrast to the short, small-boned body which he used as a wedge to shoulder his way slowly through the hurrying crowd of stragglers rushing through the wide doors to the grandstand.

"Marvin Unger was only vaguely aware of the emotionally pitched voice coming over the public address system. He was very alert to everything taking place around him, but he didn’t need to hear that voice to know what was happening. The sudden roar of the thousands out there in the hot, yellow, afternoon sunlight made it quite clear. They were off in the fourth race.

"Unconsciously his right hand tightened around the thick packet of tickets he had buried in the side pocket of his linen jacket. The tension was purely automatic. Of the hundred thousand and more persons at the track that afternoon, he alone felt no thrill as the twelve thoroughbreds left the post for the big race of the day.

"Turning into the abruptly deserted lobby of the clubhouse, his tight mouth relaxed in a wry smile. He would, in any case, cash a winning ticket. He had a ten dollar win bet on every horse in the race.

"In the course of his thirty-seven years, Unger had been at a track less than half a dozen times. He was totally disinterested in horse racing; in fact, had never gambled at all. He had a neat, orderly mind, a very clear sense of logic and an inbred aversion to all `sporting events.' He considered gambling not only stupid, but strictly a losing proposition. Fifteen years as a court stenographer had given him frequent opportunity to see what usually happened when men place their faith in luck in opposition to definitely established mathematical odds."

I'll give White "aggressive determination," though I think the phrase weak, bordering on repetitive. But every other word or string of words I highlighted crosses that border or is at best unnecessary and at worst grammatically ludicrous. "Emotionally pitched"? What does that mean? Did the announcer sound as if he were about to break into tears? Why "everything taking place around him" rather than just "everything around him"? Why slow a sentence down by beginning it with an adverb ("unconsciously"), especially when White repeats himself in the next sentence, telling us the tension was "purely automatic"? And why "purely automatic" rather than "automatic"?

"Turning into the abruptly deserted lobby of the clubhouse, his tight mouth relaxed" is not only a dangling participle, it's wordy. Why tell us that the stragglers were rushing if you've just told us they're hurrying? And "the course of," "very," "in fact," and "at all" are throat-clearing. White should have cut each in his second draft or his editor on a first pass. As to "definitely established mathematical odds," all odds are mathematical, and "definitely established" is doubly redundant, each word with respect to the other, and the two when set against "mathematical."

OK, these guys churned it out, and their work probably did not get the care most novels got at hardback houses or that one associates with novels today, when authors will turn out maybe a book a year rather than a book a month. If he'd had more time, Harry Whittington might occasionally have substituted another word for sickness in A Night for Screaming. Charles Williams might have found other ways to say "thoughtfully" in All The Way (also known as The Concrete Flamingo). But those guys saved the repetition for later in their books, and it's easy to imagine them so caught up in the stories they were telling that verbal polish fell by the wayside. They didn't bog things down on the very first page, never a good idea, particularly not in thrillers or suspense novels.

© Peter Rozovsky 2015

Labels: Charles Williams, Harry Whittington, Lionel White, Parker, Richard Stark, Rick Ollerman, things that drive me nuts

Sunday, December 27, 2015

The Parker project: Re-readng Richard Stark

I’m 10 books into the idea I stole from Heath Lowrance of rereading all the Parker novels Donald Westlake wrote under his Richard Stark alias. In order, I’ve reread Breakout, The Hunter, The Man With the Getaway Face, The Outfit, Butcher’s Moon, The Sour Lemon Score, Plunder Squad, The Seventh, The Mourner, and Deadly Edge.

The experience offers an impressive answer to a question I pose occasionally at Detectives Beyond Borders: How does an author keep a long-running series fresh? Stark did it by radically reconceiving the series repeatedly. The lone-avenger plot of the first three books bleeds gradually into stories of heists gone wrong, the seed of the latter sown as early as Book Two, The Man With the Getaway Face.

Once he began writing the heist books, Stark stayed constantly ahead of what his fans expected of them. Parker, the unemotional user of women? Stark got good mileage out of that motif before introducing Claire in The Rare Coin Score (1967), then making her a part of Parker's life and a driver of the plot in Deadly Edge four years later. Claire was no calculated, pro-forma addition, either. Her interaction with Parker and the hapless heist planner Billy Lebatard shows that Stark had assimilated every lesson postwar novels of nervous American masculinity and sexual jealousy had to teach. And Deadly Edge shows Stark doing a creditable job with the frightened-woman-alone-in-a-house motif even as he makes sure readers know why she so strongly loves the house and refuses to leave it.

Parker the silent? Stark laid that one to rest, giving Parker pages of nonstop dialogue in The Black Ice Score. That is easily the weakest of the Parker novels, but I respect Westlake for doing something different. And anyone who scorns the idea that Stark had a sense of humor needs to read The Score or The Seventh. The latter book especially uses humor like the minor-key variation on the main theme in an opera. The book is grim and violent, which makes the humorous touches stand out all the more.

Think of any shorthand tag by which readers and commentators refer to Parker, and the chances are that it's accurate, but also that Stark went way beyond it.

(Read all about Parker at the Violent World of Parker Web site.)

© Peter Rozovsky 2015

Labels: Donald Westlake, Parker, Richard Stark, Violent World of Parker

Saturday, December 05, 2015

Don't tinker with Parker unless you're Richard Stark

Here's an old post about a problematic movie adaptation of Richard Stark's Parker instead of the new post I wanted to write about one of the Parker novels. What's the connection? One of my complaints about Parker, the 2013 Jason Statham movie based on Stark's 2000 novel Flashfire, is the filmmakers' efforts to make Parker more sympathetic. Stark made occasional such efforts when he brought Parker back to life in 1998 after a 24-year hiatus. One of the most notable is the final chapters of Breakout, which, however, are harrowing and wistful in the manner of a lonesome country ballad, rather than cheap, in the manner of a shitty romantic comedy.

======================

I don't know the politics of Hollywood movie making, but it sure looks to me as if Parker, based on Richard Stark's novel Flashfire, was designed less to render Stark faithfully on screen than it was to show off Jennifer Lopez's character (and her ass).

There's nothing wrong with that justifiably celebrated rear end. But those lower-body close-ups screamed not so much "Sexism!" as they did "Look at me! No matter what part of me! I'm a star!"

It's Lopez's presence in the movie, I'm convinced, that accounts for most of the unconvincing light-comic, cheap humanizing, and romantic elements. They're designed to show Lopez off: the reaction shots, the freak outs, the teary bits. She's not terrible, but she can't carry a movie, especially not one whose focus should be elsewhere. Similarly, the movie's not terrible, but it's a lot more a conventional action movie, complete with pro-forma efforts to show that the tough-guy hero is a good guy at heart, than Stark/Westlake/Parker fans probably hoped for. Read the books instead.

(For a scathing review of Parker, complete with links to dissenting opinions, view the excellent Violent World of Parker Web site. Even the positive reviews make exceptions for some of the elements I singled out here: Lopez and the cheap efforts to make Parker more sympathetic.)

© Peter Rozovsky 2013, 2015

Labels: Donald Westlake, Jason Statham, Jennifer Lopez, movie stars, movies, Parker, Richard Stark, Violent World of Parker

Wednesday, August 06, 2014

Why Icelandic sagas are like Richard Stark's Parker

The Icelandic sagas remind me a bit of Richard Stark's Parker. Their characters talk no more than they need to (except when reciting poetry), they engage in minimal introspection, and their heroes know how to get the job done. And Egil's Saga has its title character wreaking single-handed havoc on an opponent's stronghold in way that may remind readers of what Parker, Grofield, and company do to the island casino in The Handle.

I read Egil's Saga in a translation by the late Bernard Scudder, the much respected translator of Yrsa Sigurðardóttir and Arnaldur Indriðason, and the bracing informality of his version makes it lot more readable than one might suspect from the witty aura of airbrushed sword-and-sorcery fantasy balderdash that surrounds the idea of Vikings. Two favorite examples:

"As he grew up, it soon became clear he would turn out very ugly and resemble his father ... " (and that's the hero of the story.)

and

"Helga replied, ‘Even though you are so stupid that you cannot look after yourself, I will bring it about that this duel never takes place.’"

That's another thing about the sagas: the protagonists are men, but the women could inherit property, talk tough, and kick ass in a way I'm not sure was common in other 13th-century European literature. Maybe that brisk directness is a feature of the original Old Norse, but if that's the case, Scudder wisely highlights it. No wifty swords and sorcery here.

And you want stories that cross borders? Egil's Saga is set in Iceland, Norway, England, Scotland, Lapland, Finland, around the Baltic Sea, and Eastern Europe, with additional mentions of journeys to France and Ireland (the Vikings founded Dublin and other Irish cities, after all.)

© Peter Rozovsky 2014

Labels: Bernard Scudder, Donald Westlake, Egil's Saga, Iceland, Icelandic sagas, Parker, Richard Stark

Monday, November 25, 2013

Dashiell Hammett, father to John le Carré?

Did Donald Westlake spend much time in Texas, in particular browsing the Dashiell Hammett archive at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas in Austin? (If the good folks at The Violent World of Parker know the answer, feel free to weigh in.)

I ask because a passage from "The Secret Emperor," a fragment included with e-book editions of the new Hunter and Other Stories by Hammett, contains a scene that reads just like a favorite bit from The Score, one of my favorite of the Parker novels — and Hammett wrote his fragment in 1925. Westlake has said of his own precursors that "For early influences we have to start, and almost end, with Hammett." Even if he never read "The Secret Emperor," I like to think Westlake would smile at the thought that he captured a bit of its style.

The Hunter and Other Stories contains twenty stories uncollected or unpublished during Hammett's lifetime, plus a tantalizing fragment of an uncompleted Sam Spade story. E-book editions include three additional pieces of what Hammett hoped would turn into political novels, according to Julie M. Rivett, Hammett's granddaughter and, with Hammett scholar Richard Layman, a co-editor of the new volume. Rivett invokes The Maltese Falcon in discussing "The Secret Emperor," but I'm reminded of The Glass Key.

Like that novel, which appeared in 1931, "The Secret Emperor" feels like it could have been written decades later, even today. Had he completed "The Secret Emperor," and if the result were as good as the opening chapters included here, it's entirely possible that, as well as a father of hard-boiled crime writing, Hammett would be considered an ancestor of modern political thrillers, including those of alienation and paranoia. As well as the progenitor of Raymond Chandler, Hammett might thus be regarded as a forerunner to John le Carré, Jean-Patrick Manchette, Alan Glynn, and all the 1970s paranoia thriller movies Glynn likes so much.

Yep, the man was that good.

© Peter Rozovsky 2013

Labels: Dashiell Hammett, Donald Westlake, John Le Carre, Parker, Richard Stark, The Hunter and Other Stories, Violent World of Parker

Saturday, November 16, 2013

Joe Gores' Interface and Donald Westlake. Hammett, too

Did Joe Gores borrow the cadence of the name of Donald Westlake/Richard Stark's Parker for his own Docker, an antagonist in Gores' 1974 novel Interface?

Docker is as ruthless as Parker, as dedicated to the proposition that work exists to be done, not fretted over. Further, a lengthy mid-novel scene in which Docker evades a string of pursuers at an airport, leaving them much worse off than when they started, reminded me of Parker in Slayground.

Finally, Gores and Westlake were friends who resorted to the delightful game of writing a chapter that included both authors' characters and using the resulting chapter in a novel by each author (Westlake's Drowned Hopes, Gores' 32 Cadillacs.)

Docker's and Parker's dedication to their dark tasks may ultimately stem from Dashiell Hammett, whose Sam Spade and Continental Op did what they had to do. Gores was among the most dedicated and accomplished of Hammettians; his novels include a prequel to The Maltese Falcon (Spade & Archer) and Hammett, in which Hammett resumes his role as a real-life detective. And Westlake, speaking of the authors who shaped his work, once told an interviewer that "For early influences we have to start, and almost end, with Hammett."

I'll be back with more, on Interface's ending. For now, though, if you like Hammett and you like Westlake, you'll like Interface. And if don't like Hammett and Westlake, like the Monticello Man said, "I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just."

© Peter Rozovsky 2013

Labels: Dashiell Hammett, Donald Westlake, Joe Gores, Parker, Richard Stark

Sunday, May 27, 2012

Crimefest 2012 highlights

A gentle spring wind dissipates the gin fumes over College Green, and Bristol is an eerily quiet place now that Ali Karim has left town.

With Crimefest 2012's remaining stragglers marshaling their strength before the Sunday dinner, here are some highlights of my third Crimefest, one of the most enjoyable crime festivals I've been part of:

1) Declan Burke's Absolute Zero Cool wins the Last Laugh award, for best comic crime fiction published in the U.K., besting a field that included hacks and pikers like Elmore Leonard and Carl Hiaasen.

2) Your humble blogkeeper loses the Criminal Mastermind quiz to Peter Guttridge on the crime-fiction equivalent of penalty kicks. Guttridge and I each answered fifteen questions correctly in general crime-fiction knowledge and our specialty categories. (His was Richard Stark's Parker novels; mine was Dashiell Hammett.) Guttridge won the prize of Bristol blue glass and a free pass to next year's festival because he had passed on only five questions whose answers he did not know while I passed on seven. I think, however, that my showing may be the best ever by a North American, and proof to the Brits that there's more to America than bluff good humor, rustic colonial manners, and a flair for tall stories.

3) A post-dinner discussion with Gunnar Staalesen, who agreed with a Detectives Beyond Borders commenter's suggestion that the Anders Breivik case will halt fruitful, honest discussion of immigration and integration in Norway for a generation.

4) Finding a crime writer (William Ryan) for whom Isaac Babel (Odessa Tales, Red Cavalry) is both an inspiration and a character.

5) Reunions with the delightful floating cast of authors, organizers, critics and fans who spend their vacations criss-crossing the Atlantic Ocean to attend every crime festival they can in England and America, and the addition of Alison Bruce, Laura Wilson and Stav Sherez to the cast. See you in Cleveland or Harrogate or Bristol or Albany or Long Beach or ...

© Peter Rozovsky 2012

Labels: Ali Karim, Alison Bruce, conventions, Crimefest, Crimefest 2012, Dashiell Hammett, Declan Burke, Gunnar Staalesen, Isaac Babel, Laura Wilson, Parker, Peter Guttridge, Richard Stark, Stav Sherez, William Ryan

Thursday, May 05, 2011

What does literary "influence" mean?

Larry McMurtry's introduction to the NYRB edition of Georges Simenon's Monsieur Monde Vanishes is all about the urge to disappear and start a new life, but it does not mention the Flitcraft parable from The Maltese Falcon.

The omission is odd because McMurtry does cite other literary parallels. I don't necessarily suggest that Hammett influenced Simenon, but I'd be curious about McMurtry's reason for the omission. (The Maltese Falcon predates Simenon's novel by sixteen years, in case you're wondering.)

***

The estimable Brian Lindenmuth said of Wallace Stroby's novel Cold Shot to the Heart: "Imagine a Parker novel if Parker was a woman," and I won my copy in a contest on the Violent World of Parker Web site. Indeed, Stroby inscribed the book: "To Peter, who really knows his Richard Stark [the pen name under which Donald Westlake wrote the Parker novels]."

The novel opens mid-heist, as do the middle-period Parker novels, and some of its middle chapters open in mid-action ("When ...), like the early Parkers. Thing is, the book doesn't feel much like a Parker.

Its heister-on-the-run plot feels more like a tale of doomed lovers on the run (though protagonist Chrissa's lover is in prison, she doesn't mean to leave him there), and the story tugs at the heartstrings in ways Stark never did. And it is to Stroby's considerable credit that the two biggest heartstring-tuggers work nicely as plot elements, one of them especially so. The book may yank at your heart, but it won't insult your mind.

Stroby has undoubtedly read his Richard Stark, but his novel, for all its surface similarities, feels very different from Stark's books. And that leads to today's question: What do you mean when you say, "Author or Book A influenced Author or Book B"? In what ways does one author or book influence another?

© Peter Rozovsky 2011

Labels: Dashiell Hammett, Donald Westlake, Georges Simenon, Larry McMurtry, Parker, Richard Stark, Wallace Stroby

Friday, April 22, 2011

Garry Disher's Wyatt comes to America

Parker is Richard Stark's professional thief, Wyatt is Garry Disher's.

Similarities between the two protagonists are obvious, including everything from their names to their personalities to the targets of their heists to the titles of the books. And, though Disher has paid amusing tribute to Stark, the influence may extend from Disher as well as to him.

My posts on the subject in this blog's early days drew passionate comments from some Australian readers angry at what one called a "cultural cringe" — excessive imitation by the Australian Disher of an American source. Disher himself weighed in on my Parker/Wyatt questions, though his comments seem to have disappeared from the State Library of Victoria's Web site. (No conspiracy need be inferred. He posted the comments four years ago, and they may have been removed to clear space.)

If I recall correctly, Disher said he wanted Wyatt to be a more fully rounded character than Parker. Indeed, the fifth Wyatt novel, Port Vila Blues, has Wyatt displaying remorse, which Parker never did.

American readers will soon get their chance to meet Wyatt; Soho Press is publishing the seventh and latest novel in the series, called simply Wyatt. A first glance at the book finds Wyatt sizing up a potential human obstacle to a heist, much as Stark often had Parker do, but with a good deal more psychological analysis than Parker was given to. One way is not necessarily better than the other, but it's good to find differences between two protagonists in many ways so similar.

Wyatt follows Disher's previous Wyatt book, The Fallout, by thirteen years. The series' resumption after a long layoff may remind readers of another crime series.

***

Take a look at Disher's lengthy, genre-spanning bibliography, including his Hal Challis novels.
Browse his Web site.
Read an excerpt from Wyatt.

Labels: Australia, Donald Westlake, Garry Disher, Parker, Richard Stark, Wyatt

Thursday, April 14, 2011

Comic guy's mother loves Westlake!

Conversation turned to a familiar but endlessly interesting subject at my local comics shop this evening.

"My mom loves everything by Westlake," the clerk said. "No matter what name he writes under."

"Who loves Westlake?"

"My mom."

"You have a pretty cool mom," I said.

"Oh, yeah. She loves sex, violence and humor."

That sounds like one righteous mother.

***

The day's other Westlake note is on deadpan humor. The Man With the Getaway Face, second of the twenty-four novels Westlake wrote under the name Richard Stark about the deadly and deadly efficient thief Parker, contains three gorgeous examples. The last is a bit of a spoiler and the third is long, so I'll quote the first:

"Skimm was standing by the stove, watching a battered tin coffee pot. He'd spent so much of his life jungled up he didn't know how to make coffee any other way but in an old beat-up pot. There were two heavy china mugs on the table, and steel spoons, but no saucers. A pint of Old Mr. Boston stood next to one mug.
"`Sit down,' Skimm said, `she's almost ready.'
"Parker sat down at the table and lit a cigarette. `You got an ash tray?'
"`Yeah, wait a second.' Skimm looked around and then brought a saucer over to the table. `Here you are.'"

Labels: comic crime fiction, comics, Donald Westlake, miscellaneous, Parker, Richard Stark

Saturday, April 02, 2011

A dose of Stark reality

A contest entry this week turned into a busman's holiday for me with Donald Westlake, writing with his Richard Stark hat on. Here are some of the highlights:

"In a world gone mad, self-interest approached the level of a sacrament, so it was with a will that Baron launched himself into his new found vocation: Looking Out for Number One."
The Handle

"Littlefield leaned closer to him. `You're a young man, you can still learn. Pay attention to this. You can steal in this country, you can rape and murder, you can bribe public officials, you can pollute the morals of the young, you can burn your place of business down for the insurance money, you can do almost anything you want, and if you act with just a little caution and common sense you'll never even be indicted. But if you don't pay your income tax, Grofield, you will go to jail."
The Score

"Casey went, reluctantly, and all the way he kept trying to explain to Grofield that Grofield didn’t have to do any of this. Grofield took him around into the darkness beside the dormitory and hit him with the pistol butt and Casey lay down on the ground and stopped explaining things."
The Handle

"`You’re all right, Parker.’ Scofe raised his head and smiled. He was filthy, and his eyes were covered by a white film, and his teeth were brown. When he smiled, he looked like a parody of something unspeakable. `You’re all right,’ he said again. `You don’t mean all those things you say to me.’"
The Score

***

Trent Reynolds hosts the contest, and Wallace Stroby supplies the prize. The question involves Stark and Dashiell Hammett. That's good, because, as Parker will tell you, any job that requires more than four or five men is no good.

Visit Reynolds' Violent World of Parker site to enter.

© Peter Rozovsky 2011

Labels: contests, Dashiell Hammett, Donald Westlake, Parker, Richard Stark, Violent World of Parker, Wallace Stroby

Monday, May 17, 2010

विमल, or meet Vimal, India's pulp hero

Oh boy, have I learned a lot from The Sixty-Five Lakh Heist, fourth of Surender Mohan Pathak's many Vimal novels.

I have learned that the author tired of his first series after the first hundred books or so before he created Vimal. I have learned that Vimal is an elusive thief and a master of disguise, a kind of Punjabi mix of Richard Stark's Parker and Frank McAuliffe's Augustus Mandrell.

I have learned, among many new words, dacoit: "robber, usually one who attacks in broad daylight, in a group." I have learned that lakh in the novel's title means hundred thousand; the title refers to the 6.5 million-rupee bank robbery in which Vimal is stiffed by a colleague before embarking on a violent quest to recover what's his.

And I have learned that Surender Mohan Pathak had better slow down to a stately Simenon-like pace, or he'll soon have to express his own output in lakh. At age 70, he has written about 300 novels and translated Ian Fleming and James Hadley Chase into Hindi, the latter while working full-time for the Indian phone company.

Check out Vimal and more at the publisher's Web site, Blaft Publications. And check out this essay on Vimal by Brian Lindemuth, to whom I owe my acquaintance with Vimal.

ਬੱਲੇ!, which means, roughly speaking, "Vimal is one righteous dude!"

P.S. Vimal apparently means "clean, pure, spotless" in Sanskrit, and yet Vimal is just one of the hero's many names ...

© Peter Rozovsky 2010

Labels: Asia, Blaft Publications, India, Indian crime fiction, Parker, pulp, Richard Stark, Surender Mohan Pathak, Vimal

Thursday, July 09, 2009

A thick book(seller)

I visited my local comics store today to inquire about Darwyn Cooke's adaptation of Richard Stark's The Hunter. Here's what happened:

Me: "Do you have The Hunter?

Click-click-click-click. Silence.
"Darwyn Cooke, graphic-novel version of Richard Stark's novel?

More silence.

"Nothing?"

The help: "Our computer is slow."

I circle the shop, browsing.

The help: "Who's in it?"

Me (nonplussed): "Who– Why would you ask who's in a novel? It's a novel, by Richard Stark – Donald Westlake – adapted and drawn by Darwyn Cooke.

I circle the shop again and come back around to the help and the store's computer.
"Not getting anything?" (On a previous visit to the store, another employee had called up information on the book and given me an approximate delivery date.)

The help: "I'm getting too many titles."

Me: "Why are you looking for a book on IMDb?"

The help: "Oh, it's not a movie?"

========================

I'll find another place to buy the book. In the meantime, read about Darwyn Cooke and the Hunter comic at the Violent World of Parker Web site. And read some of my posts about Richard Stark here.

© Peter Rozovsky 2009

Labels: comics, crime comics, Darwyn Cooke, Donald Westlake, graphic novels, miscellaneous, Parker, retail, Richard Stark, things that drive me nuts

Friday, February 06, 2009

Donald Westlake's multiple personalities

I'd posted here and here on Donald Westlake's tendency in his later work to bring aspects of one part of his large and varied oeuvre to bear on another. Thus a Parker caper might have comic Dortmunder touches or a Dormunder story might contain echoes of economic havoc, a la The Ax.

So I was especially pleased this week to find the following comment from Westlake himself:

"There are three reasons to write under a pen name, and at one time or another all three of those reasons have applied to me. As a result, I have been a longtime multiple personality, though lately showing signs of a more fully integrated character."

Perhaps I wasn't imagining those crossover tendencies.

=====================

I found my way to the Westlake comment via the redesigned Violent World of Parker Web site. That's long been one of the richest and most informative sites out there, and now it includes a blog. Take a look.

© Peter Rozovsky 2009

Labels: Donald Westlake, Parker, Richard Stark

Friday, January 02, 2009

A bit more about Donald Westlake

Can I say just one more thing about the man? Or three or four?

Here's a post I made a year ago about Westlake's occasional tendency to jump the boundaries between series. Here's one delicious way he solved the problem of sustaining interest in a long-running series. Here's a bit about the fine Australian author Garry Disher and his fascination with Parker.

And here's just a touch of Dortmunder sneaking into a Parker book, Dirty Money:

"`You kill a lawman,' [Parker] said, `you're in another zone. McWhitney and I are gonna have to work this out.'

"`But not on the phone.'

"Parker yawned. `Nothing on the phone ever,' he said. `Except pizza.'"

Labels: Donald Westlake, Donald Westlake R.I.P., Dortmunder, Garry Disher, Parker, Richard Stark

Thursday, January 01, 2009

Donald Westlake dies

Donald Westlake, one of the world's liveliest, funniest and most prolific crime writers, died New Year's Eve. He was 75.

Westlake wrote around 100 novels, virtually inventing the comic caper with his Dortmunder series and the amoral, professional thief/killer in twenty-seven novels featuring Parker, written under the pen name Richard Stark.

Westlake was also a screenwriter, and his screenplay for The Grifters earned an Academy Award nomination in 1991. He won three Edgar awards from the Mystery Writers of America, which named him a Grand Master in 1993

Westlake was one of the cleverest of crime novelists, engaging in such experiments as beginning two different novels with the same botched robbery in order to take the story in two different directions. He also liked to share chapters with authors whose work he enjoyed, a Westlake novel and a book by the cooperating author having a common chapter that features characters from both. He did this notably in the Dortmunder novel Drowned Hopes, which shares a chapter with Joe Gores' 32 Cadillacs, a delicious treat for anyone, doubly so for readers who know both writers.

The New York Times obituary of Westlake, by the way, is a shoddy piece of work, full of what the writer probably thought was delightful color ("who pounded out more than 100 books and five screenplays") but not mentioning Dortmunder, one of the author's two most influential and enduring creations. The obituary also makes the questionable assertion that Westlake's work translated well to the screen. The Dortmunder novels especially have been notoriously ill-served by screen adaptations.

(A knowledgeable observer of both crime fiction and journalism points out that the Times was likely caught unaware by Westlake's death. With a holiday schedule likely in effect, the Times had to draft a non-obituary writer and non-crime-fiction expert. But my correspondent also expressed surprise that the Times did not have an obituary ready in advance, as it should have and as newspapers traditionally do. Westlake was 75, he was extremely well known, especially in New York, and he had had health problems in recent years, though not apparently related to the heart attack that appears to have killed him. The Times dropped the ball on this one. )

© Peter Rozovsky 2009

Labels: Donald Westlake, Donald Westlake R.I.P., Dortmunder, New York Times, newspapers, Parker, Richard Stark

Monday, December 24, 2007

Converging series

And this has nothing to do with mathematics. Rather, it's something I've noticed from time to time in Donald Westlake's books the last few years. You may know that the man is prolific, author of at least four crime-fiction series and scores of standalones. His production, in fact, lies at the heart of this comment because a question like the one I'm about to pose could only apply to a writer whose production spans multiple series.

The question concerns motifs or situations from one series bleeding over into another. Comeback, Westlake's 1998 novel about the ultra-professional thief Parker (written, like the other Parker novels, under the name Richard Stark), opens with a heist at a religious rally. One of the robbers is disguised as an angel. He makes an especially nervous angel, and if you think that sounds like something out of Westlake's comic caper novels about John Dortmunder, you're not the only one, even though Comeback is Parker all the way – cool, taut and serious.

A later Parker novel, Ask the Parrot, has Parker teaming up with a man resentful because he has lost his job for being honest. The motif of good man forced to desperate measures because he lost his job echoes Westlake's standalone novel The Ax.

Can you think of other prolific, multifaceted authors who borrow from their own work the way Westlake does?

© Peter Rozovsky 2007

Technorati tags:
Donald Westlake
John Dortmunder

Labels: Donald Westlake, Dortmunder, Parker, Richard Stark