Block on Westlake and his (non) jokes (or, the comedy is finished)

Lawrence Block remembers his friend
Donald Weslake during a celebration
at Mysterious Bookshop. Photo by Peter
Rozovsky, your humble blog keeper.

In addition to enjoying Donald Westlake's novels, I always found his remarks on movies, popular culture, and other subjects stimulating. So I was pleased when I learned that the University of Chicago Press, the same folks who are rereleasing all the Parker novels Westlake wrote as Richard Stark, has put together a collection of Westlake's nonfiction.

Now I'm pleased to find that some key people behind the book, titles The Getaway Car, think similarly about what made Westlake so good. "Don didn't write jokes," his longtime friend Lawrence Block said Monday at a celebration of the book. "He found amusing ways to say things."  Levi Stahl, the volume's editor, emphasized the point with a little game in which he had members of the audience read the opening lines of several of the Parker novels (and one featuring Alan Grofield).

Here are a few I liked and remembered fondly:

"When the guy with asthma finally came in from the fire escape Parker rabbit-punched him and took his gun away."

and

"When the woman screamed, Parker awoke and rolled off the bed."

and

"Grofield opened his right eye, and there was a girl climbing in the window. He closed that eye, opened the left, and she was still there."

Do you see the fun Westlake has with a common speech pattern in that last example?  Lawrence Block was right. Westlake didn't just say funny things, he said things funny.

© Peter Rozovsky 2014

Day Keene and other professionals, plus a question for readers

A true professional finishes his work just as the bar is about to close. I've never done so deliberately, but any time I go to my local to write (armed with headphones and a computer full of rai, guajiras, and flamenco to insulate me from lawyers and actors), I inevitably finish the article I'm working on sometime between last call and the bartender's switching off the neon Yards sign in the window.

Tonight's work was a review of a collection of Day Keene's pulp stories, and you'll hear more when the review appears. Keene, like many authors who wrote for the pulp magazines and, later, for paperback original publishers such as Gold Medal, was a professional. He was prolific, he could write anything, and he did so under a variety of names.  Donald E. Westlake was a late exemplar of that tradition, and Lawrence Block may be its last exponent.

This got me thinking: In today's writing world, we may think of an author as talented or less so, as an artist, a hack, or a mercenary. But which writers do you admire for their professionalism? What does professionalism mean to you when it comes to writing?

© Peter Rozovsky 2013

Hammett and Hollywood

Reeder

Waded into a sea of wankers at Toronto's Eaton Centre this afternoon, including one who talked and looked like Oliver Reeder from The Thick of It. Of course, we were at an espresso bar called Aroma, so what does that make me?

***

My favorite part of Richard Layman's introduction to Return of the Thin Man is its reference to Hammett during his time in Hollywood as a "stylish moneymaker."

The volume's two stories, After the Thin Man and Another Thin Man, are not novels but rather Hammett's screen stories for what became the movies of the same names (for which Hammett did not write the screenplays). Indeed, the beginning of the former reads like directions from a screenplay:

"A train whistle sounds as the Chief arrives slowly in the Santa Fe Station in San Francisco. A stateroom in the train is stacked high with hatboxes, and suitcases, books, flowers, magazines, half-empty boxes of fruit. Although it is afternoon, the stateroom is not yet made up."

And that reminds me of Lawrence Block's comment during his interview with Duane Swierczynski at Noircon 2012 in Philadelphia about Hammett as a seminal figure in the influence of the movies on novel writing. Said Block:

"I think it started the most obviously with Dashiell Hammett. He wanted to write screenplays."

© Peter Rozovsky 2012

What I got at Noircon

Here's what I bought, won, otherwise acquired, got hold of in preparation for, or added to my list after hearing about it at Noircon. Thanks are due to the discerning and opinionated folks from Farley's Bookshop, purveyor of fine books to Noircon since 2010.

• Like a Sniper Lining Up His Shot, adapted by Jacques Tardi from the novel The Prone Gunman by Jean-Patrick Manchette
• 23 Shades of Black by Kenneth Wishnia
• The Fifth Servant by Kenneth Wishnia
• Dirty Work by Larry Brown
• Dark Ride by Kent Harrington
• The Rat Machine by Kent Harrington
• Charles Jessold, Considered as a Murderer by Wesley Stace
• The Heartbreak Lounge by Wallace Stroby
• Bad Juju & Other Tales of Madness and Mayhem by Jonathan Woods
• Hell by Robert Olen Butler
• Line of Sight by David Whish-Wilson
• Time to Murder and Create by Lawrence Block
• Afterthoughts by Lawrence Block
• Crime Factory: Hard Labour

© Peter Rozovsky 2012

Lawrence Block at Noircon; Vicki Hendricks on noir; a question for readers

Ace chronicler (hmm, note to self: Write story about bruising, colorfully ethnic detective called Ace Kronicler) Cullen Gallagher posts video of Lawrence Block's acceptance speech upon receiving the David L. Goodis Award at Noircon 2012.

And visit Vicki Hendricks' blog post Noircon 2012 — the best!, where she says, among other things, that

"The definition of noir has broadened in the last several years with writers of any dark villain or alcoholic detective laying claim to the sophisticated French film term, but real noir devotees, as well as expert Otto Penzler, anchor the meaning with classic writers of the 40s and 50s, such as James M. Cain and Patricia Highsmith. For a novel to fall into the noir category, the narrator or point of view character has to be the criminal. Most often these people are undereducated, born into lower economic groups, and demonstrate warped psychology that winds them deeper into the dirt, from start to finish. No happy endings, no series possibilities."

That last point — that noir and series are irreconcilable — came up during a panel discussion at Bouchercon this year. I suggested Ken Bruen's Jack Taylor as a PI who comes close to being a noir character. What do you think? Can a crime series, PI or otherwise, be noir?

***

My noir songs program at Noircon happened at the Philadelphia Mausoleum of Contemporary Art. Here's why the exhibit/performance space bears that name:


(Photo by Lou Boxer)

© Peter Rozovsky 2012

Noircon 2012: More Block, Kent Harrington, ratlines in crime fiction

I don't remember how the subject came up, but Lawrence Block turned the talk to crime-fiction conferences during Saturday's keynote Noircon interview. During a panel at one such convention, Block told interviewer Duane Swierczynski, someone asked him:

"How are you going to spend eternity? I thought, `On a fucking panel.'"

Later, Block was asked about the genesis of his early paperback book about a successful assassination plot against Fidel Castro (republished decades later by Hard Case Crime as Killing Castro). In 1961, Block said, a third-rate paperback publisher ("He aspired to be second-rate") commissioned a quickie biography of Elizabeth Taylor from Donald Westlake, figuring Taylor was not long for the world. Then he asked Block for a similar book about Castro, figuring to capitalize on Castro's inevitable and imminent ouster.

"I never met" the publisher, Block said, "and I've always been grateful for that. ... alav ha-shalom, he's been dead for years, Elizabeth Taylor hung on until recently, and Castro, God love him, is still alive."

***

Kent Harrington, making it through his Sunday morning Noircon session in shape no better or worse than most of his audience, said he wanted his new novel, The Rat Machine, “to be a big novel but in the High Pulp style.”

The novel takes its title from ratlines, the escape routes set up for Nazis fleeing Europe at the end of World War II. Harrington described the book as a thriller about the importation of Nazis into the United States, the role allocated to the Sicilian Mafia in the international heroin trade in return for its cooperation in stamping out Communists and socialists, and the reverberations to this day of those decisions.

Stuart Neville’s next novel will be called Ratlines, and its story includes the Irish government’s embrace of Nazis after the war and its ripple effect in the present day. Asked if he thought more crime writers might take up the theme, Harrington, who called himself a moral if not a political crime novelist, said, “I hope so.”

© Peter Rozovsky 2012

Lawrence Block's joyous Noircon elegy

I had about a month's worth of experiences yesterday alone at Noircon 2012, which has just ended, but I'll need some sleep, a good meal, and some fresh air before I can post comprehensively on this eccentric, variegated, highly enjoyable yet intellectually intense conference.

For now, a bit about the convention's highlight: Duane Swierczynski's keynote interview with Lawrence Block. Block was a fount of entertaining and instructive stories from a writing career that has spanned at least fifty-four years, and Swierczynski combined a fan boy’s enthusiasm, an archivist’s knowledge, and a Borscht Belt comic's flair for showing off.

I’ll likely have more to say about the interview in future posts, but what I found most moving was Block’s recognition that the end of his writing career may be near, that it will likely come on his own terms, and that he seems to look back with great satisfaction on his prolific and highly accomplished output. I’d call what he had to say a joyous elegy, if there’s such a thing.

He did say once, “I’m tired,” but mainly he said things like this, in reply to a question about whether he had more novels planned beyond the hundred or so he’s already written:

”Anything I’ve wanted to share with the world, I’ve long since committed, so, while I wouldn’t rule [it] out…

and

”If I’d had stellar success early on, I’m sure I would have written a lot less. I’m happy with the way things turned out”

So, I’m sure, are crime readers everywhere.

***

Cullen Gallagher offers a chronicle in words and pictures of Friday's Noircon panels.

© Peter Rozovsky 2012

Project Noir Songs goes to Brazil

I knew Elizeth Cardoso’s “Ocultei” was a great melodramatic noir song before I understood the words. (Cardoso and the song are Brazilian, and she sings it in Portuguese.)

Atmosphere was everything: the languid, matter-of-fact singing of the opening verse giving way to vocal tremor, then building to intensity a good deal stronger than that of your average torch song. The jacket photo of Cardoso, eyes closed in concentration as she sings, a bead of sweat (or a tear) below her left eye.

Then I learned what she was singing (Lyrics translated freely if not downright ineptly by your humble blogkeeper):

  Ocultei
  Um sofrimento de morte
  Temendo a sorte
  Do grande amor que te dei

 (I blocked out
  A torment of death
  Fearing the fate
  Of the great love I gave you – and this is the matter-of-fact part!)

  Procurei
  Não perturbar nossa vida
  Que era florida
  Como, a princípio, sonhei

 (I tried
  Not to disturb our life,
  Which was going so well
  As I, at first, dreamed – A note of foreboding as sure any in a good '40s or '50s melodrama, the pause between third and fourth line adding to the effect.)

  Hoje, porem,
 Abri as portas do destino

(Today, however,
  I open the doors of destiny – and we skip to …)

  O meu ardente desejo
  Que Deus me perdoe o pecado
  É que outra mulher ao teu lado
  Te mate na hora de um beijo

  (My most ardent desire
– May God forgive me the sin! –
   Is that another woman, by your side,
   Kill you during a kiss.)

She loves him, she hates him, she begs forgiveness, she fantasizes another woman into his arms even as she dreams of his death. That's enough seething emotion to burn holes in the page or on the screen, I'd say.

And now I'm happy to be able to say you can listen for yourself. Though written by Ary Barroso, one of Brazil's best-loved popular composers, "Ocultei" is one of his less-recorded songs. I bought my copy in Brazil twelve years ago, and I'd never been able to find another recording or clip of Elizeth's version — until yesterday. Ladies and gentlemen, Elizeth Cardoso.

***

I'll be presenting Project Noir Songs at Noircon 2012 in Philadelphia in November, a preliminary act for a Newport Folk Festival 1965's worth of crime-fiction talent including Megan Abbott, Lawrence Block, and Joyce Carol Oates. Yes, I'm excited!

© Peter Rozovsky 2012

Lone wolf or cast of thousands?

Yesterday's post, which asked Who is the hero in a Sjöwall and Wahlöö novel?, has given rise to a vigorous, ongoing discussion that suggests some practical advantages to deploying a cast of protagonists rather than a lone-wolf hero in a long-running crime-fiction series:

"As I.J. notes, it's simple common sense. The "lone wolf" detective (à la Harry Bosch), as appealing as this type can be, is not very realistic. Eventually, it's a dead end."

and

"another `why' might be: to keep characters and plots from growing stale."

Do multiple protagonists make it easier for an author to keep a long-running series fresh? How? Why? How do series with lone-wolf protagonists compensate?

© Peter Rozovsky 2011

"Politics sucks, Victoria": José Latour's Comrades in Miami

How's this for a simile to make the pulse quicken?:

"For the next fifty minutes, like a nearly invisible virus invading an organism several trillion times its size, the purring outboards slipped the cigarette in."

The place is a cigarette boat easing quietly into harbor near Key West, Florida, under cover of night. The cargo and crew are six Cuban defectors. The passage is from José Latour's Comrades in Miami, and I like it for several reasons.

The simile is striking, the ominous image of the virus bumping up against the soft, reassuring purr of the motor, the tiny virus making its quiet way into the unimaginably huge organism (When was the last time you read trillion outside a story about the U.S. budget?) But mostly the little bit of wonder is both magical and touchingly human, the sort of thing I could well imagine myself thinking in a similar situation.

Latour's compassionate humanity comes through as well in his choice of multiple points of view, which permits considerable sympathy even for the novel's worst, most unrelievedly evil character.

The book's political stance is decidedly anti-communist and anti-Castro. Still, Latour is probably not universally loved by the anti-Castroites who are the Cuban-American community's public face in the United States. Here's one of the defectors, a central figure in the novel:

"`But we've reflected on the excesses of democracy and the shortcomings of communism a hundred times. Are we going to do something about it? No, right? So leave it to the naive dissidents who risk their freedom, maybe even their lives. They haven't figured out that when communism falls, Cuban-Americans will give them a medal and a pension before rigging the elections and taking charge. Politics sucks, Victoria."

=========

In a news note relevant to a recurring motif in Comrades in Miami, President Barack Obama will allow Americans to make unlimited transfers of money and visits to relatives in Cuba.

Click here for two more novels unlikely to earn their authors tickets to a Fidel Castro celebrity roast.

© Peter Rozovsky 2009

Cuba: Libre or not, here I come

Now that American newspapers are drastically cutting their coverage of foreign news, readers may have to turn elsewhere to gain perspective. They could do worse than crime fiction.

First assignment: Adrian McKinty's new Fifty Grand and Lawrence Block's old Killing Castro, reissued by Hard Case Crime. Block's book is about a Dirty Dozenish gang of assassins who come together to do just what you'd expect from the book's title, and it offers relatively early discussion (the book first appeared in 1961) of where Fidel Castro went wrong. McKinty's is about one person's suffering and manipulation at the hands of a range of antagonists that includes the Cuban government, and he saves his ire for Raul Castro. Neither book is likely to earn its author a friendly reception at a Castrista piss-up.

Read the books back to back, then prepare a book report on both. Samples of each are available by clicking on the titles in the preceding paragraph. And now maybe I'll go read some Leonardo Padura. (Nathan Cain of Independent Crime links to a list of Padura's favorite Cuban novels. The Old Man and the Sea makes the list.)

© Peter Rozovsky 2009