Book Problems

 Wendall -- every other Thursday

 I’ve got a book problem. I have too many.

I have more books than bookshelves and more bookshelves than we can really fit in our apartment. 

  

Obviously not organized in any way.

At all.

 

I have books from childhood, beloved school reads, tons of college textbooks and tomes (with all my notes), as many books as I’ve been able to afford by my wonderful friends in the mystery community, research books for all my scripts and Cyd Redondo novels, and as I’ve posted before, a significant stack of particularly precious and ancient paperbacks held together with rubber bands.

 

Yes, that's a Bunyip.

 

 

 

For many years I’ve tucked books into strange places, added a few “front facing” copies, or “extended” the shelves I have with tall stacks of books on one side, topped with some kitschy object or other, to make it look intentional. Though the tops/pages don’t get as dusty this way, it still breaks my heart to have them on the floor.

 

 

 

For my husband, the solution is easy. Get rid of them! Horrors. Whenever he suggests a “clear out,” I just remind him that we could easily have physical copies of the 647 titles on my Kindle, so he should be grateful.

 

But, when a recent trip to Josh Spencer’s new Studio City branch of The Last Bookstore yielded a few particularly huge non-fiction beauties, I knew I had to find another way to handle books.

 

And I found it. Pottery Barn pedestal shelves – on the floor!

 

 

 

The pictures above only constitute some of the books in our living and dining room. Don’t even let me get started on our bedroom or our office. . .

 

I’ve talked about physical media before and how much it means to me and I feel the same way about the books. I realize I am probably part of the last generation that will ever have a house rammed with books and CDs and DVDs and albums this way. And I know from culling my albums six years ago, no one will really want this stuff when I am gone.

 

But for now, having books I can see and touch is one of the few things that makes me hopeful in a time of upheaval for all of us. I’m grateful we have a house full of knowledge and solace and inspiration and will, as long as we have any floor space left.

 

Because, in the end, can you ever really have too many books?

 

~ Wendall

 

 

 

What is good crime fiction?

 Michael - Thursday

A while ago Caro wrote a blog concerning a book she was reading for a blurb that was classified as 'literary fiction'. She commented on how good the writing was and the characterizations, but it wasn’t really clear where the story was heading. I’ve been thinking about that a bit. Of course, it’s an ongoing debate about what literary fiction actually is, and when does it become genre fiction. And does it matter anyway?

Probably, in general, a novel consists of characters, story, and setting in that order of importance. Of course they are all closely entwined. The setting is the stage and the story is the path the characters take on a journey that makes them interesting and allows their development. Without good characters all the rest is of no real interest. I think that crude summary applies to all fiction.

Genre fiction is often accused of putting all the emphasis on plot. That seems to me an odd criticism because it clearly isn't true. John Banville is an Irish writer who is often spoken of as a future Nobel laureate, but he also writes crime fiction books. Most of these feature Quirke, an Irish pathologist, and are written under a pseudonym, but the more recent Snow was written under his own name. Graeme Thomson (Mail Online) asked Banville what he thought of his own crime fiction. Here’s an extract from the interview.

'It’s essentially childish, making up stories and imaginary friends, but there’s great pleasure in it.’

He admits to doing ‘absolutely no’ research.

‘The procedural bores me. With one Quirke book I was ten pages from the end and I still didn’t know who the murderer was. I really don’t care who killed Professor Plum in the library with a pipe. I deplore the thing in Agatha Christie books where there’s just a body in the library and it doesn’t really matter who it is. What fascinates me is, why is there a body in the library, and who is this person? The best crime fiction does that.’

I think most crime writers would agree with the last sentiment. Definitely character leads Banville’s books, but the murder and the plot enables them to be developed. The plot is not very complex, but that doesn’t matter. We are intrigued even if we guess the answers fairly soon and wonder why the detective does not. We come to realize that his background, the setting, and his character make it hard for him. This is very good writing. (If you'd like to learn more about the book, you can read my New York Journal of Books review at https://www.nyjournalofbooks.com/book-review/snow-novel )

Another author who may help answer the question is South African novelist Mike Nicol. I once asked him about his writing style:

'Your writing has passages of short sentences – maybe just a word or two – that heighten the tension and draw the reader quickly on. It seems particularly powerful in this book. Have you been working on this style for some time?'

'The style was consciously developed the moment I started writing crime fiction. Previously I had written literary novels in the magic realism vein. The nature of that prose calls for long sentences where the conjunction is king. In an attempt to break with that style and to find something more appropriate for a story that contained violent content, I felt it important to develop a form that reflected the violence. And a way to do that is to play fast and loose with the language. What I wanted to do was create a sound, a rhythm, that would carry the reader and would also render the meaning as effectively as did the metaphors and the imagery.'

It does. Here are a couple of random examples from his latest novel, Hammerman.

'Holiday month. The week before Christmas. The V&A waterfront. More specifically the One&Only Hotel. The business hotel of choice.'

Another:

'That was where Fish left it. Didn’t tell her where he was. Didn’t tell her what he planned.'

Hammerman is a thriller, The plot idea arises from the assassination of the Swedish Prime Minister in 1986. The premise is that the assassination involved the South African secret service because of the Prime Minister’s vocal opposition to Apartheid. (In fact, there is some evidence to suggest this, and the killer has never been found.) But that's the stage. Once again, the language and the plot allow the characters to take their journeys, hold our interest, and gain our sympathy.

Science Fiction is the same. Good novels rely on characters. Even if the characters are alien, in reality they will be humans in disguise although their characters may have developed in surprising and unusual ways because of their alien environment. Unless, that is, they are merely uninteresting antagonists in a 'space opera' comic.

This is a very big topic and these are just a few random thoughts and examples. My belief is that really there is no difference in what makes good genre fiction and good literary fiction. Both can be good. Both can be bad.

What’s your take?

Let’s Get Literary: A How-to Guide

Annamaria on Monday

Our guest today is Robin Uncapher, my long-time friend.  We met when Robin was a training manager at major New York City bank, and I was a consultant.  Ordinarily, I did not find personal friends among my clients; Robin was only one of three—all women with whom I had a great deal in common. For Robin and me, a major connection began with books.  Of late—in lockdown, we have been keeping each other sane with periodic long phone conversations, during one of which we discovered a new penchant we share.  An anti-snobbery passion when it comes to genre fiction.  Robin’s focus is on romance novels, about which she writes reviews and essays. 

As with mystery novels, romance fiction often is the target of that unfair accusation: it is formulaic.  Robin resents that notion.  As do I.  Her response: The following analysis.  It will help anyone who aspires to impress graduates of the School of Literary Toffee Noses.  I give you Robin’s debunking of the pretentious notion that literary fiction is an art apart.  Her words include how-to instructions!

Hi Everyone:

Thanks, Annamaria for that great intro.  When Annamaria and I met, I was still a literary snob.  My reading list came from the New York Times, Washington Post or similar. Then, in the late 90s I started reading romance and mysteries.  What a surprise.

Eventually I had changed my mind so much that I regularly contributed to a column, At the Back Fence, at All About Romance, a review site for romance novels.   A New York Times Book Section post had suggested that romance novels were all the same because they were written according to strict writers’ guidelines.  In response, I sat down and wrote a list of guidelines for literary fiction.  They were mostly what everybody knew, and nobody was willing to say.  See what you think of it…

*-*-*-*-*-*

Is there really no formula for writing literary fiction? Well, ah yes…Everybody who reads literary fiction knows there are rules, but nobody has the nerve to acknowledge them. I don’t know about you, but the next time someone tells me that there is no formula for writing literary fiction, I am going to ask them how much of it they have read lately!

I love all kinds of books, including modern literature. But COME’ON!!!! No formula? When is the last time anyone read a literary fiction book with a truly happy ending? Can you read ten literary fiction books in a row and not fall into one focused on some kind of abuse? When was the last time you read a literary fiction book by an African American author that, outside of the race and culture of the characters, had nothing whatsoever to do with race?

Never one to shirk my duty to point out that the emperor might need a sweater made of actual cloth I decided it was time somebody wrote down what everyone who reads modern fiction already knows…the Guidelines for Writing Literary Fiction…written the way literary publishers would write them if they were being honest. (Note to new literary fiction authors: as in all genres some talented writers break a few guidelines (William Styron, Tom Wolf, John Irving) but virtually no one breaks all of them.)

• If possible, the book should be written by a man and have a male voice, a white male voice. Women and minorities will be published but with the exception of a few designated hitters, they will not be eligible for the big prizes and kudos. If the narrator is African American, she should sound like one and, if possible, write something historical. Writing about slavery is good but anything set prior to 1950 is okay. For example, an AA female writer who wishes to write a book about a female black lawyer in Boston involved in a major civil suit, should make sure the suit has something to do with being African American. Otherwise, she should forget about literary fiction and write romance or Chick Lit. If a female author is white, she should write the way John Updike would write if he were a woman.

• Lead characters must have a fair amount of angst but should be largely unaware of their impotence in solving their problems. They should be out of touch with their feelings, except for anger and boredom. Anger is really good. Pages and pages of ranting by crazy male characters are a real sign of literary achievement so don’t hold back (see The Terrorist by John Updike)!

• Relations between people, including children and parents, husbands and wives, neighbors etc. should be fairly sterile. Characters may be depressed. They should have difficulty communicating emotion. They should keep secrets from one another and live lives of quiet desperation (as Thoreau would say). Problems between parents and adult children should remain largely unresolved as everyone but Dr. Phil knows they are unsolvable.

• Whenever possible the writer should interrupt the action with pointless observations about some aspect of the minutia of modern life.

• Personal problems that would be shocking to most readers should be described in matter-of-fact terms. A sexual predator, for example, should be described in such a way that the reader knows that the writer is not judging him. Victims of predators must be permanently scarred. If there has been violence, such as a murder, it should be graphically described in a detached but nauseating way. (For an example of a sexual predator who fits well into this genre see Sabbath’s Theater by Phillip Roth. Winner of the National Book Award.)

• Characters should generally be well educated but, if they are not, they should be from rural communities, especially those in the South. Southerners should be quoted in dialect whenever possible, especially if they are poor and white and when the book is told in the first person (see The New Yorker fiction).

• If characters reveal their political beliefs, they should be fundamentally liberal unless they are evil and selfish. Evil selfish characters are urged to look fondly back to the Reagan years, or, if they are British, the Thatcher years (see The New Yorker).

• Coming of age stories are especially welcome particularly when the narrator has suffered terrible abuse—sexual is good, an addicted parent works but so does verbal abuse (see Bastard Out of Carolina by Dorothy Allison).

• A nice touch is adding a ghost or some kind of inexplicable thinking on the part of a character so that the reader is not completely sure of what is going on. This is very literary, and few readers are willing to admit it when they are confused (see Beloved by Toni Morrison and Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel).

• Midlife crisis is another good one, especially if the character is male and living in Westchester or Connecticut (see Roth and Updike).

• Adultery should be described as a kind of rite of passage and the author should not make judgment calls, unless the adulterer is a woman.

• The male protagonist may commit as much adultery as necessary to make him feel isolated and pointless. His partner, a single female many years his junior, should be lonely, emotional, demanding and ungrateful for her lucky shot at having sex with a miserable, married, middle-aged man who lives in the suburbs.

• The novel should not have a plot. The lead character(s) should have vague problems which evolve slowly throughout the novel. There is no need to solve these problems.

• If your character falls in love, it should be clear to the reader that he or she is probably being misled by some character flaw, loneliness or personal problem stemming from childhood. A married middle-aged man is probably having a crisis—not falling in love. In fact, the reader should not be able to determine why the character loves this person whom he says he loves. This way the end of the relationship, which will come at the conclusion, will be more logical than the pairing itself.

• In literary historical novels with male protagonists, a nice touch is to have the handsome, otherwise admirable male lead fall in love with a twelve or thirteen year old girl (see The March by E.L Doctorow).

• If the characters are of age, single and truly love each other, kill one of them (see Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier).

• If the book ends with a wedding, it should preferably be to someone the lead character was not in love with during the story and the character should not be deliriously happy (see Girl with Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier.

• The book’s ending is critical. If the story is a real love story one of the lead characters must either die, go back to his spouse or break off the relationship to “find himself/herself.” If the book is very depressing and contains a group of characters who are completely unable to handle their lives and have no insight into their problems—a multiple murder by a major character who has, up until this point, appeared to be a good person, is an excellent ending. Make sure it is revolting and shocking (see The Book of Ruth by Jane Hamilton).

• An easy to read compelling style is discouraged. Writers are urged to consider passive voice, verbs of being and long sentences (see The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen).

• On completing the book, readers should have a satisfied feeling of accomplishment. There are a number of reasons for this, not the least of which is value. They will be able to say they enjoyed the book, but will probably not be able to explain why without reading a review. They can feel fully satisfied in recommending it to a book club.

Note: A version of this essay was first published on the All About Romance website.

Who Cares Whodunnit? (Part One)

Stanley - Thursday

It is a great pleasure to welcome back Tim Hallinan - a past Murder is Everywhere blogger, a great writer, and an insightful and prolific Facebook commentator. He needs no introduction to long-time readers of our blog, but for those who are new here, a brief introduction is necessary.

It was through The Queen of Patpong, the fourth of the Poke Rafferty series, that I started following Tim. I was immediately struck by how well he had woven social commentary into an entertaining story using an interesting protagonist, Poke Rafferty, and his not-to-be-forgotten family. The eighth in the series, Fool's River, came out in November 2017.

Totally different, but equally appealing, is the Junior Bender series. As Tim writes on his website:

"Junior Bender is a Los Angeles burglar deluxe-a thief's thief. But he also has a sideline: he works as a private eye. For crooks. When someone commits a crime against a crook, odds area that the crook isn't going to the cops. He or she is going to Junior Bender."

The seventh Junior Bender book, Nighttown, will be released next month.

And then there's the Simeon Grist series, which Tim had relegated to limbo many years ago. Until Simeon, the protagonist, realises he is in limbo, that he is a fictitious character written by someone else. The series came alive again with Pulped.

Today Tim gives us the first in a two-part blog on a topic that gets under the skin of every mystery writer.

Please welcome back Tim Hallinan.

______________________________________________

I’m here today to air a grievance. And to do it at some length. In fact, in two parts.

I write whodunnits. I work hard at it. I do the best I can every single day and usually wind up tossing half of my work. I am perpetually faced with something I have no idea in the world how to write, and I write it anyway. Once in a while, I think, I do it reasonably well.

But, like everyone who writes crime fiction, I know that there are those who look down upon me. As far as these folks are concerned, I’m a “genre” writer. I practice my craft in a downscale literary ZIP code where people park on the lawn and the houses lean a little and the children usually have stuff on their upper lip. And―despite the fact that I wash my car and park it over at the Walmart―my stories, even the best of them, according to certain people, are not . . . actually . . . books.

The crime fiction ZIP code. You can’t see our beat-up cars because the banks foreclosed on our lawns.

Some of the people who write, edit, publish, and criticize so-called “literary fiction” regard themselves as members of a different species than people like me. We’re not quite real writers. They see themselves atop the high, white marble towers of literature in which they and their readers live, raising knowing eyebrows at each other and tossing off quips while we genre mutts drag ourselves around in the mud on our elbows, grunting at each other and squabbling over chicken bones and the occasional shiny bead.

If you’re a reader of crime fiction, you’ve probably encountered this attitude, too. There are people in my life (and probably in yours) who, when they ask what you’re reading and learn that it’s a “whodunnit,” pause for a second, make a sort of Downton Abbey vowel like, “Euhhh,” and then ask, “Is it interesting?” As though (a) it would be a waste of time to come up with a better question for someone on your reading level, and (b) it can’t possibly actually be interesting. In any serious way, that is. For a serious person.

A seriously stupid question

These people try to build literary fences around us, as though our books might somehow cohabit with their books and accidentally make them, you know, interesting. Nonfiction and literary fiction receive serious and relatively frequent newsprint, but genre fiction is reviewed in a modest little column that appears on odd-numbered Thursdays in months without an “R” in their name.

They restrict our books to their own little ghettos in bookstores, too – the aisles of which I’m happy to say, often have more customers in them than some other aisles I could name. Because that’s the dirty little secret. A medium-selling mystery outsells a medium-selling lit-fic novel, and genre fiction has a really uncomfortable way of taking out longterm leases on the top rungs of the bestseller lists. But you, know, that’s because ordinary people buy them.

Defiantly ordinary reader

Those of us who write thrillers and whodunnits can get a little . . . defensive about being classified as literary invertebrates. For one thing, we write an awfully broad and complex spectrum of books to be crammed into a one or two-word description. We write, for example, the kind of classic puzzles, dependent on clues and timetables, that marked the so-called “Golden Age.”

We write hard-boiled private eyes. We write cooking mysteries like Murder In the YeastorChili Con Carnage. Or craft mysteries like The Dropped Stitch of Death. Or elaborate, amazingly literate mysteries set in the Louisiana bayous, like those of James Lee Burke. Or character-steeped police procedurals like Henning Mankell’s. Or flawed half-villains and their sometimes treacherous friends, like Patricia Highsmith’s characters. We write night-black noir, like Jim Thompson and Ken Bruen. We cover much of the known world, like the writers on this very blog.

The House of Crime

It this genre were a single house, it would need rooms for Sherlock Holmes, Philip Marlowe, Mike Hammer, Harry Bosch, Nero Wolfe, Miss Marple, Father Brown, Kinsey Millhone, Commissario Brunetti, Arkady Renko, Sam Spade, Easy Rawlins, Jack Reacher, Lew Archer, Lydia Chin, Flavia de Luce, Precious Ramotswe, V.I Warshawski, Inspector Maigret, Lord Peter Wimsey, Dave Robicheau, Rabbi David Small, Brother Cadfael, Father Brown, and literally thousands of others. The house would need a lot of bedrooms, and it’s hard to imagine the conversation at the dinner table, because these people don’t really have much in common. (In the interest of maintaining some threadbare semblance of neutrality I've omitted the varied and fully rounded characters created by the writers on this forum.)

I’ve barely scraped the surface, and I could go on all day. If this is a “genre” it’s so broad and varied that the people who chose the word need to go back and come up with another.

And if you doubt that the word is pejorative, a few years ago J.A. Jance, a writer who has sold more than twenty million books, called the college from which she graduated and volunteered to put in a month working (for free) in their writing program. She was told, and this is a quote, “Oh, no, we don’t do anything with GENRE fiction; we only do LITERARY fiction.”

Why the negative judgment? What is it about so-called genre books, including whodunnits, that gets the literary highbrows’ knickers so twisted?

Untwisted knickers

My first theory is that it’s just another manifestation of the eternal human fact that everybody needs someone to look down on. Obviously, this thought isn’t original with me, but I defy anyone to make the case that this isn’t a universal and instinctive desire. It’s why the few all-first-class airlines, like MGM Grand, all went broke. The problem wasn’t that there weren’t enough people who could afford the tickets. The problem was that there was no tourist class for the people in the front of the plane to feel superior to. What’s the joy of stretching out in first class with your foie grasif there aren’t a bunch of grunts in back, folded up like paper clips, eating K-rations and envying you? What’s the fun of boarding the plane first, if no one is boarding second?

So here’s my second theory.

The term whodunnit.

I’ll get to that in Part Two, which will appear on Saturday in Jeff Siger's spot..