After Butcher's Moon, Bad Things Happen

I just finished reading Butcher's Moon and am done with the first part of the Parker series.  I have a three letter review of Butcher's Moon to offer:  Wow!

And now I can understand why Parker and Richard Stark vanished for 23 years after Butcher's Moon - they were spent.  I was secretly worried that I would find BM disappointing - mainly, I suppose, for the illogical reason that it was so hard to find a copy of it.  But BM delivered in almost every way imaginable.  I'll leave everything in general terms here because I don't want to spoil anything for anyone who has yet to read BM (I accidentally learned of one crucial plot point and it drove me to distraction for most of the book waiting for it to happen.  And speaking of spoilers, someone also gave away a big part of Don't Ask, one of the Dortmunder novels.  I think about it all the time.)


I only have one of that second batch of Parker books - Comeback.  So I am going to give Richard Stark a rest and spend some time hunting down copies of the remaining books.  I want to know what Parker is like when he returns.  I've heard he doesn't really age and am curious to learn if he still has some of the same associates.

I thought my first post-Parker reading choice was going to be Kate Atkinson's new book Started Early, Took My Dog. I've been carrying around a copy of it in my bag all week.  But I was browsing at a used bookstore the other day and impulsively grabbed

I think I read about it in the Washington Post last year and saw a few mentions of it in other good places but didn't remember much about the book.  It was fun to grab something new after months of knowing exactly which Stark I would read next.  Half way through Bad Things Happen, I am extremely happy with my choice.  Its a hybrid of Paul Auster and Kate Atkinson - a crime novel involving writers, the police, an amatuer detective, murder and an obsession with stories and story-telling.     Quite enjoyable.  And it is a first novel, too.  Which is very impressive.  I only have a trade paperback copy of it but I think I will see out a first edition of it.  I think good things are in store for Harry Dolan.

Trial by Jury (Duty)

Jury duty was hell.  And it is not over.  We finished voir dire just before 5 PM and our judge tried to get a jury seated so any non-jurors would not have to come back again in the morning.  But it didn't work out and we got sent home at 6 PM.  I know people have to sit in offices from 8 AM to 6 PM everyday but this was the most exhausting day of sitting around on hard benches I have ever endured.

I caught up on reading the weekend editions of the New York Times and Washington Post.  Read the New Yorker, too.  And I finished Plunder Squad.  It was so so.  I don't think it ranks in my top five Parker novels (Butcher's Moon, Slayground, The Score, The Outfit, The Man with the Getaway Face) but it was okay for the most part.

Finally, I started Butcher's Moon (and after only a 100 pages it may be premature to put it at number one).  I am a bit embarrassed that I whined about the cover of this book the other day.  I know what's on the cover because I spend a lot of time staring at covers (of my own and of the beautiful scans that certain people, you know who you are, post online).  But no one else can see what is on the cover of a mass market paperback anyway.  Not a popular format.  Most everyone I saw was reading trade paperbacks.  And I spent a good deal of time looking at what everyone else was reading:

These were the only titles I could confirm.  I saw textbooks on interior design and securities trading.  In general, everyone was reading.  Lots of magazines, newspapers, books.  For all the talk about the death of print, there is still a lot of reading going on.  An orgy of reading almost.  And there were several people with Kindles.  (Note:  to the lady on my right, reading Game Change on your Kindle, I wasn't starting at you, I was just trying to figure out what you were reading.  Its really hard to do when there's no cover to look at.  You might want to re-think this Kindle thing.)  One lady was watching season one of The Wire on her laptop (which I ID'ed by the particular version of the theme song).  We own the complete series DVD box set - best xmas present ever.

I hadn't been able to pick up my comics the past two weeks.  Luckily, my comic shop is just a few blocks away from the courthouse I was in and I was able to drop in on my way home.   I got issues of the BRPD, Daytripper, Iron  Man, Hellboy, Proof, Sweet Tooth, and the Plague Ships.  And the 2010 issue of something called Tripwire, a UK comics magazine.  I read about it last summer but could never find copies so I automatically grabbed it when I saw it on the racks.  I think I will be reading it in court tomorrow.

The Jury Is Out

I have jury duty again on Monday and am still undecided about what to bring to read while I wait to be called.  I am almost finished with Plunder Squad and have Butcher's Moon to take along.  But I have a ratty, ugly, old copy of Butcher's Moon - not one I'd wish to been seen reading in public.  This is a shame on so many levels - that such a good book should have such a bad cover - I'd be hard pressed to convince anyone of Westlake's genius with a cover that looks like this:

It is also sad that I even care what I am seen reading - but I ruthlessly judge others so I should be prepared.

Ideally, I would bring some comic books with me - but I like to read comics sitting at a table or lying on the floor - neither of which I will be able to do in a federal courthouse.  And I worry that the lighting will be bad.  I have several copies of Sweet Tooth and The Unwritten to read and this would be a nice block of time to do so.  But I won't.  And for those same reasons I won't read Osamu Tezuka's Ode To Kirihito in public either.  I should note here that I stopped reading comics as a kid and just returned to them two years ago.  I only discovered Osamu Tezuka because someone (you know who you are) who is also a Westlake obsessive edited an award-winning book on Tezuka (which I bought and it is quite wonderful) and I am now sort of interested in certain manga (which is something I actively used to dislike - though for no good reason).  [Side Note:  There was something called Read a Comic in Public Day at the end of August.  And I participated in it (which is very unlike me - I am the kind of person who mocks people who participate in public displays of anything) and read Tonoharu by Lars Martinson.] 

I have the past few issues of The New Yorker and The New Scientist to read.  I picked up the October issue of Backpacker magazine because it has a cover story on all the things one needs to know if lost or trapped in the wild.  This is normally not a concern for me - I live in downtown Washington, DC.  But after reading a lot of The Walking Dead and Justin Cronin's The Passage, I've come to realize that I'll be the first one to die in the event of the dead rising or a plague of virals or anything apocalyptic because my outdoor survival skills are woefully inadequate - and also because I don't like to run.  (I figure I'll have to carry the magazine with me as I flee the dead or whatever.)

I am also considering bringing the new Jonathan Franzen novel Freedom and the new Kate Atkinson novel Started Early, Took My Dog.  The Franzen looks wonderful but I have to be in court before 8 AM and am worried my brain will be too mushy (we work evenings and nights) to appreciate the book.  I hope the courthouse has a Starbucks. The Atkinson is probably the better choice.

Because I cannot have too much entertainment with me, I am charging up both iPods right now.  I'll skip what I could watch (Ashes to Ashes, the IT Crowd, Lead Balloon and Outnumbered to name a few) and say the real dilemma is which headphones to take.  I hate earbuds but my Sennheiser and Grado headphones look incredibly dorky.  People laugh when I wear them.  People who like me, even.  But they sound so good.

Petty Complaints

My gamble buying four old Richard Stark paperbacks, thinking I would need to have them to read before the new University of Chicago Press editions of Deadly Edge, Slayground, and Plunder Squad were published, failed.  I got the latest UCP edtions from Amazon well before I needed them. (The Passage and a Steig Larsson took longer to read than I bargained for.)  And now I have some garish and overpriced paperbacks sealed in plastic baggies (to preserve them? - or to keep the other books safe?) sitting next to my crisp, clean UCP editions.   Some people (you know who you are) beautifully curate old paperbacks.  I can barely stand to look at these.  It looks like I will, however, get to Butcher's Moon in ratty, paperback form well before the UCP edition is published in 2011.

Nobody seems to want to republish any of the Grofield novels.  I have paperback versions of all four (the first three in Foul Play Press editions and Lemons Never Lie from Hard Case Crime) and just finished the third one, The Blackbird.  And while I love Grofield, this book was not a strong outing by Westlake.  In the first Grofield book, The Damsel, Grofield hears, in his head, a specially composed film score to accompany whatever he's doing.  I thought that was the funniest and most endearing thing I've ever read about a character in crime fiction.  Sadly, there's no more of this in the next two books.  I think Westlake knew that The Blackbird was not properly implausible - but he let's us know that hippies are implausible characters, too (a clear reference to the two hippie villains in the previous Stark novel Deadly Edge.

Now I am on to Slayground, which shares the same opening chapter as The Blackbird.  I should have stricter standards but I love this shared chapter thing in these books and simultaneously feel that it would be a cheap gimmick if anyone else did it or does it.  (Has anyone ever done this?)  I know Westlake does it some with Joe Gores. 

I read an interesting piece in the New Yorker last week about Charlie Chan

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2010/08/09/100809crbo_books_lepore

and its may be planting the seeds of a future collecting project.  I've never read or seen anything Charlie Chan but the hunt for the books I think I could enjoy irrespective of that little fact.

Also in the New Yorker was a good piece on Agatha Christie

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2010/08/16/100816crat_atlarge_acocella

whom I, despite me being a long-time fan of crime fiction, have never read. 

And why can't someone at the New Yorker do a long piece on Donald Westlake?  And when will there be a proper Westlake biography?  Or a journal for Westlake studies?  There looks to be a very good survey of the Richard Stark novels in the New York Review of books back in 1985 but it is not freely accessible online.  I must get my hands on a copy of it.

Better Read Than Seen? Or Not?

I watched The Damned United the other night.  I've been an admirer of David Peace's books for a long time and 2009 was his big year with four of his novels all successfully adapted to film.  I have not read The Damned United but my gut tells me that the movie was better for me than the book would have been.  (I really wanted to listen to the audio book version of TDU read by John Simm of Life on Mars fame but could never find a copy.)  The Red Riding films come out at the end of summer on DVD.  I tried to see them in the theater but in DC they were only here for a very short time and it was logistically impossible to see them all.

Even though nothing could be more alien to me than Leeds in the early 70s and English football, I was thrilled with the movie.  I sort of knew about the legend of Brian Clough (who I discovered via reading about Jonathan Coe's great biography of B.S. Johnson).  I had certain images in my head and seeing them on film worked for me.  And I think that is the problem with adapting novels to film - in general, the depth and vividness of a book cannot compare with the time and budgetary limits of film.  Almost every film adaptation of a book fails.  (This is a sweeping generalization and I know there are countless examples I am not aware of which run counter to my argument.  But it is more or less true.)  I have a hard time watching the filmed version of anything I've read.

-Enduring Love and Atonement by Ian McEwan: couldn't do it
-The Golden Compass: had to stop after 15 minutes
-Watchmen: visually interesting but a failure overall
-Nobody's Fool/Empire Falls by Richard Russo: nice try HBO but no go
-The Ipcress File: this I want to see but its out of print in the US
-Strangers on a Train:  very good both ways
-Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro: opens this fall, am very interested to see
-About a Boy/High Fidelity/Fever Pitch(UK version): actually enjoyed all three films
-Wonder Boys by Michael Chabon:  the movie worked
-Clockers by Richard Price: movie was decent
-The Third Man by Graham Greene:  was a great film and then a book so doesn't count
-The Hunter/Point Blank by Richard Stark: something I really want to see now
-Eat, Prey, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert: I've been told I have to go see this
-Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee: John Malkovich makes most things great
-Any John Malkovich film that was a novel - they all work
-The Road by Cormac McCarthy:  will know shortly
-The Taltented Mr. Ripley/Plein en Soleil/Purple Noon: yes to the French version

I think I need to do some proper research to come up with better examples of failed adaptations of books.  My little list is comprised of what popped into my head after I watched The Damned United.

Arms and the Man with the Getaway Face

I went to the gun range tonight to help my wife practice.  She has a 9mm Glock 17.  I was unarmed and she did all the shooting.  I had my copy of Slayground by Richard Stark with me but could not get any reading done with all the gunfire.   Instead I was put in charge of reloading the magazines and sweeping up shell casings.  (I'm sort of a modern day Stubbs.  Helpful, but limited.)

I got to thinking while she blasted away that for a series of books called The Violent World of Parker, the guns, for the most part are pretty tame.  In Slayground, Parker knocks off an armored car with some explosives and then gets trapped in Fun Island armed with a Smith & Wesson Terrier .32 five shot revolver with a two inch barrel.  That was in 1971.  Today no one would ever consider using such a dinky gun in a heist like that, especially a big, tough guy like Parker.  (Note:  I have been reading these Parker books in chronological order and realize that the attitude towards firepower may have changed by the time the series resumes in 1997 with Comeback.)  Most of the guns used or mentioned in the books are .32s or .38s.  There are some .22s and .25s.  Yes, machine guns are used in a few jobs but I view those as exceptions.  For the most part, people in Parker's world used small caliber revolvers and they are generally effective enough to do the job.  The few automatics mentioned are .380 caliber and only hold seven shots.  The Glock magazines I was reloading hold 17 rounds (plus the round in the chamber make for 18 shots in one gun).

For a multitude of reasons there has been a sea change in attitudes about the amount of firepower needed in handguns.  My gut tells me that it is guns in pop culture (on tv, and in films, and in music) that drive people to want bigger handguns.  And I suppose gun technology has changed tremendously since the Parker books started so it is cheaper and easier to get good, high-powered weapons. 

So while I was surround by 9mm Glocks and some very loud .45 automatics tonight, I think I prefer the menace of Parker with smaller weapons (or those giant hands of his).

Opportunity Costs

I've greatly enjoyed my Richard Stark binge - 13 Starks in a row (11 Parkers and 2 Grofields).  I started The Sour Lemon Score but put it aside to read The Passage by Justin Cronin.  My plans were to take a break after Butcher's Moon (maybe six months or so, not 23 years like some people) but The Passage was screaming READ ME NOW and I gave in.  (I'm glad I listened, the book is fantastic.)

A towering stack of must-read books has piled up while this Stark obsession has been going on:

-Naming the Bones by Louise Welsh (which I was a third into when I picked up The Hunter)
-Handling the Undead by John Ajvide Lindquist (which reminds me I still need to read Let The Right One In so I can watch the movie)
-The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim by Jonathon Coe (one of my absolute favorite novelists)
-The Age of Wonder by Richard Holmes
-61 Hours by Lee Child (due back at the library in 48 hours)
-The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters (already started last fall? just got back from the library)
-Burial by Neil Cross
-The Sex Lives of Cannibals by J. Maarten Troost (recommended by a friend)
-An Egyptian Journal by William Golding (honestly, I have no idea why - it just seems neat)
-The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest by Steig Larsson (left over from October)
-The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman (wonderfully reviewed new novel about journalists)
-there are others that didn't make the list, trust me

To make matters worse, The Passage is making me want to read (and if I don't have, acquire):
-Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
-The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood
-The Stand by Stephen King
-The Road by Cormac McCarthy
-The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham (been meaning to read this for years)
-Feed by Mira Grant
-Earth Abides by George Stewart

And Amazon is sending me two new books - Lucy by Laurence Gonzales and Kraken by China Mieville (human-animal hybrids and squid, perennial favorites of mine).  And maybe, just maybe, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell.

As for now, I'm going back to reading Low Moon by Jason.  But only if I don't go dig out my Beryl Bainbridge novels.