Blind Man with a Pistol

For a non fiction anthology piece I''m preparing to write on Chester Himes, I've been reading/re-reading Himes.  In particular, I've been going through some of the Gravedigger Jones and Coffin Ed Johnson books.  I just finished Blind Man with a Pistol, the 8th and next to last one in the series (last is Plan B, which Himes left unfinished), and all I can say is....wow, remarkable.

I'll write more about this novel in my coming piece, but I just wanted to jot a few thoughts down now.  For one thing, what struck me is how the chaos that is in all the Harlem Detective novels Himes wrote completely takes over in Blind Man with a Pistol.  We get a blistering, almost absurdist novel where violence is rampant and none of the major crimes, including murders, get solved. There's nothing muddled or confused in Himes method, though. He knows exactly what he's doing, presenting a picture of a world out of control, with racial tensions and racial hatred at a boil (the book was published in 1969).  The final images are those of total communication breakdown and, quite literally, a blind man with a pistol firing his gun in the enclosed space of a crowded New York City subway.  This time even Coffin Ed and Gravedigger Jones understand nothing and can accomplish, in their perpetual peacekeeping efforts, almost nothing.  It's a remarkably relevant book still, and it's uncompromising.  It is also, in typical Himes fashion, very funny, but when you laugh reading these pages, you have a feeling of thorns getting caught in your throat.

THE DEEPENING SHADE

A few weeks ago, I read and reviewed Jake Hinkson's superb collection of pieces on film noir, THE BLIND ALLEY.  Now I've finished reading his first collection of short stories, called THE DEEPENING SHADE.  Like the non-fiction work, it's a book well worth seeking out, and you can read my review of it here: THE DEEPENING SHADE.

A Great Private Eye Film: THE LATE SHOW (1978)

Over at Criminal Element, I have a new piece up about one of the best private eye films of the 1970's.  It's a film that always seems to be just a little neglected.  I'm talking about Robert Benton's THE LATE SHOW, starring Art Carney and Lily Tomlin.  You can read the piece by clicking here: THE LATE SHOW

JAKE HINKSON'S THE BLIND ALLEY

Jake Hinkson's new book on film noir, THE BLIND ALLEY, is terrific.  It's a collection of essays on cinematic noir, and it's compulsive reading.  I wrote a review of it for the new great crime website The Life Sentence. Take a look here.

The Mongolian Conspiracy

And what about Mexican crime fiction?  I'm starting to read more crime novels set in Latin America, and one I read recently that stands out is The Mongolian Conspiracy, by Rafael Bernal. It's set in Mexico City, and even though it was written in 1969 and takes place during the height of the Cold War, its view of Mexican politics remains as relevant as ever.  It's also mordantly funny. A great read overall. 

I wrote a piece about it for Criminal Element, which is right here: The Mongolian Conspiracy.

Brothers on the Road

When a writer really knows his characters and their world, when he knows his people and their milieu inside and out, a novel can’t help but be a strong one.  Assuming the writer has talent and craft.  Mike Miner has both, and in Prodigal Sons he has put his skill, experience, and imagination to use to write a calm, nuanced book about a family in crisis.

           

The book centers around the Flanagans, from Connecticut.  There are three brothers, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and their parents.   Matthew, the oldest and the wild child of the family, has moved to Los Angeles.  Mark works in the family store.   Luke, the youngest, lives in Boston where he battles with mental illness.  In L.A., Matthew writes scripts, makes a lot of money working on commercials, and has a beautiful, loving wife and a large home.  Everything should be ideal for him. He has ostensibly made it.   Except that he drinks too much. Way way too much.  When his wife leaves him and his boss places him on leave from his job, Matthew responds by taking to the road and going on an epic bender, accompanied by a teenage girl he has met named Tomiko.  (Their relationship is sweetly conveyed and not a sexual one).  Where else do you go when you want to cut loose and immerse yourself in debauchery?  Las Vegas.  Matthew and Tomiko drive there from Los Angeles, while back in Connecticut, the Flanagan family meets to decide what to do about Matthew.  He’s gone missing from his LA house, and nobody knows where he is.  When Mark and Luke agree to go out west to find him, everything is set in motion, and you wonder what Mark and Luke will do if and when they get to their brother.  Will they give him a few brotherly punches in the mouth, tie him up and drag him to rehab, bring him back home?

Prodigal Sons is a fluid, fast-moving read about excess, the lure of darkness, family ties, and the difficulty of grappling with the question of stability.  Matthew is the unfettered one and has brought chaos upon himself.  Mark is the family straight arrow, but he sometimes wonders what life is like on the other side, where Matthew is.  Luke doesn’t need an intoxicant to get out of himself; with him, the chaos and the demons are within, always about to swallow him.  Miner gets deep inside the head of each brother and renders the cares and concerns of the Flanagan parents wonderfully.  This is a very real family, parents and siblings who love each other, irritate each other, grouse a lot, joke among themselves, carry resentments, have both happy and sad memories of one another – in a word, complex.  Matthew drinks too much, but there is no moralizing in this book (a great thing), and it’s clear that everyone in the family, when the need arises, likes to pop open a beer and chug one or two.  Miner has a sharp observant eye for the physical world as well; the book contains some lovely descriptions of snowy Connecticut and the flat dusty land abutting the roads in Nevada and Utah.  With the possible exception of a plot development at the very end, nothing in this book feels strained or forced.  It unfolds with ease. Again, I think it’s a testament to a writer working in full command of his material, and because of that command, I found Prodigal Sons an engaging read, start to finish.  

Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Did the great Gabriel Garcia Marquez ever write a mystery novel?  Sort off, though of course, being Marquez, he wrote a story that's rich and strange and that does some peculiar things with the mystery form.  It's his short but remarkable book Chronicle of a Death Foretold, and I wrote a piece about it, looking at it as crime fiction, for the Criminal Element website.

You can check the piece out here: Chronicle of a Death Foretold.