The Triumph of the Thriller

Beyond a doubt, the best seller lists of today bear little resemblance to best seller lists of the '50s and '60s that were dominated by novels about movie stars, sex, money and the wanton lifestyles of those who had more money than sense. Those lists were dominated by writers like Harold Robbins, Irving Stone, Jacqueline Susann, Herman Wouk and James Michener. According to Anderson, it was the Kennedy assassination in 1963, the "end of innocence for a generation," that made possible a move by the thriller genre to near domination of today's best seller lists.

The Triumph of the Thriller is perfect for those readers not familiar with the thriller genre because Anderson provides its history beginning with what he considers to be the "first great crime thriller," Mario Puzo's The Godfather, right up to the best thriller fiction being written today. Along the way he gives credit to those who most influenced today's thriller writers, starting with Raymond Chandler, James M. Cain and Dashiell Hammett, moving on to Mickey Spillane, John D. MacDonald, Ed McBain, Ross MacDonald and Charles Williford, and finishing with today's class.

Anderson finds that the "triumph of the thriller reached a tipping point in 1981" when, for the first time, four thrillers were on the list of the top 15 sellers for the year. Along the way, there were some breakthrough books that made it all possible: Deliverance by James Dickey, First Blood by David Morrell, Six Days of the Condor by James Grady, Dog Soldiers by Robert Stone, The Manchurian Candidate by Richard Condon and The First Deadly Sin by Lawrence Sanders, among them.

My "To Be Read List" has grown by at least three dozen books as a result of chapters in which Anderson discusses the best writers and books in the several sub-genres included under the thriller umbrella. There are chapters titled: "Dangerous Women," "Lawyers at Large," "Spy Masters" and "Literary Thrillers," all of which, added books and writers to my list for future reading. But, I have to admit that it was even more fun to read what Anderson had to say about certain authors that I've learned to avoid over the last few years. He shows them no mercy.

As he says, "They deal in clichés, stereotypes, cheap thrills, and ridiculous plots. Some of them can't help it - that's how their minds work - but others deliberately dumb down their work because a lot of money is made that way." Chief among the culprits? Let's start with James Patterson whom Anderson calls "a writer to avoid at all costs" and whose book The Beach House "unfolds like an unspeakably dumb comic book" that "no one with even a minimal appreciation of good writing could possibly read for pleasure." Anderson believes that Patterson has set the standard for bad writing to such a degree that he even accuses David Baldacci with his Hour Game of having "entered the James Patterson Really Bad Thriller Sweepstakes."

Anderson goes on to skewer Patricia Cornwell (Trace), David Lindsey (The Face of the Assassin), Jeffrey Archer (The Eleventh Commandment), Nicholas Sparks (The Rescue) and Tom Clancy (for everything). With the exception of the fact that I enjoyed some of Lindsey's early work, I have no quarrel with Anderson's assessment of this group. But as Anderson says:

"So what are we to do about all this deplorable fiction? In the long term, our nation must spend fewer billions on foreign wars and more on literacy programs. In the short term, reviewers (heroic fellows, for the most part) must steer people away from this schlock and toward all those good writers out there.

We would also do well to look on the bright side. There is so much wonderful writing. To be a book lover in America today, able to enjoy the wealth of fine writing that we and the rest of the world produce, is to be blessed. Ultimately, the purveyors of crap are only a nuisance."

The bottom line is this. If you are already a lover of thriller fiction, this book will provide you with a quick and easy way to expand your world. If you know little about the genre, maybe even looking down your nose a bit at it and its authors, the book should make you aware of some of the great writing that you've been missing. Then the rest is up to you.

Rated at: 4.0

Michael Dibdin Dead at 60

I was surprised to learn today that British author Michael Dibdin died in Seattle on March 30 at the age of 60.

Inspector Aurelio Zen brought the author renown. After "Ratking," Dibdin wrote 10 novels featuring the world-weary detective, including his recently completed "End Games," which will be published posthumously.

Dibdin met third wife, Katherine Beck, herself a mystery writer, during a writers' conference in Spain in 1993. The couple later moved to Seattle, which provided the setting for his first American-based novel, "Dark Spectre" in 1995.

Dibdin, who died March 30, is survived by his third wife, two daughters and three stepchildren.

I became a Michael Dibdin fan a few years ago when I was working deep in the Sahara Desert under conditions that left limited options for after dark activities. It was either drink heavily and gamble at cards or read books. But the tricky bit was the requirement that we hand-carry enough of everything that we would need for a 30-day hitch with no "do-overs" if we forgot anything. Everything had to fit into two bags and, frankly, since we did have laundry service, I used most of my space for foods like peanut butter, jelly, tuna, and the like. The fact that we were never able to squeeze in 30 days worth of reading material, and the sheer weight of paper, resulted in some great reading discoveries as I traded books with co-workers from the U.K., South Africa, France, Ireland and Canada over a number of years.

All that to say that I discovered Dibdin in a trade with an English buddy who was a big fan of the Aurelio Zen series for which Dibdin is best known. Zen is an "elite member of Rome's Criminalpol" and the series centers around his police work all around Italy, many times resulting in Zen butting heads with the Italian mafia. I've read now about half of the Zen books and I have another one, And Then You Die, somewhere in the middle of my TBR stack. If you're a fan of crime/detective fiction, Dibdin is a writer you won't want to miss. He may not have sold in the huge numbers of some of the hacks who top the best seller lists every week but he wrote circles around that kind of writer.

This Book Collector Refuses to Search on the Internet

When it comes to filling in the blanks of her collection of Samuel Beckett books, Alexa Garvoille is most certainly one of those book purists who enjoy the hunt as much as they enjoy actually possessing those missing volumes. Her refusal to use the internet in her book search has been recognized by the judges of the Adrian Van Sinderen Book Collecting Prizes as an admirable trait.

In 1957, banker and bibliophile Adrian Van Sinderen established two prizes to encourage undergraduates to collect books, build up their personal libraries and read for both pleasure and education. Every year, about 30 seniors and sophomores whose own collections pertain to specific authors or interests; are based on specific features such as editions, illustrations and bindings; or represent the beginning of a well-rounded library compete to win $1,000 or $700, respectively, in the hopes the money will be used to add to their portfolios. The 2007 winners will be honored at a private dinner tonight.

...

This year, the Van Sinderen prize pool teemed with literary sleuths (all women) and the judges decided to split the senior prize between Garvoille, whose bilingual Beckett array focuses on prose, poetry and plays in French and English, and Temidayo Olopade, for her works of contemporary writing of the "Black Atlantic" literary movement.

I have to applaud Garvoille's patience and effort because, as an amateur book hound of many years experience, I have seen first hand how it has become more and more difficult every year to make those unexpected little discoveries on the dusty shelves of used book stores that reward those of us who are still addicted as much to the chase as we are to the discovery. Here's hoping that she uses the prize money to add a few more treasures to her bookshelves.

Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee

Charles J. Shields got off to a slow start in Mockingbird but readers who suffered through the rather mind-numbing first chapter were rewarded with an intriguing Nelle Harper Lee biography that got stronger and stronger as each chapter unfolded. Shields managed to give insights into Harper Lee, the woman, despite the fact that her public life and career have been limited to relatively few milestones, events that her admirers find interesting even today.

Nelle grew up in the small Alabama town of Monroeville where she was much like the tomboyish character Scout who was the central figure in her masterpiece To Kill a Mockingbird. After high school she went on to Huntingdon College and, under pressure from her father, later studied law at the University of Alabama but did not graduate. Nelle was determined to become a writer and left law school to move to New York so that she could concentrate on that.

The events that define the public Harper Lee all started to happen around 1960 and they make up the heart of the book:

• Publication and immediate success of To Kill a Mockingbird

• Her intimate involvement in the research for In Cold Blood with her oldest friend in the world, Truman Capote

• Filming of To Kill a Mockingbird, starring Gregory Peck

• Her disappearance from public view and lack of a second novel

Nelle Harper Lee was very fortunate to find, early on, a gifted and patient editor in the person of Tay Hohoff who worked with her through the numerous drafts required to transform Nelle's stories into the unified novel that they ultimately became. Within just a few weeks of publication, To Kill a Mockingbird was on the top ten lists of both the New York Times and the Chicago Tribune and had become a Reader's Digest Condensed Book (considered quite an honor in those days).

While all this was happening, Nelle was helping her childhood friend and neighbor, Truman Capote, do the Kansas research required for the creation of his own masterpiece, In Cold Blood. In fact, it is unlikely that Capote would have been able to write such a groundbreaking work if Nelle Lee had not made herself available to serve as his "assistant" in Garden City, Kansas. Truman Capote did not have the kind of personality or presence that went over well in rural Kansas and without Nelle there to open doors for him with her graceful southern personality and temperament he would have been unable to gather the inside information that makes In Cold Blood so special. Sadly enough, all of the help that Nelle gave Capote did not exempt her in later years from being treated with the same contempt and lack of respect with which he treated all of his supposed friends.

The chapter on the filming of To Kill a Mockingbird provides interesting insights into the personality of Gregory Peck and how he came to truly love Nelle Lee, remaining a friend of hers for the rest of his life, and is filled with stories and bits of gossip regarding most of the key members of the cast. Monroeville, Alabama, of the 1960s looked little like the Monroeville of the 1930s but such great care was taken to recreate the older version of Monroeville (even to taking exact measurements in the old court room) that many casual viewers of the movie assume that it was shot on location there.

The last chapters offered up by Shields attempt to explain the great mystery of why Nelle never wrote even a second book. In Shields' estimation, the lack of succeeding books was caused by circumstances as much as anything else. To Kill a Mockingbird became such a money-making machine that Nelle lost several years in nurturing it as she traveled the country making personal appearances, working on the movie and winning prizes for the book, including the Pulitzer. As she once said, before she knew it, she had lost a decade. More importantly, she seemed to feel the pressure of trying to measure up to the quality of her first novel to such an extent that she lost confidence in her ability to ever do so. She was a slow writer, by nature, and that in combination with the pressure to top one of the most popular books in the history of world literature may have been too much for her. After losing her agents and editor to death or retirement, she finally resigned herself to the fact that it was not going to happen and decided to return to the simple life she most preferred anyway.

Considering the fact that Nelle Harper Lee refused to participate in the writing of Mockingbird (as she has refused all interviews for the last several decades), Charles Shields has done a remarkable job of providing some perspective to a writer who has done her best to avoid publicity for most of her life.

Rated at: 4.0

"A bookcase can be a real bastard."

Are you being bullied by your books? Do you allow them to push you around until they get their way? Do those stacks of unread books that glare at you from all over the house make you feel inadequate? If so, you're not alone. Guy Dammann, Guardian Unlimited columnist, knows just how you feel.

...the same old notion that unfinished and unread books are objects of shame. Books, in this way, are somehow allowed to bully us, using nothing but our own reflected guilt to do so. They sit on our shelves, or in piles on our desks and bedside tables, gathering dust and issuing gentle reproaches with every glance, a literary equivalent of water torture. In full chorus, with a few heavyweight volumes thrown among the chirruping paperbacks, a bookcase can be a real bastard. But, then, as with most bullies, a simple turning of the worm can render them powerless.

For starters, reading a book because you feel you should usually saps all richness from the encounter. Simply closing a book after a couple of chapters, perhaps with half a mind to come back to it, is often all it takes show them who's boss and to allow future encounters to unfold on more equal terms.

I agree with the subtitle that Dammann has attached to his column: "If you don't make it from cover to cover, it may be the book's fault, not yours." Over the years I've come to realize that a lot of poorly written books are hyped all the way to the various best seller lists and that I'm not required to waste my time on them. I used to follow the "50-page rule," the one that says that if I'm not enjoying a book after completing the first 50 pages, it's time to put it away and move on to another book. But, as the years pass, and as I've come to realize that I'm not going to be here forever to read all the books on my long TBR list, I've cut that back to my own "40-page" rule. That's something close to an hour's worth of reading, depending on the book, and that's all I'm willing to invest in something that doesn't work for me. Maybe I should call it the "Put up or shut up rule."

Jane Smiley into the Wild

Based on a conversation that I had with John Mutford (The Book Mine Set) over at the LitMinds site, I'm going to start a book off on what I hope will be a long journey, and a traceable one, from reader to reader. It is much like the Bookcrossing concept, of course, but the book I'm releasing will include more specific instructions and requests in an attempt to track the book as long as possible, hoping that it doesn't disappear forever right of the bat, of course.

John came up with this for the inside of the book's cover (slightly modified by me):

Congratulations! This book is yours to keep...for now. As part of an experiment to see how far and for how long this book travels, please follow these instructions:

1. Read it (and hopefully enjoy it).

2. Visit http://bookchase.blogspot.com/2007/04/jane-smiley-into-wild.html to tell me where you found it.

3. Sorry, now it's time to give it up. Choose an interesting locale to leave the book and then say goodbye (or hand it off to a friend who loves to read). Email me at samhouston23@gmail.com and tell me how you passed it forward. Thanks for helping!

So tomorrow I'm going to "release" a copy of what I consider to be Jane Smiley's best book, A Thousand Acres. It's a sturdy, but flexible, deluxe paperback copy of the book that I think should survive for a while, probably even longer than a hardback copy would last. So let the chase begin.

Edit: April 3 -

I left the book on a bench outside the automatic doors to my library branch this afternoon. I went inside to pick up a couple of books that were being held for me and when I left 10 minutes later the book was still there. Let's see what happens.