On The Floor

George Pelecanos stepped in and revived the genre of Crime Fiction by writing, in fact, Westerns set in D.C. He has always been an unabashed devotee of Westerns (check Amazon for his list of favorites, many of which get a mention in his books), and uses its narrative structure to explore the moral choices his characters are trying to stare down, or avoid making altogether. Often the question becomes, "Who here can afford to be the hero?"

This question lingers in The Night Gardener, the latest Pelecanos to hit the paperback shelves. Other questions surface as well: where does character come from, and how does it assert itself. But Pelecanos is also pushing his own genre into some uncharted waters.

"How do you solve a murder?" asks one of his protagonists at book's end. "Tell me. 'Cause I'd really like to know." There is an existential ambivalence about the larger forces at work in the lives of his characters' and their city. On the face of it, I'd say it looks as if Pelecanos' tenure inside the writers' stable for The Wire has stretched him as a writer. If this is a western, it is more akin to the work of Charles Portis.

I follow this guy's writing career because he's always catching me off-guard, even when he's scratching the narrative itch. And Pelecanos' abilities, prodigious to begin with, just keep growing.

Speaking of Westerns, while visiting the larger fam in Winnipeg this summer, I noticed my first Louis L'Amour sitting on my brother's book shelf. I pulled it and read it in one sitting. Lots of fun to be had: I believe L'Amour wrote on the fly, no notes or plotlines to get in the way of the flow of words. Consequently, when his hero gets cornered, it feels as if the poor dude is really cornered. L'Amour then resorts to the pulp-writer's bag of tricks and pulls one out at random -- a new character to the rescue, an escape route hitherto unseen by the hero (along with the reader), etc.

Actually, as I was reading the book I couldn't help thinking how similar its physics were to that of most First Person Shooter video games. In the first 30 pages, the hero loses his horse, his guns, his boots, his wagon and his wife. Against all odds he eludes capture and staggers back to the fort -- but not until he's searched through the charred ruins of his wagon and retrieved a secret stash of gold sovereigns. A few pages later, the hero guts a baddie with a few lead slugs to the belly, then walks out of the bar to check his horse, then walks back in again. The corpse has disappeared along with any conversational trace that there's been a very public homicide. Some readers might consider this a narrative glitch committed by a careless writer, but this happens so frequently that it becomes clear this is actually one of this genre's Laws of Physics: Dead Baddies Disappear.

Reading L'Amour again I was reminded that there are writers we turn to because we've grown to love their voice. And certainly that's the appeal to James Lee Burke's latest Dave Robicheaux novel, The Tin Roof Blowdown. I mean, sure, I read it for the story: I certainly wanted to see how Dave marshaled his demons to vanquish some larger, darker foe. But more to the point, I wanted to hear what Burke thought of the Katrina catastrophe.

I don't think I'm spoiling it for anyone if I say, Burke is really, really PISSED OFF! He can't get over the stink of death and filth that covers the streets of New Orleans. And he rages against the systemic corruption that practically pounces on the beleaguered survivors, exchanging money in a foul smelling daisy-chain that leads right to the Oval Office. Burke's biblically-tormented heroes would love it if such apocalyptic disasters purged the streets of corruption, but that simply doesn't happen. People who are already struggling with a bad lot in life are forced to go through much, much worse.

As for the story, I'll just say that, after a run of novels that followed an all-too predictable course, it's gratifying to watch Burke stretch his own format. The last two books have been pleasant surprises, varying significantly from the norm. Goes to show you what a pro is capable of when he keeps his nose to the grindstone -- or word processor. Highly recommended.

Hey, Nineteen! It's The Monks of Fall

The Nick Adams Society turns 19 this year. This is our final year at Lovesick Lake. The cottage has been sold, no doubt to someone intent on knocking it down and building something enormous in its stead. It remains to be seen just where the next NAS location is, or if we reconvene at all.

I'm bringing a bottle of 18-year-old Talisker, a single malt I'm partial to (regular readers will note that I tend to favor malts with a relatively clean finish -- though a bottle of Laphroaig is always a welcome sight).

Cheers. Here's to turning 19.

Sanctuaries

Some years back, when I still worked at the bookstore and was experiencing a patch of tough sledding, I used to eat my lunch then head around the corner to the downtown cathedral. They opened their doors to the public from noon to two. I'd steal in, tiptoe to a pew somewhere near the middle, then sit down and take deep breaths.

The first time I entered the sanctuary, I had the bizarre sensation my scalp was being stretched like Silly Putty toward the arches. It was a little nerve-wracking the first time, but I calmed down. With every successive visit that sensation became less and less pronounced. Two weeks later, the sanctuary was simply a place where I could breath with greater ease than I could elsewhere.

The cathedral was built in the Gothic Anglican tradition. I was all set to pontificate on the differences between this sanctuary and the evangelical protestant sanctuaries I was more accustomed to. Lots of material to explore in these home-town meeting houses, to be sure: the wall-to-wall carpeting; the nearly-universal color scheme that favors autumnal browns; the ever-present banners with a cross, a crown and a dove; the fetish for technology over functionality (video! digital video! video digital streaming!!) etc. etc. I've never had that "Silly Putty feeling" in a Mennonite or evangelical sanctuary, and I figured it was a physical response to the surrounding aesthetic. Except...

Except the only other time I experienced this sensation was two years later in California, when I first walked through the doors of .... an enormous Barnes & Noble. Yup: my first exposure to a stadium-sized bookstore.

Make of it what you will, 'cos I haven't figured it out yet.

Sanctuary

Fall is typically a gnarly time for me. I read The Revelation of St. John The Divine in the fall of my 12th year, and I don't think I ever really recovered from that. Confront a healthy, cared-for child with historical record, and he will imagine himself into the scenario and come up with ways to deal with it. Confront the same child with prophecy, and all bets are off.

When read existentially, the Revelation presents itself as a future history. The gods are very much alive, but they are not well; they are, in fact, rabid. Their Father is unrolling the final scroll of history, and He's going to deal with this scourge for once and for all, but it never really sounds as if His chief concern is with humanity. In fact, the significance of humanity is actually somewhat questionable.

This canvas has no space for a developing ego to assert/insert itself. Adolescents aren't prepared for that sort of “paradigm shift.” There is nothing to shift to: it's a paradigm eviscerator.

I couldn't snap out of my panic. I paced the house. I stayed awake, trying to hatch some sort of escape plan. I worried my parents. I generously shared my torments with my younger siblings. One night, my mother finally had enough of this. She ordered me out of the house and to the church basement, where my father was holding a Bible study.

I crept in and took a seat among the grown-ups. No-one seemed to think this was strange — they continued their conversation as if I were one of them. I can't recall the text being discussed, but it was generating questions from these men and women. I gradually got a picture of adults who were worried for family members: children, parents, distant relatives. Adults who didn't have complete control over their environment and who were anxious.

It was a strange night, but it calmed me down. I loved the fact that these adults — grown men in their suits and ties, women with an imperious sense of humor — were uncertain. I didn't feel so alien and utterly alone, which was proving to be my chief source of anxiety.

This was my first experience of sanctuary. It happened in a church, so that's one significant reason why I still go.

King Defends Rowling While Tilting At The Literary Novel

Talent is never static, it's always growing or dying, and the short form on Rowling is this: She was far better than R.L. Stine (an adequate but flavorless writer) when she started, but by the time she penned the final line of Deathly Hallows (''All was well.''), she had become one of the finer stylists in her native country — not as good as Ian McEwan or Ruth Rendell (at least not yet), but easily the peer of Beryl Bainbridge or Martin Amis.

The rest is here.

Tangentially related...

I'm a little surprised at the momentary flap the chattering classes are in re: Mother Theresa's letters. You'd think there was something new revealed in their contents. Hardly: first of all, their contents have been common knowledge among Catholics for some time (I first encountered them here). Secondly, the Dark Night of the Soul and the Absent God are in fact hallowed institutions within the Catholic scheme of things, and have been for centuries.

Preoccupation with this woman's tenacious service, despite the sudden and irreversible truncation of her ecstasies, strikes me as a uniquely Protestant American fixation. There is no shortage of African, South American and Asian Christians who know exactly why she did what she did, and was who she was. In fact, there are probably any number of people in North America who know, too: we're just not in the habit of listening to them.

Here's me in the corner, searching for my religion

I was asked if I would teach Sunday school. I explained to the minister that I didn't really believe in God, but I couldn't live as though I didn't believe in him. I found life intolerable without God, so I lived as though I believed in God. I asked him, "Is that enough for you?" -- Madeleine L'Engle in an interview, re-citing a moment from her Crosswicks Journals.

I'm too tentative a creature to articulate my own religious convictions, such as they are, with ML's clarity. My fall-back position in these matters is to wave my fiction and say, "Here's my statement of faith." But lately I've been having trouble moving ahead with my fiction -- I feel somewhat stranded between fictional outposts. Perhaps a few forays into the realm of memory and impression might yield a way forward in my fictive journeys.

First stop: the church.