A GONZO NOIR: Reed All About It, Etc.

I’ve mentioned the Holden Caulfield impulse before on these pages, the Holden Caulfield impulse being the one where Holden says that sometimes when you finish a book you’d like to be able to call up the author and tell him what a great book it was. Thanks to the interweb, I’ve been able to act on that impulse a couple of times over the last few years. One of those times was shortly after I read Reed Farrel Coleman’s (right) THE JAMES DEANS, which I read in one sitting out on a balcony on a rainy day in Croatia while my beloved went shopping: just me, coffee, cigarettes and Moe Prager. A damn fine day it was too, rain or no rain. Anyway, I dropped Reed Farrel Coleman a line to tell him how brilliant I thought the book was, and one thing led to another, and he ended up writing me a very generous blurb for THE BIG O. Which was nice.
  What was nicer was, at last year’s Bouchercon in Baltimore, I was at the bar with John McFetridge when I spotted Reed Coleman. “Hold on,” says I, “there’s Reed Coleman. I need to buy that man a drink.” Except Reed Farrel Coleman went, “No, man – I’m buying you a drink.”
  As Holden Caulfield might say, albeit without the sarcasm, the man’s a goddamn prince.
  All of which is a long-winded preamble to saying that Reed Farrel Coleman has been kind enough to blurb A GONZO NOIR. To wit:

“Stop waiting for Godot – he’s here. Declan Burke takes the existential dilemma of characters writing themselves and turns it on its ear and then some. He gives it body and soul … an Irish soul. If you want to think while you’re being entertained, read this book.” – Reed Farrel Coleman, two-time Shamus Award-winning author of EMPTY EVER AFTER

  Like I say, the man’s a gent …
  In one of those lovely twists of fate the universe offers up once in a while, the aforementioned John ‘Fetch’ McFetridge (right) chipped in with his two cents early the following morning. As with Adrian McKinty, the man’s a mate, a good bloke and a terrific writer, and not necessarily in that order. Anyway, quoth John:

“In this era of formulaic, pre-fab, test-marketed, focus-grouped, pre-packaged, no-risk sequels, remakes and the same-old same-old all over again, A GONZO NOIR is shockingly original and completely entertaining. Post-modern crime fiction at its very best.” – John McFetridge, author of EVERYBODY KNOWS THIS IS NOWHERE

  Two things I’m liking about the reactions to A GONZO NOIR. Well, three, given that I’m chuffed people seem to like it, obviously. But one thing I do like is how quickly the reactions are coming back, given that the manuscripts only went out about 10 days ago; and another thing is that the people who’ve been so generous already, namely Ken Bruen and Adrian McKinty, and now Reed Farrel Coleman and John McFetridge, are writers who don’t stand to benefit anything by doing so. I’ve raised the spectre of log-rolling already, but I’m only flattering myself when I do that – these guys have nothing to gain by lending me a hand, because a bottom-feeder like me is no position to return the log-roll favour. I can write about them on Crime Always Pays, of course, but that amounts to about three molecules of publicity oxygen …
  Anyway, you can analyse these things too closely. The bottom line is that terrific writers seem to like the book, and that they’re prepared to say so. All hopes of publication and / or earning nappy vouchers aside, that kind of reaction is priceless …

Reed Farrel Coleman: Rebel Without A Pause

David Thompson of the Busted Flush Press gets in touch to give us a sneak preview of their forthcoming reprint of THE JAMES DEANS, the cover art of which is only sumptuous (it also features a foreword from Michael Connelly). It follows on from their reprint of WALKING THE PERFECT SQUARE, about which George Pelecanos had this to say:

“Reed Farrel Coleman is one of the more original voices to emerge from the crime fiction field in the last ten years. For the uninitiated, WALKING THE PERFECT SQUARE is the place to start.” – George Pelecanos

  Which is very nice indeed. I read THE JAMES DEANS last year, in Croatia, on a day of lowering skies and fine mist that made it pointless to go sight-seeing, and yet was perfect for sitting out on a veranda on a swing-seat with coffee, cigarettes and strong reading to hand. I read it in the proverbial one sitting, and put it down a little dazed. I meant to write it up for the blog when I got back from Croatia, but on the couple of tries I made, it seemed beyond me.
  It’s a Moe Prager novel, a private eye story set in 1983. Prager is an ex-NYPD cop turned private eye, albeit of the reluctant variety. The plot, which begins with the murder of a young political intern, has plenty of twists and turns, and the style is pleasingly aware of, without being deferential to, its sense of history and its place in the lineage of Hammett, Chandler, Macdonald et al.
  All of which would have made THE JAMES DEANS eminently readable. What made it compulsive, however, was the voice of Moe Prager. This was Coleman’s third novel, I think, and yet he had slipped inside the skin of his character in a way that is very difficult to achieve and impossible to fake. It’s not that Moe is gratifyingly human, although he is, because there are no superhuman feats of endurance and / or soaking up of punishment. It’s not that he is the vulnerable Everyman, doing his best in shitty circumstances, because he is, and there’s very little by way of artificial Eureka! moments and savant-like puzzle-solving. For me, what made Moe Prager such a compelling character was his realism. It’s a difficult thing to describe, and perhaps I was identifying too much with the character, but Coleman has the ability to synchronise Prager’s heartbeat with your own, so that you pulse and twitch and shudder as he does.
  Yes, THE JAMES DEANS is a crime fiction novel, and a superb example of same, and a terrific private eye tale that was nominated for the Edgar and Gumshoe awards. But Moe Prager could just as easily have been an accountant, or an Alaskan park ranger, or a road-sweeper, and his story would have been a fascinating one. At the end of the day, novels are about people and the consequences of how they live their lives. Some writers can make you feel that they have inhabited their characters to a degree associated with demonic possession, but Reed Farrel Coleman’s gift is to graft that sensation onto the reader, so that he or she feels they’re wearing the character like skin.
  In the interests of openness, transparency and accountability, I should mention that Reed Farrel Coleman was gracious enough to read and blurb THE BIG O, and in very generous terms too, simply on the basis that we had a mutual friend in Ken Bruen. At the time I thought it was a lovely gesture, and indicative of how hospitable the crime fiction community is; but what made his blurb so powerful to yours truly was that, after reading THE JAMES DEANS, I already knew he was so far ahead of the posse that there was no favour he could require of me in return.
  A nice guy, then, and a terrific writer, one of the finest of his generation. If you haven’t read THE JAMES DEANS yet, do yourself a favour and do so. It’s how books are supposed to be.

The Embiggened O # 491: Holy Moly, It’s Reed Farrel Coleman!

Being the latest adventure in our continuing odyssey adrift on the perilous seas of independent publishing … You may or may not recall that we’ve been persecuting various writers to give THE BIG O a bit of a hup-ya, the better to improve our paltry chances of getting our humble offering published in the USA. Anyhoo, we dropped Reed Farrel Coleman a line, slavered a little, doffed the cap we’d bought specially for the occasion, and then asked if he’d mind reading our grubby little tome. And lo! He did! What’s more, he actually blurbed the hell out of it, to wit:

“No such thing as coincidence? Don’t tell that to the glorious band of cast-offs and misfits that populate the pages of Declan Burke’s uncanny THE BIG O. With a deft touch, Burke pulls together a cross-genre plot that’s part hard-boiled caper, part thriller, part classic noir, and flat out fun. From first page to last, THE BIG O grabs hold and won’t let go.” – Reed Farrel Coleman: Shamus, Barry, and Anthony Award-winning Author of THE JAMES DEANS

All of which is lovelier than Nicole Kidman guesting on trumpet break in a Forever Changes-era Love cover band. But the best thing(s)? Reed Farrel Coleman owes us nothing, needs us for nothing, and can gain absolutely nothing by doing us a favour. Better still, THE JAMES DEANS is one hell of a read, and Moe Prager – for those in the know – is the realest of private eye deals. So are we happy? To paraphrase Leonard ‘Laughing Lenny’ Cohen, we haven’t been this happy since the end of World War II ...

“Ya Wanna Do It Here Or Down The Station, Punk?” # 198: Reed Farrel Coleman

Yep, it’s rubber-hose time, folks: a rapid-fire Q&A for those shifty-looking usual suspects ...
What crime novel would you most like to have written?
Wiseass answer: I’ve already written it, The James Deans. Won the Shamus, Barry, and Anthony Awards and was nominated for the Edgar, Macavity and Gumshoe. Wise answer: For a long time I would have said The Long Goodbye or Red Harvest, but lately I’ve come under the spell of Daniel Woodrell and think Winter’s Bone might be the choice.
What do you read for guilty pleasures?
Pop song lyrics. For years, I’ve been trying to figure out the irony of Cher’s Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves. If you read the lyrics carefully, you’ll note that the female narrator (singer) is complaining that she and her family are thought of as nothing but scum by the local townspeople, that they are perceived as nothing but crooked gamblers, alcoholics, prostitutes and con men. Then she proceeds to describe her family as nothing but crooked gamblers, alcoholics, prostitutes and con men. I’m like …Yeah!
Most satisfying moment as a writer?
I was sixteen and saw my name in print in the high school literary magazine. It was for a poem called Monopoly about unrequited love. What else would a sixteen year old boy write about, for fuck’s sake? That’s when I knew I had the bug.
The best Irish crime novel is…?
Ulysses. Sorry, I couldn’t help myself. I’m partial to Ken Bruen here, so I’d go with either The Killing of the Tinkers or Rilke On Black.
What Irish crime novel would make a great movie?
Either of the above.
Worst/best thing about being a writer?
The worst is dealing with the small indignities to which writers are exposed to at every turn. The stuff that when added up makes you wonder why on earth you put up with it. The best is when you write that perfect sentence, phrase or paragraph. When you read it and know no one else alive who ever lived could have written that same phrase the same way or done it more effectively.
Why does John Banville use a pseudonym for writing crime?
Usually I feign ignorance. Here I claim it.
The three best words to describe your own writing are…?
Out of print. Sorry. Philosophical, hard-boiled, emotional.

Reed Farrel Coleman’s Soul Patch is the sequel to his multi-award winning The James Deans