“In The Desiccated Murk Of A John Banville Novel …”

Declan Hughes reviewed Benny Blanco’s THE LEMUR for the Irish Times yesterday, and I choked so hard on my cornflakes I needed a good Heimliching from a 300-pound gorilla. To wit:

“This is not Banville writing as Black, this is Black writing as Banville, and John Glass is that familiar figure: Banville Man. Banville Man, furrowed brow wreathed in smoke, forever caught between a swoon and a sneer; Banville Man, the rumpled aesthete whose exquisite nerves are ever besieged by the crass and the vulgar (“For God’s sake, Louise. The ‘chopper’!”); Banville Man, whose loathing of the hell that is other people is surpassed only by his loathing of himself.
  “And in the desiccated murk of a John Banville novel, where no one expects much by way of character or action, where a bogus back-story is the least you might imagine a man to have, that’s all par for the course.”

  I actually liked THE LEMUR, on the basis that I thought it was good fun to read Banville playing around with the genre conventions. But this is much more fun – we haven’t had a good old-fashioned writers’ spat in, oooh, never. And what gives this one a frisson is that Banville used to be the literary editor-type with the Irish Times.
  Ding-ding, gentlemen, seconds out …

“Deer Dairy …”

As some of you already know, the time has come to address the proof-edits / corrections on the sequel to THE BIG O (said tome pictured right, behind the buffoon singing I’ve Never Been To Me), which will be called CRIME ALWAYS PAYS. It’s a delicate business, in that by the time I come to make the final edits I’ve already read the entire story through about 10 times, and probably more. Plus there’s the whole issue of moral outrage to be overcome, which generally runs along the lines of, “The fuck’re you talking about, it was perfect when I gave it to you!”
  Yesterday was the first day of said edits, given that the occasionally cruel Mrs Viz has taken the Princess Lilyput away for a few days’ well-earned rest, and for reasons best known to my super-ego I’ve decided to keep a diary of how the editing process is going. To wit:

Day 1: Thursday, July 24
6am: Scheduled rise at 6am actually happens at 7.30am, the 90-minute difference being the time it took to roll the weight of reading through that bloody story again off my chest and kick-starting the respiratory process all over again.
7.30am: Sip coffee, smoke cigarettes. Answer some emails. Post review of THE LEMUR to the blog. More cigarettes and coffee. More emails.
9am: Head into town to attend a preview screening of the new X-Files movie. First hour is interesting, the last half-hour sucks.
12.30pm: Have coffee with script-writing brother, who also reviews movies. Chat idly about how hard it is to find the time to do any real writing these days.
2pm: Meet up with Neville Thompson. A good guy. Chat wanders around to how hard it is to find the time to do any real writing these days.
4pm: Do a bit of actual work, aka reviewing some movies for radio station.
4:15pm: Leave radio station and head for home.
5:30pm: Home. Absence of holidaying wife and child depressing. Coffee. Cigarettes. Emails. Write blog post on Colin Bateman being terrorised by albinos and the politically correct brigade.
6:30pm: Read a goodly chunk of John McFetridge’s GO ROUND. Get utterly depressed when comparing it to the toxic chaos of CRIME ALWAYS PAYS.
8pm: Watch BBC documentary on travel writer Eric Newby. Inane presenter insists on getting in the way of Hindu Kush scenery.
9pm: Head for the desk all fired up to start proofing edits.
9:05pm: Have a quick trawl through the various crime fiction blogs and websites. Coffee. Cigarettes.
10:55pm: Play a few games of Hearts.
11:15pm: Watch back-to-back episodes of Family Guy. Firmly resolve to start proofing edits the following morning at 6am.
11:50: Head for bed. Absence of wife and child depressing.

Day 2: Friday, July 25
6am: Actually rise on time. Get to desk. Coffee. Cigarettes. Emails.
6:20am: Write blog post on the Mystery Readers’ Journal ‘Irish Mysteries’ special issue.
7:45am: Have bright idea about keeping a proof-edits diary.
8:59am: Head for town for preview movie screening, trying to work out which is the more depressing – the absence of wife and child, how good a writer John McFetridge is, or the utter disinterest in revisiting CRIME ALWAYS PAYS.
3:01pm: Get back to the desk and conclude it’s a perfect storm of all three.
3:02pm: To be continued …

Nobody Move, This Is A Review: THE LEMUR by Benjamin Black

Benjamin Black’s first two novels, CHRISTINE FALLS and THE SILVER SWAN, were set for the most part in 1950s Dublin and featured a pathologist, Quirke, as a variation on a staple of the crime fiction protagonist, the reluctant private investigator. Languid and graceful in style, morbidly claustrophobic in atmosphere, the crime novels are written to a very high standard, as you might expect of John Banville, Benjamin Black’s more literary alter-ego, even if events tend to unfold at a pace that is unusually sedate for the genre.
  THE LEMUR is a different affair entirely, and not only because it is set in New York in the present day. First published in serial form in the New York Times magazine, it is notable, at 132 pages, for its brevity. Its protagonist, John Glass, is a once-famous journalist who has abandoned his principles to the extent that he has accepted a million-dollar commission from his father-in-law, ‘Big’ Bill Mullholland, to write the ex-CIA operative’s biography. Glass employs a researcher, whom he nicknames ‘The Lemur’, to dig into Mulholland’s past, an unwise move that results in blackmail, extortion and murder.
  It’s a conventional set-up, but the joy of THE LEMUR is watching John Banville wriggle around in what can often be a strait-jacketed genre. “The police station, if that was what to call it – headquarters? precinct house? – looked just as it would have in the movies,” he writes with an deceptively jaunty air of disregard for detail, before following up with the observation that “ … if viewed from above, all this apparently random toing and froing would resolve itself into a series of patterns … as in a Busby Berkeley musical,” and describing the police captain as having “the face of an El Greco martyr, with deep brown, suffering eyes and a nose like a finely honed stone ax-head.”
  The tale, while straightforward by the standards of the more complex contemporary crime narratives, benefits from the brevity imposed by its serialisation. It’s no more than a novella, but each relatively short chapter contains its fair share of twists and surprises, albeit stealthily delivered, the story emerging as sinuously as the smoke from Glass’s beloved cigarettes.
  There are caveats, of course. Crime fiction aficionados will very probably anticipate the final twist long before the big reveal at the end, and the constraints of time and space mean that events are too quickly forced to be entirely believable. The biggest issue you may have with THE LEMUR, however, is that it is just too short. Easily read in one sitting, it offers an all-too-brief glimpse into a world peopled with exquisitely detailed characters, particularly as Banville’s sense of mischief is palpable and infectious.
  Even if you are a die-hard fan of the genre, this offering is worth reading for the simple joy of reading John Banville in playful mood. And if you haven’t read crime fiction before, THE LEMUR might well be the perfect place to start. – Declan Burke

This review was first published by the Sunday Business Post

Always Judge A Book By Its Cover # 418: THE LEMUR by Benjamin Black

If you’ve got a jones for cover artwork, you could do a lot worse than drop on over to The Readerville Journal, where Karen Templer is currently drooling over the latest Benny Blanco opus, THE LEMUR. To wit:

“I believe the name Keith Hayes is new to Most Coveted Covers, but he joins the list with bravado. I speak, of course, of his cover for THE LEMUR, by Benjamin Black (aka John Banville). Yes it is another example of great use of a stock photo. And yes it does remind me, in a way, of NEVER DRANK THE KOOL-AID. But this is so beautifully bold and simple: just a square-jawed man in a white shirt against a black ground; a pure white puff of smoke; a little bit of light on his black hair …”

There’s more detail – much more than you might have thought possible, in fact – in the same vein right about here. Meanwhile, Mr & Mrs Kirkus have had a good squint at what lies between the covers of THE LEMUR, their verdict running thusly:

“If the book’s big secret doesn’t quite live up to its press notices, Black’s prose is so mesmerizing—crisp, precise, alive with telling details—that you’ll enjoy every step in the trail that leads there.”

Sarah Weinman likes it too …

Whither Quirke?

It’s not that the CAP elves aren’t somersaultingly, pant-wettingly delighted that Benny Blanco (or ‘John Banville writing as Benjamin Black’, as the cover sticker whispers) has a third crime novel on the way – THE LEMUR, currently being serialised in the New York Times, is due in hardback this side of the pond on October 3rd – but they are curious as to where quirky ol’ Quirke has disappeared to. The opening brace in Benny’s oeuvre featured loquacious pathologist Quirke perambulating around 1950s Dublin, with occasional jaunts to Boston for a change of scenery, if not pace, but THE LEMUR is set in contemporary New York, and its main protagonist is John Glass – a surreptitious nod, we’re hoping, to JD Salinger. Anyhoo, quoth the US blurb elves:

John Glass’s life in New York should be plenty comfortable. He’s given up his career as a journalist to write an authorized biography of his father-in-law, communications magnate and former CIA agent Big Bill Mulholland. He works in a big office in Mulholland Tower, rent-free, and goes home (most nights) to his wealthy and well-preserved wife, Wild Bill’s daughter. He misses his old life sometimes, but all in all things have turned out well. But when his shifty young researcher – a man he calls ‘The Lemur’ – turns up some unflattering information about the family, Glass’s whole easy existence is threatened. Then the young man is murdered, and it’s up to Glass to find out what The Lemur knew, and who killed him, before any secrets come out – and before any other bodies appear. Shifting from 1950s Dublin to contemporary New York, the masterful crime writer Benjamin Black returns in this standalone thriller – a story of family secrets so deep, and so dangerous, that anyone might kill to keep them hidden.

Hurrah! Meanwhile, quoth the UK blurb elves:

William ‘Big Bill’ Mulholland is an Irish-American electronics billionaire. An ex-CIA operative, he now heads up the Mulholland Trust, with the help of his daughter Louise. When he gets wind of a hostile biography planned for him by the investigative journalist Wilson Cleaver, he commissions his daughter’s husband, John Glass, to pen the official line. But Glass’ young researcher tries to blackmail him, and Glass is horrified, fearing that his own secrets, as well as the Mulhollands’, are at risk. He slings him off the project, only to hear from the NYPD that the man he has nicknamed ‘the Lemur’ has been found fatally shot ... Silence cannot be bought – even by one of New York’s wealthiest families. Riddled with explosive secrets, THE LEMUR is a brilliant contemporary thriller that sees Benjamin Black at the top of his game.

Hmmmm ... ‘slings’, ‘riddled’, ‘explosive’, ‘fatally’ … Subtle differences in the language, no? Are Benny’s publishers trying to protect his gentle US readers? Or are his UK publishers amping up the content to lure in the more hardboiled UK readers? And where the blummin’ hell is our favourite lugubrious pathologist? Has Big Bill Mulholland bumped off his illegitimate son Quirke? Is Glass – who is hardly as transparent as his name might suggest, if Benny’s Dickens-like play on monikers is anything to go by – the third cousin, twice-removed, of the mysteriously absent Quirke? And is there even a remote possibility that the elves really should get out a little more, or at the very least cease and desist obsessing about the tortuously convoluted lineages Benny famously knocks out of a morning just in time for elevenses? Only time, that notoriously dithering doity rat, will tell …

The Untouchable’s New Clothes

“Speaking of which – what the fuck is going on with all the award nominations for Benny Blanco? You can’t help feeling it’s just for who he is, and almost a thank you for his condescending to join the crime pack, rather than a reflection of the content of his books. John Connolly must be pissed – and rightly so.”

The author of the above conundrum will have to remain anonymous, unless he or she decides otherwise, on the basis that we’re using it without permission, albeit it as a fairly accurate summation of the off-the-record comments that have arrived at the Grand Vizier’s desk over the last few weeks. Benny Blanco, as all three regular visitors to CAP Towers will be aware, is the pseudonym we use for the pseudonymous Benjamin Black, the crime fiction avatar of John Banville, who may well have changed his name by deed poll to ‘Booker Prize-winning author John Banville’ if the number of times the phrase is used in relation to his Benjamin Black novels is any reliable guide.
  The vast majority of said reviews are very positive indeed, both for Black’s debut CHRISTINE FALLS and its sequel, THE SILVER SWAN (Black’s third novel, THE LEMUR, is currently being serialised in the New York Times). In fact, the Review Monitoring Elf can’t remember seeing a single negative review of either novel. Sample quotes arriving in today (Sunday) alone range from: “I am at this moment reading THE SILVER SWAN by Benjamin Black, and it’s so good, so shiveringly delicious, I want to lick each page in appreciation” (Agatha Christ-Almighty) to: “Pour yourself a quiet drink and settle into your best chair for an authentic dose of Irish angst and wit, wondrous writing and about as undiluted an evening’s pleasure as reading can provide … Last year, Banville / Black stunned many of his long-time fans with an utterly masterful mystery novel, CHRISTINE FALLS, which is up for both an Edgar Award and a Los Angeles Times book prize” (Tim Rutten, LA Times).
  The Grand Vizier would have it be known that he is not in agreement with the thrust of these sentiments. But firstly, a disclaimer: the pseudonymous Grand Vizier is the power-hungry avatar of crime fiction author Declan Burke, who has not won a Booker Prize, and is highly unlikely ever to do so, and that’s even though we live in an infinite universe where everything is at least theoretically possible. A further disclaimer: the Grand Vizier believes John Banville’s THE UNTOUCHABLE to be one of the best novels of the last two decades, and that Banville is a superb writer and one of the best prose stylists working in the English language today. A third disclaimer: the Grand Vizier has yet to read THE SILVER SWAN, and is therefore only qualified to speak about CHRISTINE FALLS.
  So: CHRISTINE FALLS. Here at CAP Towers, we have for the very great part implemented a philosophy of goodwill to fellow writers, partly because life’s nasty, brutish and short enough as it is without us pissing on anyone’s parade, but mainly because the Grand Vizier is of such an evil disposition that he can do with every bit of good karma going. And so, even though the Grand Vizier was happy to host Claire Coughlan's reviews of CHRISTINE FALLS and THE SILVER SWAN, he held off from writing a review of his own of CHRISTINE FALLS, on the basis that it would run something like this: “An affectionate and adequate pastiche, although poorly plotted; unnecessarily verbose, particularly as Banville has spoken of Georges Simenon as an inspiration; a casual approach to the defining characteristics of the genre that borders on disrespect for its traditions; inelegantly paced, particularly during the scarcely plausible last quarter.”
  Now, we know that that opinion runs contrary to most of the reviews CHRISTINE FALLS has received, and from reviewers that the Grand Vizier believes generally get it right. And, yes, due to the Grand Vizier’s lowly position on the publishing ladder (we’re holding it for our betters at the moment), there is a very good chance that the above comments will be read as sour grapes. So be it. Here we stand; we can do no more.
  Curiously enough, given the timing of this post, two other reviews of Benjamin Black’s novels arrived in today along with those quoted above. The first was posted by Erachet at Up The Beanstalk, the gist of which runneth thusly: “Perhaps not so surprising is that what makes the two Black novels, CHRISTINE FALLS and THE SILVER SWAN, so good — their atmospheric, descriptive writing — is precisely Mr. Banville’s great strength, while Benjamin Black, whose third novel is currently being serialized in The New York Times Magazine, is still learning some of the ropes when it comes to plot and suspense.” Then came Scott Eyman, Palm Beach Post Books Editor: “Line by line, Banville is a superb, evocative writer (“He was studying a dried puddle of blood, gleaming darkly like Chinese lacquer against the red-painted floorboards.”), and I think it would be fair to say that he wants to make sure you don’t forget it … Mostly, this virtuosity is welcome, because we are privy to the minds of the victims, usually relegated to mere names on a page. These, Banville insists, are real people. But there are other times when virtuosity is all that it is. Beneath the luscious writing and the evocative setting, the book’s bones are quite conventional.”
  A coincidence? Two petty cases of backlash against the hype? Could it be that the upper echelons of the crime writing fraternity have too soon rushed to embrace Benjamin Black in the hope that the genre might bask in the reflected glory of John Banville? Or is it possible that some people are simply acknowledging that John Banville’s THE UNTOUCHABLE doesn’t make Benjamin Black untouchable? You know where the comment box is, people … and there's a free, brand new copy of CHRISTINE FALLS to anyone who can change our minds about it.

First We Take Manhattan

Benny Blanco (right, in award-winning ‘John Banville’ persona) is quite the toast of our U.S. cousins this week, with Sarah Weinman breaking the news that CHRISTINE FALLS was short-listed in the Los Angeles Book Festival awards in the crime / mystery category and Vanity Fair giving that novel’s sequel, THE SILVER SWAN, the hup-ya in its ‘Hot Type: A monthly overview of great new books’ section. How do they know they’re great books if they’re still new? Because they’re Vanity Fair, people – do try to keep up. Meanwhile, THE SILVER SWAN received not one but - wait for it! - TWO nominations in the Irish Book Awards short-lists announced today (see below). Finally, the latest instalment of Benny’s THE LEMUR, currently being serialised in the New York Times, can be found just about here. Is Benny about to break America John Connolly-style? Only time, that notoriously prevaricating doity rat, will tell.

Corn On The Cobblers

Occasional CAP lurker Eimear gets in touch to bring us up to speed on the Joan Brady (not pictured, right) story, the poignant tale of the serious novelist who received an out-of-court settlement of £115,000 from a cobbler near her Totnes home on the basis that the fumes from the solvents used at the factory had caused her ‘physical distress and mental distraction’. Mark Lawson of The Guardian takes up the tale, to wit:

“One example given of her problems – and here we come to the reason that Brady should probably not walk down any dark alleys filled with crime writers – was that she had become so confused by the fumes that she was forced to abandon a serious novel, COOL WIND FROM THE FUTURE, and turn instead to mystery fiction, with BLEEDOUT …
  “And yet this is a strange time for the claim to be made, because the boundaries between the two sides of fiction – which we can loosely call literary and populist, although all of the terminology used in these debates tends to be pejorative – is visibly breaking down. The most recent books published by John Banville after winning the Man Booker prize are two detective novels. It can be argued that by publishing these under a pseudonym – Benjamin Black – he solidified the distinction between grim, prize-winning prose and serious paperback-selling stuff. But Doris Lessing, who wrote science fiction under her own name, has just taken the Nobel; and the Costa First Novel prize this year was won by a mystery story, Catherine O’Flynn’s WHAT WAS LOST (right), which isn’t bad for a fumehead …
  “The solution is that, as with non-crime fiction, we should make our generalisations only from the best. But the fumeheads will understandably be fuming about Brady’s remarks. Perhaps the only option is to establish a counter precedent in law, in which a best-selling crime writer argues in court that following a blow to the head or prescription of antidepressants, he was unable to pen anything except a poetically written Bildungsroman about the way that the PE teacher used to look at him. While any reader of her work will be pleased that Joan Brady has sorted out her problem with the cobbler, her attitude to crime fiction is, well, cobblers.”

Incidentally, BLEEDOUT sold in excess of 10,000 copies. Which may explain why Ms Brady is currently writing a follow-up. Well, it’s that or she’s still so bofto on the wowee fumes that she can’t distinguish between serious and genre fiction anymore. Tragic, we call it … Oh, and while we’re on the whole serious / genre thingagummy, here’s the link to the latest instalment of Benny Blanco’s THE LEMUR, currently being serialised in the New York Times.

Super Furry Animals

The fantastic folk at Fantasy Book Spot bring us the first sighting of Benny Blanco’s THE LEMUR, the follow-up to THE SILVER SWAN, which is currently being serialised in the New York Times on Sundays. The first paragraph, which suggests Blanco has updated the series a tad from 1950’s Ireland, runneth thusly:

“The researcher was a very tall, very thin young man with a head too small for his frame and an Adam’s apple the size of a golf ball. He wore rimless spectacles, the lenses of which were almost invisible, the shine of the glass giving an extra lustre to his large, round, slightly bulging black eyes. A spur of blond hair sprouted from his chin, and his brow, high and domed, was pitted with acne scars. His hands were slender and pearly pale, with long, tapering fingers — a girl’s hands, or at least the hands a girl should have. Even though he was sitting down, the crotch of his baggy jeans sagged halfway to his knees. His none-too-clean T-shirt bore the legend “Life Sucks and Then You Die.” He looked about 17 but must be, John Glass guessed, in his late 20s, at least. With that long neck and little head and those big, shiny eyes, he bore a strong resemblance to one of the more exotic rodents, though for the moment Glass could not think which one.”

We’re betting it’s Mickey Mouse. For the rest, jump over here …

Nobody Move, This Is A Review: THE SILVER SWAN by Benjamin Black

Incurably curious pathologist Quirke is back, in John Banville’s second novel written as Benjamin Black. It’s two years since the events of CHRISTINE FALLS, and Quirke has given up the drink. He and his daughter aren’t on good terms, his step-father’s suffered a severe stroke, and his step-brother’s lonely and mourning the death of his wife. A bleak picture in ’50s Dublin, then. Things threaten to become even more interesting when Billy Hunt, an old school-friend Quirke barely remembers, calls him and asks a favour: his wife has been found drowned, a suspected suicide, and could Quirke please see that an autopsy is not performed – Billy can’t bear the thought of his wife’s body under the pathologist’s scalpel. Quirke, being Quirke, agrees but does one anyway after he notices a suspicious mark on the dead woman’s skin. It seems he is right to be suspicious, but all that he finds only begs more questions, questions Quirke begins to worry away at, slowly picking his way through a puzzle of drugs, messy finances, and adultery, to reveal the answer. It’s possible that Banville is the best writer at work in the genre at the moment, in terms of artfulness at least. His prose is simply brilliant, gorgeous and evocative and poetic. The sentences he writes stun, the descriptions of the people and the city seem lovingly penned. However, there are moments when you get the sense he’s working on autopilot with these books. Every now and then, a clunker, which would never happen in a book written under the real name. I read somewhere that he writes them very quickly, and if you were to compare the writing here to the writing in, for example, THE SEA, I can certainly believe that. If his writing is this good when he’s not even really trying, if he were to spend the time on a crime novel that he spends on a normal piece of fiction, imagine the result! Quirke is a stunning character, too. Troubled, determined, dogged, melancholy, tee-total here, Banville furnishes him with dimension and makes him fascinating with absolute ease. The characterisation of Quirke alone is reason enough to read the series. As would be the atmosphere of the novel: vaguely sordid, repressed, a little desperate, dark, with everything seeming sinister. The only area where Banville is less than brilliant is the plotting. CHRISTINE FALLS was a little too predictable in this department, though with a brilliant end. The plot of THE SILVER SWAN is actually quite simple, but Banville moves it along at a perfect pace and this time ensures that there’s enough the reader doesn’t know to keep them interested in that department. There are no great shocks (there are, after all, only about three scenarios which could prove to be the truth), but it’s all developed excellently. There’s no punch at the end as there was with the last novel, but the whole thing is more satisfying over all. I can’t wait for the next, apparently called THE LEMUR, and to be serialised in The New York Times.- Fiona Walker

This review is republished by the kind permission of Euro Crime

You Don’t Have To Be Madagascarian To Work Here, But …*

News comes a-filtering down the liana-style grapevine that Benny Blanco’s third Quirke novel, THE LEMUR, is to be serialised in the New York Times, starting in January and running for 15 weeks. Quirke, the (oh yes!) quirky pathologist from CHRISTINE FALLS and THE SILVER SWAN, returns to investigate the strange case of a homicidal genius who lures his victims to Madagascar, into the jungle, and then gets them to stand under a tree just so – only for his KGB-trained lemur to strike, looping its stripy tail around their necks and strangling them while they gasp, with their final breath, “Lummee! And there was me thinking it was a blummin’ racoon!” Or maybe not. Anyhoo, if anyone hears a whisper of what THE LEMUR might actually be about, feel free to drop us a line. If you don’t, and we discover you knew all along, we’ll send our rabid wallaby around. Don’t say you haven’t been warned …

* We know. It’s ‘Malagasy’. But that’s even less funny.