What Would Ray Chandler Do?

Last year, over coffee, a good friend of mine asked if I’d be interested in joining a book club, which request sent hot frothy milk spurting from my nose. No thanks, says I, as politely as you can after showering a lady friend in second-hand latte, I’m afraid I have trouble finding the time to read the books I already need to read without adding another to the list on a monthly basis. I also mumbled something about being a bloke, and not wanting my testosterone throwing its weight around the room. What I didn’t say is that my wife is in a book club, and most of the titles she brings home seem to reek of the most irritating kind of smug, middle-class respectability, which probably says a lot more about me than about the books in question.
  Anyway, the Irish bookseller chain Eason recently published their ‘Best Books of the Noughties’ Top 50, which list was voted on by the public in a poll conducted by the on-line Eason Book Club, and it’s mildly dispiriting but not entirely surprising to find that THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO and WHEN WILL THERE BE GOOD NEWS? are the only crime titles therein, unless you want to stretch the boundaries and include NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN and THE WHITE TIGER. Given the week that’s in it, it’s disappointing that the list featured no Irish crime writers at all, and this for a decade in which Irish crime fiction exploded onto the bookshelves, in a poll of Irish readers conducted by an Irish bookseller. Depressing stuff, although I’m not necessarily blaming anyone, because the list seems to be made up of the kind of stuff people are directed towards today, including a lot of Booker Prize nominees / winners, and the usual kind of Book Club bait you find in such company. That said, there’s some cracking novels there too – a couple of Banvilles, David Mitchell’s CLOUD ATLAS, two Cormac McCarthys, Sebastian Barry’s A LONG, LONG WAY, the Dark Materials trilogy, a Margaret Atwood, a John McGahern …
  So what’s my beef? Well, I’m just wondering where the crime titles are. It’s either true that crime fiction is hugely popular or it’s not; and if it is, how come it never shows up on such lists? Is it the case that people tend to vote for the kind of thing they think they should be voting for, rather than what they like, and actually read? Were – just for random example – SHANTARAM, THE RELUCTANT FUNDAMENTALIST and I’M NOT SCARED really three of the fifty best novels of the last decade, or are they simply three of the novels people had shoved under their noses by a combination of booksellers, broadsheets and the arbiters of public taste? Or is the list simply skewed towards the conventional kind of Book Club book because it’s a Book Club list?
  Yet more questions: does my antipathy to Book Clubs stem from the fact that I write books that are highly unlikely to feature on Book Club lists, even if I could get them published? Am I, in fact, a scruffy urchin shivering in the snow with my nose pressed up against the drawing-room windows, craving the warm glow of smug middle-class respectability?
  I should say at this point, if you haven’t already guessed, that I’ve gone bi-polar about writing, mainly due to the pointlessness of the exercise. And it’s not just an up-and-down experience – it’s the kind of bi-polar in which you’re up and down at the same time, which makes for an interesting tone in the piece I’m working on at the moment. I have a guy who’s going through the Beckett thing of ‘I can’t go on, I’ll go on’, a kind of passive acceptance of his need for momentum, even as he concedes that his best efforts are a waste of time. He has his own reasons for not wanting to engage with the rest of the characters, and that’s fair enough, but I’m very much afraid that he’s as likely to just throw himself off the ferry he’s on right now as do something constructive, or destructive, or at least do something that’s interesting to potential readers. Maybe it’s the paralysing stasis that’s affecting Ireland right now, as it grinds to an economic halt with precious little direction from those responsible for such things, but there’s every chance the chap in the story will just down tools and call a sit-in protest on the top deck of the ferry, a kind of one-man campaign of civil disobedience against being forced to jump through hoops on behalf of an audience that simply doesn’t exist. What would Chandler do? He’d have a drink, and send a guy through a door with a gun already in his hand … but sometimes even that, or Chandler, isn’t enough to get the blood stirring.
  Incidentally, my wife’s Book Club is this month reading FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS, on the basis that one of the ladies decided it was high time for some proper reading. Good for her.

  Recently I have been reading: IF I NEVER SEE YOU AGAIN by Niamh O’Connor; THE RISING by Brian McGilloway; THE MARRIAGE OF CADMUS AND HARMONY by Robert Calasso; THE SNOWMAN by Jo Nesbø.

Nobody Move, This Is A Review: THE HURRICANE PARTY by Klas Östergren

Klas Östergren’s contribution to the Myths series is terrific in prospect. Set in a dystopian future society (is there another kind?), it concerns itself with Hanck Orn’s search for the truth of what happened to his dead son, Toby. ‘The Clan’ responsible for his son’s death are, in fact, the Norse deities, and Hanck’s quest takes him from the Norse equivalent of Olympic heights to the very depths of their Underworld.
  The Myths series has already featured the likes of Margaret Atwood, Philip Pullman, Ali Smith and David Grossman, with Atwood, for example, offering a feminist take on THE ODYSSEY with THE PENELOPIAD. Östergren’s offering is less clearly a modern take on an old story than others, perhaps because the writer is attempting to achieve more than simply retell the old tales, perhaps because your correspondent isn’t as familiar with the Norse myths as he is with the Greek. A courageous blend of sci-fi, crime fiction and mythology, of genre sensibility and literary style, the novel opens beguilingly …
  For the rest, clickety-click here …

The Pigeon Who Didn’t Want To Fly Home

Darragh McManus (right) waxes lyrical on the pigeonholing of writers below, and while Darragh might be an extreme example of the desire of a writer to write in different styles, genres and disciplines (Darragh’s the guy who kicked the ‘ass’ right back into Renaissance Man, basically), he makes a valid point or three.
  Two of the Grand Viz’s favourite novels were written by William Goldman, but it’s difficult to imagine two more different stories than those of MARATHON MAN and THE PRINCESS BRIDE (plus Goldman wrote Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid and The Right Stuff, and a veritable buncha other novels and movies and non-fiction books). Closer to home, we’re always mightily impressed with Gene Kerrigan’s work, regardless if he’s writing novels, non-fiction or his weekly journalism. Another example is John Connolly, whose standalone THE BOOK OF LOST THINGS is very different to his Charlie Parker novels, something of a minor masterpiece, and in the not-entirely-humble opinion of the Grand Viz, his finest work to date. Word around the not-entirely-metaphorical campfire is that Connolly’s book-after-next will not be a crime fiction novel, and we for one are already looking forward to it.
  So, yes, we’re perfectly open to the idea of a writer breaking fresh ground. By the same token, the Grand Viz can’t imagine wanting to read anything by Raymond Chandler outside of crime fiction; thinks Elmore Leonard is a genius in a low key, but has never read any of his Western stories, even though he loves Western movies; and cheerfully admits that he misspent a goodly portion of his youth re-reading THE CATCHER IN THE RYE but has little time for Salinger’s short stories, with the notable exception of ‘Teddy’.
  Anyway, the question is: are publishers short-changing readers by presuming they’re Pavlovian dimwits (how else to explain James Patterson?); or are they canny buggers really, who know us better than we think we know ourselves? Darragh, squire? Over to you …

My name is Darragh, and I’m a writer.
  Actually, I’ll be more specific – my name is Darragh and I want to write all sorts of things, but I’m not sure that this is possible. Let me explain.
  When I was growing up I read comic books, thrillers, crime novels, horror novels, lurid western paperbacks full of terrible Apache atrocities and even worse Apache stereotypes. I also read what might be termed ‘high literature’, albeit mainly suitable for children: ROBINSON CRUSOE, LAST OF THE MOHICANS, Sherlock Holmes stories. I seem to remember making a stab at JANE EYRE, aged around 12, which surely was a triumph of optimism over probability – if I couldn’t master this turgid leviathan in university, what hope had I at that age?
  Basically, I read any and all available printed matter, from timeless classics to the ingredients on cereal packets, and it all had an influence.
  Around my mid-teens the notion that I wanted to write for a living became formalised, became concrete in my mind. And what I wanted to write was … well, everything and anything.
  My favourite writers of all time, probably, are Don DeLillo and Margaret Atwood; therefore profound, elliptical, exquisitely crafted literature was definitely on my authorial ‘to-do’ list. My favourite books of all time are NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR and A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, and I’ve always enjoyed sci-fi; therefore a paradigm-shattering, futuristic dystopia had to be tackled at some point.
  I had a soft spot for the Gothic horror of Anne Rice, Mary Shelly, Stoker, Poe et al; therefore a grand Gothic of my own (probably set in Ireland, the genre’s and my spiritual home) was factored into the master-plan. I adored comic books (particularly the more mature, ambiguous stuff like Alan Moore and Frank Miller), loved the way they married the visual and the verbal, word and image; therefore an award-winning creation, with huge movie spin-off potential, was marked as essential.
  Aged 23 I read Sarah Dunn’s THE OFFICIAL SLACKER HANDBOOK, the funniest book ever hewn by god or woman, and a collection of Woody Allen’s satire; therefore I allotted some future effort to making ‘em laugh, laugh, laugh. And I also loved James Ellroy and Elmore Leonard and Christopher Brookmyre, among many other crime writers; therefore I would, in this totipotential career awaiting me, find time for a series of dark, edgy crime novels, possibly with a metaphysical twist. (The details, as I’m sure you all recognise, were still a little fuzzy.)
  Hell, I probably even told myself I’d knock out something way post-modern, so hip it hurt, based on those cereal packet ingredients. The Tao of Vitamin B12 (a novel in B12 parts) …
  That was the plan, book-wise. In the day-job – journalism – I also desired diversity, variety, all those colours of the rainbow. I wanted to write about sport, movies, philosophy, politics, celebrity nonsense. I wanted to write serious social commentary and the silliest satire imaginable. I wanted to do interviews and reviews, match reports and features, restaurant criticism and news analysis.
  I wanted it all, baby – it’s the capitalist in me, I guess.
  So what’s the problem, I hear you ask? The problem is this: publishing and media (and in a broader sense, society) don’t want the Renaissance man or woman, the versatile epicurean of letters who can dip their quill into just about area they choose. They want to pigeonhole writers.
  Example: I spent two years, early in a journalistic career of a decade, editing an Irish sports magazine. Editing it, I might add, as a part-time gig, during which I also wrote features and satire for other magazines and newspapers. Forever after, I am known to some folks as ‘the guy who’s into sport’. I swear to God, I still meet people who say to me, ‘Oh, you write about sport, don’t you?’ Well, yes, I mean, I did up to 2001 which isn’t that long ago, so yeah, I suppose you’re not too far off the mark.
  And how does this relate to books – more accurately, to the contents of this here blog? It appears to me that it is very difficult to forge a career as a crime writer AND serious novelist AND purveyor of cheap horror tricks AND smart satirist AND who knows what else. The business, the culture and the audience don’t seem to want writers to diversify. We are encouraged to find our niche, get good at it and stick to it.
  Otherwise, whoa, who knows what might happen? We don’t want to surprise the reader, after all. God forbid a writer should challenge expectations or give a little flip to preconceptions, right?
  This is why someone like John Banville writes crime fiction under an assumed name, even though everyone knows it’s him. Benjamin Black isn’t a proper pseudonym which hides the author’s identity, but it delineates the literary, ‘serious’ Banville from the (assumed) mass-market thrills of crime fiction. He has a reputation to protect, after all. The Banville brand must be preserved in dust and amber.
  It’s why Sebastian Faulks publishes an espionage thriller with the caveat, ‘writing as Ian Fleming’. Or Steven King writes sci-fi under the name Richard Bachman. Or Iain Banks does likewise but only after inserting a middle initial on the book cover. Or a thousand other examples.
  I wonder why this is so in publishing – the field of artistic endeavour, one would imagine, that is most open to genre-busting, to freshness and the unexpected. After all, directors are allowed make movies of different kinds. Bands are applauded when they veer off in new directions. Even TV actors – the ultimate hacks in the ultimate hack medium – often quit their soap or medical drama to play a radically different character.
But for us poor writers? Get used to staying stuck in the same place.
  My first book, GAA CONFIDENTIAL, was a humorous, ironic little romp about Irish sports and culture, and I was so afraid of being ghettoised as a sportswriter that I seriously considered publishing under a nom de plume. (Thank God nobody actually read the thing, so I escaped that trap …).
  I’ve also written what might be termed a ‘literary’ novel, a collection of short stories on one motif, a crime novel with a vigilante angle, a fairly avant-garde play about dreams and memory, a broad comedy film script, a slacker drama film script, a collection of satirical pieces on pop culture and media, and the beginnings of a spoof history of the universe and a satirical travel book. I have about fifty other ideas in my computer for novels, plays, TV shows, movies, comic books.
  What’s wrong with the above list? I’ll tell you – it’s all over the place. Too diffuse, too varied, too unfocused. I mean, does this fella want to be a novelist or a comedian or a screenwriter or the new John Connolly or the new John Banville? Or what? (Wow – looking at like that, it’s no wonder I’m still waiting on a publishing deal.)
Meanwhile I’ve been trying to get satirical stuff published in British and Irish papers for over a year now, with limited success. Let me stress, in all modesty, that it’s not because the material isn’t funny, or accessible, or entertaining, because it is all three. The people turning it down even tell me so. But it’s just ‘not right’ for them, or it’s all a bit left-field, or maybe I should concentrate more on what I’m already doing …
  So I set up a blog, basically to promote myself and my work. Hopefully the features editor of the Guardian or New York Times will be passing by, stop for a gander and be enraptured by that hilarious rewriting of Hamlet in the style of Eastenders. But I’m not too confident.
  People always say, ‘Have faith in yourself.’ I have faith in myself, as I’m sure do all of you. The problem is that I don’t necessarily have faith in society, and in the publishing and media industries. I don’t have faith that any of us will be allowed a writing career encompassing crime fiction, heavily researched non-fiction, historical romances, poetry, action-espionage thrillers, elegiac non-linear novels wherein nothing happens and happens really goddamn slowly, or whatever our heads and hearts tell us to put on paper. I don’t have faith that one can earn a reputation as a journalist who writes equally strongly on sober matters and satirical daftness.
  For me there is absolutely no dichotomy in any of this. I see no tension between the guy who writes a meditative novel about death and the guy who writes a film script which crosses The Naked Gun with Commando.
  But that’s just me. The industry, I fear, goes by an inversion of the old catchphrase: ‘Now for something exactly the same as the last time.’ – Darragh McManus

A veritable cornucopia of writing can be found at Darragh’s blog, Satire For Hire