Crime Poetry: It’s The New Black

We’re not worthy, etc. The venerable Critical Mick gets in touch to give us a heads up on a rather intriguing event planned by the Shoestring Collective, the gist of his communiqué running thusly:

“Just thought I’d help a buddy out and forward on word about this funky forthcoming event. Colm Keegan [right] is not only a poet, he also pulls off the grittiest accounts of Dublin scumbaggery that I have read. Nice little crime pieces about punching gardaí in nightclubs, drinking by the canal, racing rings around the M50 on cocaine ...”

Said Colm Keegan, who has twice been short-listed for the prestigious Sunday Tribune / Hennessy Short Story Award, being just one element of the Shoestring Collective, which features jazz, comedy, film and traditional Irish music. Oh, did we mention Ireland’s first and possibly only ever crime poet, Said Colm Keegan? To wit:

One Kick

One kick, one tiny flick
Of his two year old foot
And I was hooked
No matter what
His mother did
My chubby, soccer-mad little kid
Would feel my care
Forever
But I never,
Saw a day like this
When his broken mother’s courtroom kiss
Would be all he’d have
For the next ten years
No sun-filled summers,
No glittering careers
Just tears
And regret
For the man he bet,
And the way
one flick
One drunk and deadly
too strong kick
Can crush a skull

The Shoestring Collective goes down on Saturday, January 19th at the James Joyce Centre, 35 North Great George’s Street, Dublin 1. Tickets available on the night at the James Joyce Centre. Doors open at 7.50pm. Price €10. Strictly no admission after 8.25pm. Show ends 11pm. For further information contact: Stephen Kennedy 087 4196365 or Sandra Adams 085 111 3740.

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 …

“Ya Wanna Do It Here Or Down The Station, Punk?” # 1,072: Ruth Dudley Edwards

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?
Reginald Hill’s ON BEULAH HEIGHT.
Who do you read for guilty pleasures?
I don’t have guilt about anything I read, though I’ve plenty about what I haven’t read. Since crime is not my day job, much though I love it, I haven’t time to read much of it.
Most satisfying writing moment?
Realising that although I thought I wanted to write straight novels, and wondered why the jokes kept coming, what I really was cut out for was satire.
The best Irish crime novel is …?
I haven’t read many (see above) but I’m very impressed by Benjamin Black.
What Irish crime novel would make a great movie?
Black’s CHRISTINE FALLS.
Worst / best thing about being a writer?
The worst is that is for most of us, it doesn’t pay. The best is the crime-writing world, which is full of exceptionally agreeable people.
The pitch for your next novel is …?
A satire about contemporary art – provisionally called KILLING THE EMPERORS - in which I will slay gallery owners and critics as well as the creators of talentless, pretentious rubbish.
Who are you reading right now?
In crime, when I get a chance, Mike Ripley, who is a hilarious writer about the London low-life scene.
The three best words to describe your own writing are …?
It’s a phrase: ‘subverting political correctness’.

Ruth Dudley Edwards’ MURDERING AMERICANS is available now

The Monday Review

It’s Monday, they’re reviews, to wit: “If you don’t know either Bruen or Starr’s writing, they’re both masters of thinking up the most degenerate shit to put people through and then getting it on the page … These guys are among the reigning kings of the darkest of dark noir. And it’s not just because they’re so twisted … they really do tell a damn fine story,” says Rob at 52 Novels of SLIDE. Over at Book Reporter, Joe Hartlaub is equally impressed with BUST: “This is a dark, gritty and inappropriately hilarious cautionary tale – exquisitely conceived and flawlessly written – about getting what you think you want and regretting it, and the endless consequences of evil deeds.” Nice … Mack Lundy at Mack Pitches Up likes Ingrid Black’s THE JUDAS HEART: “I really enjoyed this book and rate it one of my top reads of 2007,” and so does Max at Revish: “THE JUDAS HEART is one of the best crime thrillers I read in 2007 … This is a good, fast-paced story that pulled me in from the beginning and kept me interested throughout … a cracking good read.” Strangely Connected dives into Adrian McKinty’s back catalogue to consider HIDDEN RIVER: “As in his first book, McKinty’s prose is sharp, well-paced, and compelling. But I think I like DEAD I MAY WELL BE better because it was bleaker, more noir, and its Michael Forsyth was somehow more real than Alex Norton.” They won’t stop coming for Benny Blanco: “Further novels in this series are planned – they are superbly written, with very strong characterisation and a fantastic picture of Dublin and Ireland before the Celtic Tiger was even a cub,” says Trapnel at Books to Furnish a Room of CHRISTINE FALLS and THE SILVER SWAN. Harriet Klausner at Genre Go-Round Reviews agrees: “This sequel to the superb CHRISTINE FALLS is an excellent investigative thriller that grips the audience … THE SILVER SWAN is a great Irish whodunit,” while John Dugdale at the Sunday Times (no link) chips in with, “Although it recalls the 1930s London of Graham Greene or Patrick Hamilton, Black’s 1950s Dublin is more poisonously village-like, intensifying the sense of everyone watching everyone else.” Which, presumably, is a good thing … Dugdale also liked Ronan Bennett’s ZUGZWANG: “It’s an enjoyable brainy caper … with Buchanesque derring-do, Pynchonesque blending of politics and cultural trends, and sex scenes a la The White Room – there’s a feeling of the whole exercise being a literary version of role play.” Over at the Mail on Sunday, Eithne Farry got her hands on an early copy of Ronan O’Brien’s CONFESSIONS OF A FALLEN ANGEL: “Author Ronan O’Brien has a fine sense of drama, marrying the minutiae of everyday life to the extraordinary, with spirited aplomb.” Finally, Derek Landy’s SKULDUGGERY PLEASANT showed up in Terri Schlichenmeyer’s Best Books of 2007 for the Argus Observer: “Great for adults as well as kids, this gentle mystery with a magic skeleton detective was fun and it made me laugh. What more could a kid — of any size — want?” Quippe at Live Journal agrees: “The latest children’s / YA book to inherit the title ‘The Next Harry Potter’, this comes a lot closer than most. Landy’s experience as a scriptwriter really shines through in the dialogue of this novel, which snaps and crackles with wit and whilst there’s a curiously old-fashioned feel to the narrative, it’s very easy to buy into and reflects the world he’s created.” Snaps, crackles and damn near pops off the page, ma’am …

If It Ain’t Fixed, Don’t Broke It

Where’d you get a gun like this? he said.
At the gittin place.
  Cormac McCarthy, ALL THE PRETTY HORSES (1992)

Where’d you get that pistol? she called.
At the gettin place.
  Cormac McCarthy, NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN (2005)

And Now A Quick Huzzah For The Short-Term Benefits To Society Of Violent Crime

There’s an interesting piece by the ever-lovely Nadine O’Regan (right) in the Sunday Business Post about the correlation between of on-screen violence and real-life violent crime – or, we should say, the apparent absence of any correlation. Quoth Nadine:

“[I]t came as an absolute delight this week to read the results of a new American study, which suggests that films like the bloody but brilliant No Country for Old Men and Eastern Promises might be – far from what the doomsday psychologists have prophesied – exactly what people need to keep them away from dangerous behaviour of an evening. According to the figures in the survey, in the last decade, screenings of violent films in the US have decreased assaults by an average of about 1,000 a weekend. ”In the short run, if you take away violent movies, you’re going to increase violent crime,” Gordon Dahl, the study’s co-author, an economist at the University of California, San Diego, has said. Dahl and his co-author, Stefano Della Vigna, an economist at the University of California, Berkeley, are not claiming that violent films are never a problem – they make clear their studies do not address the long-term effects of exposure to violent images.”

For the full paper, jump on over here …

The Popcorn Interlude: NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN

Cormac McCarthy, a quality crime yarn and the Coen Brothers: NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN should have been a perfect storm. It’s a marvellous movie, there’s no doubt about that, and that it’s not entirely wonderful is due in part to the curse of high expectations, and at least two, and possibly three, rather convoluted leaps of logic the filmmakers ask the audience to make – one is plenty, two is pushing it and three is just sloppy, which is not an adjective often used in the same paragraph as ‘the Coen Brothers’. In saying that, it will certainly reward a second viewing and it will deservedly be in most critics’ Top Ten come the end of the year. But here’s another way of getting at what we were trying to say here: the fact that NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN is a crime story will in no way influence the way its critics and its audience view the film. It will be judged on its production values, its direction and acting, how plausible and engaging its story is, how well it achieves its implicit ambition. If its narrative genre is mentioned at all it will be in a positive context, given the Coens’ superb understanding and execution of what makes crime a global obsession; the Coen Brothers are among the best in the business because they work in the crime genre, not despite it. The same could be said for Raymond Chandler, Elmore Leonard, James Ellroy, W.R. Burnett. It helps, of course, that the Coens work in what is still a relatively new form, one that doesn’t concern itself with high or low art but good or bad movies. To paraphrase Raymond Chandler: “There’s only two kinds of writing, good and bad.” The Coens understand that there’s only two kinds of stories, essential or not. It’s still too early to decide if NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN is essential in the way FARGO and THE BIG LEBOWSKI are, but for the moment it is almost a perfect storm.- Declan Burke