Jess Walter: Land of the Blind

I don't know if it's actually considered a genre, but in my mind there seems to be a particular kind of American novel dealing with growing up in the 60s/70s. Something about the way the author is both nostalgic for that time of comparative innocence, yet often writes very bluntly about childhood cruelties and emerging sexuality.

The frame for the novel is once again the Spokane police department, and once again Caroline Mabry (as in Over Tumbled Graves). It isn't a part of a series though, I like that, it stands alone ad does it well. A man is taken in to the police station saying that he wants to confess, and, at a loss, Mabry gives him pen and paper and lets him start to write. He writes and writes, and tells the tale of growing up poor in Spokane, of the most-bullied kid in school who eventually becomes his friend, of loyalties and sex, of wanting to be rich and looked-up to. Mabry begins to suspect that possibly he really has killed someone, and starts looking for this someone while he is still writing.

I think Walter really managed the balance between novel and crime fic frame well here. Towards the end there is a heightening of pace, as we begin to anticipate a violent act, and instead of feeling disappointed when it fizzes out I felt like it was appropriate. It wasn't a thriller. In the end it's just Mabry and the confessor, Clark Mason, waiting for sunrise. I liked it.

I was going to write some quotes, but I'm a little too tired. I recommend it anyway.

In other news, today I tried to buy books for friends and failed. I find it soooo hard to buy books for others, I don't know why. I kind of know what I'd like to get them, but what if they don't like it? Indecision, indecision....

Still missing my books.

What. The. Hell?

Unable to find the books I'd already borrowed (One Jess Walter, one Andrew Taylor (whom I've never read)) I had to dash to the library and find something else. Had to. Or work is UNBEARABLE. So luckily there was another Jess Walter, since I had my heart set on him. Citizen Vince (ha ha, just automatically typed Kane and had to change it...) is a novel just waiting to be filmed, in which case it'll be just another gangster film, a genre that bores me. I was even casting it in my mind, with actors from the Sopranos. Bo-o-oo-ring. Thank God I read it anyway.

It's 1980. Vince Camden lives in Spokane. We quickly understand that he isn't originally from there - Vince is in the Witness Protection Programme and has left his old N.Y. small-time gangster life behind him. Except he hasn't: he does work as a baker, but runs a credit card scam and sells marijuana on the side. One day he gets his voter registration card in the post. Then it suddenly hits him that he really was given a new life when he joined the WPP. Since he turned to crime as a child he's never been eligible to vote, but in this new life he can. It's Reagan's first presidential election, with President Carter trying to manage the US hostage situation in Iran. Vince becomes a little obsessed with this - he follows the debates, tries to talk politics with his gambling friends. Out of the blue, someone from the old life appears to show up in Spokane to get rid of Vince. And in the end Vince has to choose between being the new guy, on the voter registration card, or stay the same small-time gangster.

It's quite a good book this. Walter has a definite flair. I love how Detective Alan Dupree, whom we met in Over Tumbled Graves as an older, disillusioned mentor cop, here is a young rookie. I even put up with the gangster angle - much easier in literature than in films! Having the story set to the background of the election is a great idea, especially how being allowed to vote really affects Vince. I suppose it's a bit moral, but in a good way.

There's also a really interesting middle bit, where part of the story is about what Carter and Reagan are thinking and going through just a few days before the Big Day. I'm still pondering to myself why he put that in. Cool.

Two new authors, one re-read

I always find myself hovering over Liza Cody's books in the library, thinking "have I read them all? Surely this one is new? No... Yes... No...." and last week I borrowed Dupe, in one such fit of insecurity. A chapter in or so I was sure I had read it, but I obviously didn't recall enough of the story to be bothered by this, so kept going. I like Cody, and her heroine Anna Lee. Independent, believable, competent on the whole, but not perfect. Cody's best heroine in a way has to be Eva Wylie though, of the books Bucket Nut and Monkey Wrench, of which I've only read the latter. Eva is a big, ugly female wrestler who takes no shit, and it a little thick in some ways but very street-wise in others. I liked her.

Anna Lee is good too though. She is introduced to us in Dupe, a private detective working for a company led by the obnoxious Brierly. She is condescended to since she is a young woman, but useful to him in some cases. Like those involving runaway minors. Now however she takes on an investigation into the apparently normal traffic accident death of a young woman, since the parents are convinced something is not right. It's a good book on the whole. The cover says it was televised, but I haven't seen it. I strongly suspect it was less good on telly though. Telly tends to take out those little quirks that make a novel in a cliché-ridden genre like crime fic stand out.

On impulse I also borrowed an unknown, Blood Relation by Andrew Taylor. And I got this mostly because the praising blurbs on the cover are from Punch, The Times, Guardian... The snob within. It got me hoping for something like Peter Dickinson. And it sort of is. Taylor's hero is William Dougal, a charming man of slightly flexible morals. This has cost him a relationship, and also his daughter. Since this isn't the first book I can see that there is a lot of history in their relationship and Dougal's past that I don't know yet, so I'm hoping to find some more books.

The best thing is that Dougal is an academic, who worked and works in publishing, but has joined the security/PI business later. Speak of the devil, namely a little discussion I had with HB. Am very pleased.

Here Dougal investigates a disappearance which becomes a murder, which becomes someone elses murder. I liked it. Clever enough, no jarring plot holes, good writing!

However, my real find was Over Tumbled Graves by Jess Walter. I had never heard of him, but I was quite impressed. It appears to be a routine serial killer novel, but it's quickly clear that Walter is more interested in the abberations within us all and our society. It's quite feminist, with for example a lot of thinking about whether all men are predators - sparked by a prostitute saying that all the clients give her the creeps, even the ones that are "normal". The FBI profiler questions if our heroine, police woman Caroline Mabry is fit to investigate these serial killings, because as a woman she can never understand the mechanisms of male fantasy. His suspicion is that

Maybe every man who looked at a Penthouse was essentially embarking on the same path that ended with some guy beating a woman to death and violating her with a lug wrench. [...] If she coldn't imagine the violent fantasy, what could she imagine? The victim. The fear. And what good were those?

It's always really nice to read a male writer who can write so believably about a woman. I was honestly not sure whether Walter was male or female until I googled - being openminded and all his introductory acknowledgment of his wife and kids didn't prejudice me. I'm that cool.

I borrowed the other one of his novels the library had, and I'm looking forward to it. It's a good description of police work, it's think-ey, it contains the first example I've ever see of someone writing about New Orleans and not going all gooey-eyed over the place in manner of Anne Rice. Plus I learnt how to pronounce Spokane.