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Joie de Vivre in a Trench Coat
The late Robert B. Parker is enjoying a literary life after death.
“Fashion goes out of style, yet style never goes out of fashion,” says the stylish essayist and short story writer Joseph Epstein of the late stylish singer and dancer Fred Estaire. The quote is from Epstein’s very readable Fred Astaire of 2008.
This truism holds for writing as well as hoofing, which everyone agrees Astaire brought off with more style than anyone. In fact, style may be the most durable quality in writing, especially in the currently popular genre of crime fiction.
If style is the man, the man is the late Robert B. Parker, whose next to last Spenser novel, Painted Ladies, is on book store shelves now and available, along with a considerable Parker back list, for last minute stocking stuffing.
Parker’s fast-moving crime stories are written in spare but insistent prose, short on description but with much crisp, often amusing dialogue. The stories never lag and the plot is supplemented by Parker’s acute observations on the social scene, friendship, loyalty, integrity, responsibility, courage, the place of work and love in our lives, and what it means to be a man or woman in our current post-everything jumble.
That’s quite a bit for genre fiction to carry. But Parker delivers much of what readers used to look for elsewhere before literary fiction fell on hard times. What on earth is Ian McEwan nattering on about?
“Ladies” — they aren’t what you’re doubtless thinking they are — gets underway when a professor and art expert asks Spenser to act as bodyguard during an exchange of money for a kidnapped painting. The painting-nappers insist Spenser stay in the car during the swap, which sees the painting and the professor blown up by a bomb. There was little Spenser could have done to prevent this, but this is a violation of his code he isn’t about to let stand.
The museum that owned the painting, the company that insured it, and the university where Spenser’s late client worked don’t seem interested in the painting or the professor’s sorry end. When a couple of very professional hit guys try to take Spenser permanently off the case, he doubles down his efforts.
As Spenser unravels the mystery through a tight, well-constructed plot, readers learn a bit about art theft and forgery, all connected to some holocaust survivors and some bad actors who are not what they seem to be until Spenser unmasks them.
Ladies is the next to the last Parker novel featuring Spenser, the tough but literate Boston PI (no first name is ever given — though in a tease in Ladies it is for the first time revealed that Spenser has a first name). This well-wrought Spenser story and Sixkill, which Putnam’s will bring out in May, are proof of literary life after death.
Parker went on to his reward in January after a heart attack at his office writing desk. If delighting tens of millions of readers for decades counts for much in the Final Calculus, that reward should be considerable. Parker was a fast writer and prolific. Though he was 42 and a full professor of English at Northeastern University when his first novel was published, he brought out more than 50 crime novels and a handful of westerns by the time he died at 77. At his death he left behind four completed manuscripts, including the final Jesse Stone novel (yes, the series of made-for-TV movies with Tom Selleck as Stone), a western, and two Spensers.
But not to worry, Parker may have earned a PhD in English but he never wrote like a professor (see above re style). I challenge those laboring under the impression that English PhDs can write to pick up any edition of the Publication of the Modern Language Association (the English professor’s trade publication) and try to read any article. But DO NOT do this on any day when you have to drive or operate heavy equipment.
By the time Parker and Spenser appeared on the mystery scene in 1973 in The Godwulf Manuscript, many thought the private eye genre was exhausted. It was indeed getting a bit seedy and down at heels. The high practitioners of the art — Raymond Chandler, Dashiel Hammett, and Ross MacDonald were dead or no longer writing and Mickey Spillane was pretty crude stuff.
Even the work of the Big Three was pretty dark, noir stuff, artfully done but demanding a high tolerance for cynicism and world-weariness. Chandler’s Philip Marlowe, Hammett’s Sam Spade, and MacDonald’s Lew Archer were isolated loners with not much in the way of lives outside of their jobs. Unhappy men who could be real downers.
Spenser, au the contraire, has a love life, friends, and a realistic outlook on this complex, marvelous, but sometimes menacing world, and great humor. Spenser’s wise-cracks are funny, and unlike the mordant ones of Marlowe don’t make readers, after they’ve laughed, feel like they want to take a shower. Spenser can spend times down the mean streets without forgetting how to have a good time. Parker and his knight errant brought the private eye novel back to life and put a happier face on it. His reward was tens of millions of book sales over four decades and legions of satisfied readers.
The last time I wrote about Parker for TAS some correspondents complained that Parker was too liberal to be whooped up in a conservative publication. A movement conservative prosecutor could probably come up with some charges and specifications: Parker’s keenness on the benefits of psychotherapy, the fact that some of the villains in his stories are clearly right extremists, and his going perhaps further out of the way than necessary to demonstrate that he isn’t anti-gay. But it’s too facile to conclude from these things that this complex writer is just another lefty.
About the Author
Larry Thornberry is a writer in Tampa.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (22) | Leave a comment
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Tom Warwick| 12.20.10 @ 7:22AM
Early on, I enjoyed Parker. He was everything as described. Some years back, though, his books took on a "Liberal Preachiness" that destroyed the flavor. I stopped reading them for that reason. Pity.
Bob K.| 12.20.10 @ 8:52AM
I never thought they were preachy or political in the sense that other crime writers like Sara Paretsky's novels were/are. I stopped reading hers long ago for that reason.
I skim through new crime writers novels and if I see any of this I don't buy them. It is OK to comment on the conditions that may have caused the incident written about and another thing to lay the blame for it based on ones political biases.
David Guaspari | 12.20.10 @ 7:33AM
The audio recordings are also a treat. Joe Montegna is the perfect Parker.
D| 12.20.10 @ 7:41AM
I read the first eight or so of the Spenser books, then lost interest -- exactly why, I can't remember, except that they seemd to be getting tedious.
Anthony| 12.20.10 @ 11:29AM
For me, the Spencer books were way too formulatic, predictable, and just plain unreal. They were like reading cotton candy, ligh,t with no substance.
It's as Bob K said, Parker just plugged in his formula and out came a vanilla story.
But he seemed like a good guy and dog lover.
Bob K.| 12.20.10 @ 8:40AM
Sometimes I would think that he got lazy or possibly bored with his formula (he wrote so many) but then he would come up with a good one that was up there with his best.
This is one of those.
Tina B| 12.20.10 @ 9:03AM
From Mother to daughter to son, we have been passing on the Spenser novels spanning almost 50 years in my family. Parker has amused us, uplifted us, and given us many fine bonding moments. Personally, I prefer Robert Urich's version of Spenser and Avery Brooks as his buddy Hawk, but it is the dialogue that sometimes makes me put the book down for a minute and say "Why, why Lord, can't I write a line like that?" Thanks, Parker, and see you in Heaven, I hope,
Dennis Collins| 12.20.10 @ 9:41AM
A few hours each night of escape, whether to Boston, Paradise, or Appaloosa, is very relaxing and an escape from the tediousness of this life. Thanks Mr. Thornberry, but most of all, thanks to Robert B. Parker
LarryK| 12.20.10 @ 9:44AM
You convinced me, I'm going to pick up a Spenser mystery or two and check them out. But I think you have Ross MacDonald and his PI Lew Archer wrong. Archer is more worldly-wise and stoic than dark and cynical. I also think MacDonald sets the standard for mystery/crime fiction with realistic characters and psychological depth, but I'm interested to see how Parker compares.
Christopher| 12.20.10 @ 10:49AM
Read all the Spenser books, the early ones were the best. About ten years ago, he started writing too much about Susan and her dog. Liked it better when he and Hawk and Vinny were after the bad guys, except that Hawk and Vinny were professional killers, and Parker made them likable.
At least Parker kept his politics out of the stories, for the most part, RIP.
Ron| 12.20.10 @ 11:17AM
I had been hoping for years that Spenser's great love Susan Silverman would die . . . but I hate to get my wish fulfilled this way.
Bob Marsh| 12.20.10 @ 11:40AM
Unlike some others who offered comments, I never tired of Dr. Parker's novels. I especially liked his Jesse Stone series, brought to life by Tom Selleck, one of the few conservatives in liberal Hollywood.
Padoux| 12.20.10 @ 12:25PM
I am an avid mystery novel reader and the Spenser novels were great. Compared to many authors I've read, Parker didn't hit the reader over the head with politics and Spenser's methods were anything but a liberal's idea of justice. To boot, his characters delivered funny and sarcastic lines aplenty which always made me smile. Spenser's repartees with Hawk and Susan were classic. Parker, we shall miss ye.
james wilson| 12.20.10 @ 12:57PM
All private-eye novelists are liberals. It gives them license to escape their little prisons for a time, but they manage to throw in an apology or two along the way so their friends will be understanding. James Burke is the most conflicted offender, and the best.
wolflen| 12.20.10 @ 1:42PM
parker made spenser such a nice guy..even when he killed people...try as he did...i could not like susan ...yes his work was cookie cutter...but he did some good variations on a theme..but in the end they were very "light" versions of a crime novel...for the real thing...try elmore leonard's detroit based novels--it dosen't get any better..
Paul Sand | 12.20.10 @ 1:50PM
Just a quibble. From Stardust:
"Do you have a first name, Mr. Spenser?"" Jill said. She had a soft girlish voice with just a hint of huskiness at the edges. I told her my first name.
"I don't like it," she said.
"I was afraid you wouldn't," I said. "I've been worried about it all month."
SF_Exile| 12.20.10 @ 3:56PM
It's good news to hear that a couple new Spenser rounds are in the chamber. I was in a funk for a good week when I read of his death.
As with any genre, there is a certain amount of formula involved. But, for me and I'm sure many others, that formula also means things just chug along nicely, the characters and their ways as familiar as a favorite ratty T-shirt. I especially loved Parker's ability to use the local flavor as an ongoing sidekick in his novels. Anyone who has lived in and around Boston for a time confirms the ring of truth in the dialogue, the accuracy in describing the city and its prickly citizens.
An author I've discovered here in SF is Joe Gores. As an ex-PI himself, (among other things) his novels which revolve around a set of characters who are repo men (and women) put San Francisco and the Bay area to good use. For anyone who is a Hammett fan, read his prequel, "Spade and Archer". It won't be a waste of time.
Bill| 12.20.10 @ 5:02PM
I realized what a true master Parker is when I viewed the first Jesse Stone made-for-TV movie that was not written by Parker. The first Jesse Stone movies were, like the books, truly entertaining. The last two movies were not nearly as good. Parker had a real ability with dialogue not shared by many.
Debbie| 12.21.10 @ 2:34AM
What I loved about Spenser was his code of honor, the same code found in Hitch and Cole. It doesn't get any better.
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skip| 12.21.10 @ 12:23PM
I hate liberalism with a passion. Considering how worthlessly liberal Boston has become Parker has many conservative qualities. To think this nation began in Boston; it has become a huge bastion of anticonstitutionalism. Kennedy, Kerry, Frank, what more needs to be said. I have all the Spenser, Stone, Randall, Cole/Hitch, and stand alone novels Parker has written. The dialogue with Hawk is classic. Susan wears on me for sure. She is really his wife Joan. Love is indeed blind. The pro homosexual tint can be explained by the orientation of both his sons. "Painted Ladies might be the 38th best of the 38 Spenser novels, but that is not so much because the book is lacking as it is to say the others are just better.
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