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RARA-AVIS: John Gregory Dunne
Dunne's MONSTER does sound good! If you have a taste for true crime, look
up his account of the Holcomb, Nebraska murders in the Jan. 13, 1997 New
Yorker. Like Capote's In Cold Blood of the mid-60s, however, the result is
less detective than a sociology of levels of life--the almost invisible
people who drift and crash in any town. Personally, I like to balance hard
(and soft) boiled detective/criminal fiction with such stories, to remind
me of the aimless, unplanned and just stupid quality of so much crime.
And Dunne had to contend with something that Capote didn't. True crime
stuff has become such an industry that if you get there too late, you'll
find all the participants have been signed to exclusive agreements, meaning
they are not to talk to other reporters. In exchange for what, you ask?
In exchange for a piece of the action, should a film be made! Dunne names
one Aphrodite Jones (real name?) who makes her living traveling to such
sites for the story.
Recommend the current issue of The New Yorker, "Crime and Punishment," for
Hitchcock-style humor and good features, plus news of a true crime web site
entitled Primal Scream.
Bill Hagen
<billha@ionet.net>
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