RARA-AVIS: Fresh meat
daniel Sevitt (sevitt@infolink.net.il)
Mon, 18 May 1998 21:11:03 +0300
My name is daniel. I moved to Israel from London two years ago
with my wife
and we are bringing up our family in a leafy suburb north of
Tel Aviv. I
discovered Andrew Vachss about six years ago thanks to Time
Out, the London
listings magazine. Then a colleague in London turned me on to
Chandler,
claiming The Long Goodbye was the best book ever written. While
it may not
make my top 5 (Earthly Powers by Anthony Burgess, Wuthering
Heights by Emily
Bronte, The Old Testament by God, In Cold Blood by Truman
Capote, Breathing
Lessons by Anne Tyler… I could go on) it certainly made me want
to read
more. I have since gone through Chandler, a fair bit of Hammett
almost all
of Ellroy (I can't find a copy of Blood on the Moon anywhere
and the other
two Lloyd Hopkins books on my shelf won't get read until I do…
and now
they've published all three as LA Noir and I can't buy it
because I already
have parts two and three. Am I too anal for this list?), Mosely
and a few
other bits and pieces. I have read six Elmore Leonard's which I
really enjoy
but no Ross MacDonald and only The Butterfly by James M Cain. I
am not that
interested in Mickey Spillane and I wouldn't know where to
begin with Ed
McBain. Last year on another Time Out recommendation, I bought
the first two
books by Jack O'Connell. I got through Box Nine but found it
too hard going
and haven't yet attempted Wireless. I read James Crumley's
Mexican Tree-Duck
(as opposed to the Corsican Swan or even, ha-ha, the Maltese
Falcon) but
found his version of Gonzo-Noir too distracting. I am reading
the Spenser
books in order but I can't bring myself to read Poodle Springs
or Perchance
to Dream.
For better or for worse my habits extend beyond the genre. I am
a big fan of
Thomas Hardy's novels and I will read any new book by Martin
Amis, Anne
Tyler, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Kazuo Ishiguro as well as using
the major
literary prizes - Booker, Pulitzer, Orange - as trustworthy
guides. I have
an unnatural fetish for new books by Michael Crichton and
Stephen Donaldson
but I bury this knowledge deep within myself and cover it with
the collected
works of Maya Angelou and Jane Austen.
My opening question based on a brief run through your archive
is as
open-ended as this: Does the phrase "hard-boiled" refer to the
writer or
his/her books? Easy Rawlins is a great character but RL's Dream
is Mosely's
best book and perhaps one of the great novels of the nineties.
Ellroy is as
hard-boiled as they come, but Killer on the Road (AKA Silent
Terror) is a
poor man's American Psycho. Vachss writes effective hard-boiled
thrillers
about the horrors of child abuse while A. M. Homes is reviled
for her
portrayal of the same subject in The End of Alice (shocking,
revolting and
sadly humorless, but feel free to disagree). I look forward to
hearing from
you.
daniel
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