About your comments:
>It probably wouldn't have been until at least the late
'60s that
>mystery writers would have been able to get away with
having a hero
>who took drugs (not counting Conan Doyle and perhaps
other early
>types). Besides, a heroin or cocaine addict wouldn't
make a very good
>detective, and potheads would just hang out at home
eating potato
>chips and cookies. (This isn't to say hardboiled
novels can't star
>junkies, of course they can. But a shamus who keeps
shooting up and
>nodding off wouldn't last long.)
How is shooting up and nodding off any different than putting
'em back and
blacking out, as Scudder finds himself doing more and more in
the first
five books?
I think alcohol, at least in the early books of the genre,
signifies (is
that the word?) how willing private eyes and other tough guys
were willing
to break the laws that didn't suit them. After all,
prohibition was in full
force when the early eyes were doing their stuff. That
whole
cool/rebel/outlaw thing. And it also taps into that whole
bullshit "real
men drink" mythology that has benefitted our society so much.
Kudos to
Block for actually showing how wonderful alcohol can be. Very
few series
before then ever featured a hero who drinks and actually gets
drunk, unless
it was for comic effect (for example, Bill Crane, though I
think there was
at least one book where he pukes a few times).
It's always amusing to read some old reefer-madness P.I.
novel where some
self-righteous he-man dick, who's been swigging down
humungous amounts of
booze with seemingly no effect throughout the book, starts
blowing away
those evil, perverted pot-smoking scum.
>Bars are a great place for things to happen, too.
Scudder's AA
>friends are concerned about the amount of time he
spends in bars,
>especially ones he frequented when he was drinking,
but imagine how
>dull things would be if he had to meet potential
clients (and friends
>like the hard-drinking Danny Boy and Mick) in a
franchised coffee
>house.
Hmmm...he does meet them at restaurants and coffee shops and
their homes
and other places. I think's it's the characters' interaction
that's
interesting, not necessarily where they meet. In fact,
doesn't he actually
meet TJ at some sort of Second Cup-type place in Even the
Wicked?
(And now the hidden shame of the nineties: coffee junkies
paying three,
four, five bucks for a fix at some pre-fab "trendy"
cafe.)
**************************************************
Kevin Smith
It's summertime, and the living is cheesy...What are you
reading this summer?
Tell us in this month's P.I. Poll on The Thrilling Detective
Web Site
http://www.colba.net/~kvnsmith/thrillingdetective/
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