----- Original Message ----- From: "Grimes" <
redgrimes@sbcglobal.net> To: <
rara-avis@icomm.ca> Sent: Wednesday, May 12, 2004
10:42 PM Subject: RARA-AVIS: Denise Hamilton
> The L. A. Times published a rave profile today of
L.A. mystery author
Denise
> Hamilton.
> (
http://www.calendarlive.com/books/cl-et-lacher12may12,2,540239.story).
The
> author of the profile and Hamilton herself
explicitly place her in the
> lineage of Chandler and Ross Macdonald.
>
> Hamilton's three novels feature Eve Diamond, a
"tough-but-vulnerable" L.A.
> Times reporter and alter ego for Hamilton, herself a
former Times
reporter.
> "I read Chandler and Macdonald, not because I wanted
to write like
> middle-aged white guys in 1950s L.A.," Hamilton
says. "My L.A. is a very
> multicultural place where fourth-generation
Angelenos butt up against
people
> who've just come off a boat from somewhere. This is
very grandiose of me,
I
> realize, but I wanted to update Chandler's tone and
his noir feel for L.A.
> to a millennial, multicultural L.A. from a female
perspective."
>
> I'm intrigued, but also wary: Hamilton's a former
L.A. Times reporter,
so
> maybe the Times isn't an unbiased source. And
calling an L.A.-based
mystery
> writer "the next Chandler" is a little too easy,
like dubbing any scrawny
> kid with a gravelly voice, and a guitar "the next
Dylan." Is anyone on
the
> list familiar with Hamilton? I found nothing in the
archives.
>
> Also: do Chandler's novels - as opposed to the
movies made from his
> novels - have a "noir feel" for L.A.?
There will never be a "next Chandler." This is
pretentious-bullshit-as-marketing. Look at all the
buzz-words: "millennial, multicultural L.A. from a female
perspective." And then there's the obligatory dissing of the
"middle-aged white guys in 1950s L.A." Then of course,
there's the talking out of both sides of one's mouth: "This
is very grandiose of me (no shit?), I realize, but I wanted
to update Chandler's tone, blah, blah, blahdeblah." Yet in
the line before that she says: "I read Chandler and
Macdonald, not because I wanted to write like" the
afforementioned middle-aged white guys. Well, what the hell
is "updating someone's tone," if not WRITING LIKE THEM.
She wants to sell books. Good for her. She got her ex
employers at the Times to write an uncritical vanity piece on
her work. Also good for her. If she wants to "update Chandler
and Macdonald," how does that make her any different than
others who've done it before: Leigh Brackett, Joe Gores,
Robert B, Parker, etc., etc.?
Answer: it doesn't.
But don't tell the folks at the LA Times that.
All the Best-
Brian
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