Noir fiction for the modern reader.

A couple of weeks ago, I took part in the Bald-Faced Liar thing that was spinning around the crime fiction community. I posted six outrageous truths and one outrageous lie about my secret, sordid past. A few people commented on what they thought the lie was, and a few more emailed me with their selections. But now…now it is time…time for the final, official truth to be revealed.

The seven claims I made were:

1. During my poker career, I once won a large pot from actor James Woods.

2. Back in my musical career, I once played piano behind Jerry Lee Lewis.

3. Also, back in my musical career, I often played in a bar in Honduras frequented by “death squad” members.

4. When I was in college, I was in several classes with Bill Clinton.

5. I was arrested in Zimbabwe as a “provocateur”.

6. While in Port Of Spain, Trinidad, I once danced with Miss Trinidad (of the Miss Universe contest, where she went on to finish 2nd).

7. I know, without doubt, who was behind the JFK assassination.

And yes, the lie is #7. Only Deborah Sharp was sharp enough to make the correct call. Everyone else, without exception selected #5, which I’m afraid actually happened, along with #s 1, 2, 3, 4, and 6.

Okay, now that that’s done with, anybody got anything they’d like to sound off about? On any subject at all? Come in, please. Over.

SUCKER PUNCH by Ray Banks (2007)

Review by Mike Dennis

The world of small-time boxing makes for an irresistible backdrop in noir fiction.  Films such as Fat City and The Set-Up gained classic status by their dramatic depiction of the hopeless nature of that world and those who inhabit it.  There are very few options for these people, and almost all of them end in flames.  This is the message delivered in Sucker Punch, a 2007 novel by British author Ray Banks.

The big time in the sport, represented by championship bouts in Las Vegas, is clearly out of reach for everyone involved in this book.  But that doesn’t stop them from dreaming, and when you think about it, that’s what boxing is all about:  one man’s dream to escape a life of grinding poverty.

Liam Wooley is not the central character in the book, but he’s the fighter from Manchester, the one with the big hopes.  He’s got talent, no doubt about it, but his temper may prevent him from “turning pro”, which is his immediate goal.  He’s laconic to a fault, a sort of young Charles Bronson, who just wants to train in the gym and be left alone.

Cal Innes, a former private investigator, is out of prison on probation.  He forges prescriptions to quench his pill habit and does odd jobs for Paulo Gray, owner of a seedy gym in Manchester.  Paulo gets an invitation to send a fighter to Los Angeles to compete in a small tournament, where it’s rumored that high-level scouts will be in attendance.  He decides to send Liam, his best prospect, and asks Cal to keep him company on the trip and make sure he shows up for the bouts.

Told from Cal’s point of view, the novel takes them to LA, during which time Cal can’t find anywhere to smoke, he rubs Liam the wrong way, and he meets Nelson Byrne, a stranger in a bar who says he’s a former fighter, but now “does some coaching and scouting”.  Hmmm.

There’s enough British street slang in this book to fill a soccer stadium, and I often had to pause to try to decipher it.  But Banks was able to deftly switch back and forth from British voice to American in those scenes where Cal is speaking to Byrne.

I was over halfway through the book before I realized that nothing was really happening.  The first hint of real conflict didn’t come until later, and normally, this is the kiss of death for any crime novel.  Banks’ prose, though, is so hard-hitting that it holds your attention through it all and makes you forget that the story is just standing still.  David Goodis was a master at this, forcing you to turn the page on the strength of his writing alone.

Banks’ Manchester, always cold and drizzly, brings to mind Goodis’ Philadelphia, a miserable, bleak place where the minor players have no shot and where their dreams are easily extinguished.

Be careful when you read Sucker Punch.  You’ll need to take a shower to wash away the grime.

Jeff Pierce of The Rap Sheet (http://therapsheet.blogspot.com) has named me, along with six other unfortunates, to participate in the Bald-Faced Liar (aka “Creative Writer”) Blogger Award.  Never being one to sidestep a chance to lie, I gladly accepted. There are a few simple rules, and they are:

• Thank the person who gave this to you. (Thanks, Jeff.)
• Copy the logo and place it on your blog. (OK, done.)
• Link to the person who nominated you. (Check.)
• Tell up to six outrageous lies about yourself, and at least one outrageous truth – or – switch it around and tell six outrageous truths and one outrageous lie. (See below.)
• Nominate seven “Creative Writers” who might have fun coming up with outrageous lies of their own. (Check the end of this post.)
• Post links to the seven blogs you nominate.
• Leave a comment on each of the blogs letting them know that you have nominated them.

After careful thought, I decided that six lies would be too easy, so I have elected to tell six outrageous truths and one outrageous lie.  The truths are all absolutely true, but please don’t ask me to elaborate on any of them. Can you guess which is the lie?

1. During my poker career, I once won a large pot from actor James Woods.

2. Back in my musical career, I once played piano behind Jerry Lee Lewis.

3. Also, back in my musical career, I often played in a bar in Honduras frequented by “death squad” members.

4. When I was in college, I was in several classes with Bill Clinton.

5. I was arrested in Zimbabwe as a “provocateur”.

6. While in Port Of Spain, Trinidad, I once danced with Miss Trinidad (of the Miss Universe contest, where she went on to finish 2nd).

7. I know, without doubt, who was behind the JFK assassination.

Okay, there you have it. Step right up and take your guess. Meanwhile, the other writers I am nominating are (drum roll, please):

Tom Piccirilli (The Last Kind Words), Morgan St James (The Seven Deadly Samovars), James Scott Bell (Plot & Structure), Charlie Stella (Johnny Porno), John McFetridge (Let It Ride), Vegas Linda Lou (Bastard Husband: A Love Story), links posted to the right.

THE GAMBLER by William Krasner (1950)

Review by Mike Dennis 2010

“This is it, fellow,” the motorman said impatiently.  “End of the line.”

That’s the opening of William Krasner’s The Gambler (1950), a gritty noir novel of one man coming face to face with his own limitations.  That man is Ben Wulfson, who, unlike most noir protagonists, starts at the end of the line and pretty much stays there.

He’s just returned to town from an eight-year absence, which is never fully explained.  He makes his way to commission row, which looks like an area straight out of David Goodis’ black vision of Philadelphia.  It’s full of sooty buildings and merciless streets and people with few options, but right away, Ben feels at home.

He wants to get back into the swing of the gambling world, which he knows well, so he hooks up with Tim Coogan, a pasty-faced young man who worked with him years earlier.  Together they set up a dice game.

Now, if you run a dice game legitimately, you’re going to make money in the long run because the odds are immutably in your favor.  Problem is, Ben doesn’t want to wait for the long run.  He wants to make a pile of dough fast, then get out of town for good.  So he introduces doctored dice into his game.

The game cruises along, Ben and Tim make some pretty good money, and then Ben meets Alice, a girl wandering aimlessly in the park, clutching a crust of bread.  She’s wet, cold, and very sick.  Out of sympathy, he takes her back to his fleabag hotel room to dry her out and warm her up.  They develop a strange, distant relationship, but each of them welcomes it in his/her own way.

Problems arise when Ben’s loaded dice are discovered.  Then the local gambling kingpin decides Ben’s game is disrupting the natural order of things.  Meanwhile, his own troubled family issues reverberate throughout the book.  The cops, the gangsters, the gamblers, Ben’s family…they’re all out to get Ben in one way or another, as each scene narrows his window of opportunity to escape.

Krasner paints a desolate picture of people on the other side of town, where no one ever goes.  The scenes are described in great detail, maybe too much so in spots, but all in the language of true noir.  Even the scenes that take place under the daytime sun feel dark and hopeless.  Under his hand, light is co-opted by shadow as easily as ambition is extinguished by reality.

The author of only eight novels, Krasner spent most of his career writing scientific essays for journals and magazines, as well as a lot of TV and radio scripts.  Don’t let that fool you, though.  The Gambler is a bitter, uncompromising tale, very well told.

I’ve been lax for the last couple of weeks.  Well, not lax, really.  I went out on the road to play music (six dates in eight days), and even though I brought my laptop with me, it was all I could do to edit a few chapters of my latest novel.  The distractions and the travel were so intrusive, that the blogging just didn’t happen.  Plus I’ve had some upheavals here on the home front, so my apologies to those who think I’ve vanished.  I’m back.

I want to write about writers groups.  Critique groups, specifically.  I am a big believer in them.  And it doesn’t matter what kind of writers are in a particular critique group.  If you join, you will become a better writer.  That’s all there is to it.

There are very small critique groups, limiting their membership to maybe three or four people, and then the size escalates from there.  In the small groups, each member may get up and read, then listen to the criticism of his fellow members.  Or each member may distribute a copy of his read to the others who take it home, examine it, mark it up, then deliver their critiques at the next meeting.

In the larger groups, the piece is almost always read aloud by the writer to the other members, who then critique it on the spot.

I’m currently a member of four writers groups here in Las Vegas, two of which are critique groups. They are:  the local chapter of Sisters In Crime, the Las Vegas Writers Group, the Henderson Writers Group, and an as-yet unnamed crew.  The Henderson Writers Group (one of the critique outfits) usually attracts 20-30 people to each meeting.  The writers are a mixed bag, writing in all genres, published and unpublished.

These last few weeks, I’ve been reading a chapter a week of my latest novel to this group.  Prior to these reads, I had gone over that novel countless times, looking for ways to make it better, adding stuff here, deleting stuff there, moving other stuff around, fixing typos, and so on.  I thought it was pretty close to right when I brought chapter one in to read.

Well, the critiques I received were things which I hadn’t seen in all the times I’d been over that book, and you know what?  I never would’ve seen them. They were things that, for some reason, my brain was not geared toward spotting.  Some of these things were obvious to everyone but me, while some were extremely subtle…moving a phrase from the end of a paragraph to the beginning, for example.  Either way, they’d escaped my attention altogether.  That’s the beauty of these groups.  All those other eyes and ears, backed up by brains different from mine, can and will see stuff which I could never catch.

And it goes without saying (although I will say it) that my novel is much better because of the critiques I received from this group.

Memo to all writers, published and unpublished:  If you want to improve your WIP, and ultimately your writing itself, join a local writers group.  They’re everywhere! They’re everywhere!