Ed Gorman's Blog, page 6
March 5, 2016
"Babylon Revisited" by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Charlie Wales returns to Paris hoping to gain custody of his young daughter Honoria. Charlie was in no shape to take care of her when her mother died seven years ago. He was an alcoholic who spent all his time in the fashionable bars and restaurants of the glittering city.
Honoria has been raised by her aunt, a woman who despises Charlie for the way he treated his wife--much like Scott and Zelda, they battled a great deal--drunkenly locking her out in the snow one night not too long before she died. While there is no real connection between what he did and her death both the sister and Charlie are burdened with it--she in rage, Charlie in grief and remorse.
In the course of the story Charlie revisits some of the bars where he once drank along with his rich American friends and the more successful of the expatriate colony. But the world-wide Depression has changed everything. The bartender has a grim story for every name Charlie brings up. Death, madness, loss of fortune. The glamor of Paris is no more just as Charlie is no more, not the charming, glib, handsome Charlie of old anyway. He is now a frightened alcoholic trying to rebuild his life, limiting himself to one drink a day. He hopes.
At his sister-in-law's, while Charlie is trying to present himself as a responsible man these days, a couple he knew from the golden days burst in. They are loud and giddy and silly in their drunken folly. For them the heyday of the city has never ended. They've remained rich. Charlie sees in them the man he once was and is disgusted. He runs them out of the house. But to no avail. His sister-in-law insists on keeping Honoria. Charlie is in no condition, so tentatively sober, to take her.
Charlie ends up looking for the silly couple he ran out of the house. He sits at the bar with an empty glass in front of him. One drink a day. He's had his ration. Or so he tries to convince himself. But as night crowds in will he be able to control himself after his failure to get custody of his daughter?
You don't have to be an alcoholic to understand this story but it doesn't hurt. I quit drinking thirty-five years ago after fifteen years of living inside a bottle. But even after all this time I recognized everything Charlie is going through. Not a day goes by when I don't cringe at something I did in my bottle days, a cruel word or argument or fight. I'm haunted just as Charlie is.
The terrible beauty of the story is its portrait of a man who must face the world sober and is overwhelmed by it. He is weak and fragile man and in the two scenes with his little girl we see a man very near the crack-up Fitzgerald himself would have a few years after writing the story. The weight of these moments is crushing, for the girl and for Charlie Wales alike.
The gloom of the Depression is familiar to us today. Charlie's world is crumbling--and so is the world around him. Sitting in the bar with his empty glass, fighting off the desire to have a second drink, we have a portrait of Fitzgerald's last years. Hard to imagine that he'd be dead in his early forties. Even harder to imagine that he died with all his books out of print, forgotten by many, even mocked by a few. In his journals you find the following line : "Ernest (Hemingway) speaks with the authority of success; I with the authority of failure." If you look past the self-pity of that remark you see its irony. Hemingway's "success" has not worn well (except for the short stories) while Fitzgerald's "failure" is all too contemporary.
Honoria has been raised by her aunt, a woman who despises Charlie for the way he treated his wife--much like Scott and Zelda, they battled a great deal--drunkenly locking her out in the snow one night not too long before she died. While there is no real connection between what he did and her death both the sister and Charlie are burdened with it--she in rage, Charlie in grief and remorse.
In the course of the story Charlie revisits some of the bars where he once drank along with his rich American friends and the more successful of the expatriate colony. But the world-wide Depression has changed everything. The bartender has a grim story for every name Charlie brings up. Death, madness, loss of fortune. The glamor of Paris is no more just as Charlie is no more, not the charming, glib, handsome Charlie of old anyway. He is now a frightened alcoholic trying to rebuild his life, limiting himself to one drink a day. He hopes.
At his sister-in-law's, while Charlie is trying to present himself as a responsible man these days, a couple he knew from the golden days burst in. They are loud and giddy and silly in their drunken folly. For them the heyday of the city has never ended. They've remained rich. Charlie sees in them the man he once was and is disgusted. He runs them out of the house. But to no avail. His sister-in-law insists on keeping Honoria. Charlie is in no condition, so tentatively sober, to take her.
Charlie ends up looking for the silly couple he ran out of the house. He sits at the bar with an empty glass in front of him. One drink a day. He's had his ration. Or so he tries to convince himself. But as night crowds in will he be able to control himself after his failure to get custody of his daughter?
You don't have to be an alcoholic to understand this story but it doesn't hurt. I quit drinking thirty-five years ago after fifteen years of living inside a bottle. But even after all this time I recognized everything Charlie is going through. Not a day goes by when I don't cringe at something I did in my bottle days, a cruel word or argument or fight. I'm haunted just as Charlie is.
The terrible beauty of the story is its portrait of a man who must face the world sober and is overwhelmed by it. He is weak and fragile man and in the two scenes with his little girl we see a man very near the crack-up Fitzgerald himself would have a few years after writing the story. The weight of these moments is crushing, for the girl and for Charlie Wales alike.
The gloom of the Depression is familiar to us today. Charlie's world is crumbling--and so is the world around him. Sitting in the bar with his empty glass, fighting off the desire to have a second drink, we have a portrait of Fitzgerald's last years. Hard to imagine that he'd be dead in his early forties. Even harder to imagine that he died with all his books out of print, forgotten by many, even mocked by a few. In his journals you find the following line : "Ernest (Hemingway) speaks with the authority of success; I with the authority of failure." If you look past the self-pity of that remark you see its irony. Hemingway's "success" has not worn well (except for the short stories) while Fitzgerald's "failure" is all too contemporary.
March 4, 2016
The Inner Circle by Jonathan Fast
This novel came along shortly after the books of Stephen King launched the horror boom. If its storyline owes anything to a classic horror writer it's Robert Bloch. A) Because it concerns a diabolical plot that spans most of the last century and B) Because it's steeped in Holywood lore, this time circa 1979.
Louis Pinkle is a Los Angeles magazine writer who is peddling a screenplay every chance he gets. When his old friend and mega TV star Tony Valenti shows up at his apartment one night pleading to stay and insisting that somebody is trying to kill him, Pinkle manages to ease him out the door. Pinkle wakes up to read in the paper of his wealthy friend's death in an automobile accident. He of course believes that it was no accident at all.
Why I've enjoyed reading this book several times since its publication is not so much the plot, which works very well, but rather its grace notes, its rich human observations and the way Fast makes loopy LA architecture a real part of the story.
"There's a malady I call Dr. Chauvinism that everybody suffers from: my Dentist is The Best Dentist in New York City; the surgeon who did my uncle Murray's surgery is the best Surgeon on the East Coast..."
"I was going through a dry spell at the time, six or seven months without a woman. Celibacy in the East isn't isn't so bad, but out here in the West where the sun superheats your skin and the women walk around half or three-quarters naked, and every
billboard displays vast vistas of flawless flesh, it's worse."
"Once he said to me, `Kitty, are you scared of dying?' And I said, `Yes, I suppose I am. I've never thought about it much.' And he said, `Kitty, that's why I write so much. I think if I leave enough paper with my name on it, people will have to remember me after I'm dead.'"
Then there's a beautifully done scene when a detective visits the badly beaten Pinkle in the hospital. Now there are a lot of ways to write this scene but I've never read one like this before.
"I'll make this as brief as possible, Mr. Pinkle."
Asks him name, birth date, profession. After profession, cop says: "What do you think of Saul Bellow?"
"Bellow?"
"What's your opinion of his work?"
"I...I like it."
"But don't you think the Nobel prize should have gone to Graham Greene?"
"Maybe." His voice became animated and he began to gesture with his hands, enormous hands with black hairs on the back.
"What I mean is, Bellow is basically a photographer like Roth and many of the other modern Jewish writers. His prose is marvelously descriptive, but does he have anything to say?"
"I don't know. Does he?"
(Turns out the cop is in a writing class and offers to "share" his short stories with Pinkle.)
I was laughing out loud when I read this because when we were in a clinic one day waiting for the results of a test a doc came in with said results but decided that since I'd written writer for my occupation we'd do a little book chatting first. Carol finally said: "How did the test come out?"
I just like this book. I like the voice and I like the slant on life and I like the people. Fast wrote a number of science fiction novels in addition to this and then gave up fiction for teaching. Our loss. He had the touch.
Louis Pinkle is a Los Angeles magazine writer who is peddling a screenplay every chance he gets. When his old friend and mega TV star Tony Valenti shows up at his apartment one night pleading to stay and insisting that somebody is trying to kill him, Pinkle manages to ease him out the door. Pinkle wakes up to read in the paper of his wealthy friend's death in an automobile accident. He of course believes that it was no accident at all.
Why I've enjoyed reading this book several times since its publication is not so much the plot, which works very well, but rather its grace notes, its rich human observations and the way Fast makes loopy LA architecture a real part of the story.
"There's a malady I call Dr. Chauvinism that everybody suffers from: my Dentist is The Best Dentist in New York City; the surgeon who did my uncle Murray's surgery is the best Surgeon on the East Coast..."
"I was going through a dry spell at the time, six or seven months without a woman. Celibacy in the East isn't isn't so bad, but out here in the West where the sun superheats your skin and the women walk around half or three-quarters naked, and every
billboard displays vast vistas of flawless flesh, it's worse."
"Once he said to me, `Kitty, are you scared of dying?' And I said, `Yes, I suppose I am. I've never thought about it much.' And he said, `Kitty, that's why I write so much. I think if I leave enough paper with my name on it, people will have to remember me after I'm dead.'"
Then there's a beautifully done scene when a detective visits the badly beaten Pinkle in the hospital. Now there are a lot of ways to write this scene but I've never read one like this before.
"I'll make this as brief as possible, Mr. Pinkle."
Asks him name, birth date, profession. After profession, cop says: "What do you think of Saul Bellow?"
"Bellow?"
"What's your opinion of his work?"
"I...I like it."
"But don't you think the Nobel prize should have gone to Graham Greene?"
"Maybe." His voice became animated and he began to gesture with his hands, enormous hands with black hairs on the back.
"What I mean is, Bellow is basically a photographer like Roth and many of the other modern Jewish writers. His prose is marvelously descriptive, but does he have anything to say?"
"I don't know. Does he?"
(Turns out the cop is in a writing class and offers to "share" his short stories with Pinkle.)
I was laughing out loud when I read this because when we were in a clinic one day waiting for the results of a test a doc came in with said results but decided that since I'd written writer for my occupation we'd do a little book chatting first. Carol finally said: "How did the test come out?"
I just like this book. I like the voice and I like the slant on life and I like the people. Fast wrote a number of science fiction novels in addition to this and then gave up fiction for teaching. Our loss. He had the touch.
March 3, 2016
Forgotten Books: THE INNOCENT MRS. DUFF Elizabeth Sanxay Holding
THE INNOCENT MRS. DUFFOne of the more familiar knocks on mystery fiction is that it rarely treats death seriously. That too often murder is simply the device that propels the story and not much more. I think that's a fair criticism and I certainly include my own work as being guilty of that particular sin. Murder, even literary murder, should HURT.
I'd also add to that criticism the various addictions common to the genre, namely alcoholism and drug addiction. Only Lawrence Block and a few others have taken us into the real world of recovering alcoholics. For the most part addiction has become just another keystroke common to the world of mystery fiction.
I've read three novels in my life that have described accurately--in my experience as an alcoholic--the horrors of being drunk most of your life. Certainly Under The Volcano by Malcolm Lowry, After the First Death by Lawrence Block and a novel you've probably never heard of, though alcoholic Raymond Chandler pushed it as one of the finest suspense novels of his time.
For some reason, much as I've pushed her here, I'd never read THE INNOCENT MRS. DUFF by Elizabeth Sanxay Holding. It is remarkable in many ways, not least because the protagonis. Jacob Duff is drunk for virtually the entire novel. And we see 95% of the book through his eyes. Functionally drunk for most of it but also falling-down drunk in places. Holding's genius was to sustain a sense of dread that I don't think even Ruth Rendell has equaled. There are times in her novels when I have to put the book down for a few minutes. They are that claustrophobic in mood and action.
That's the first most remarkable aspect of the book. The second most remarkable is the fact that we see the book through the eyes of one of the most arrogant, self-invoved, cold and self-deluded man I've ever encountered in fiction of any kind. I hated the bastard so much--I'm not enamored of the upper-classes, alas, and Duff embodies everything I loathe about them--I almost gave up after chapter three. I wasn't sure I wanted to learn anything more about this jerk,
But Holding has the voodoo, at least for me. She makes me turn pages faster than any best-seller because what you're rushing to discover is the fate of her people. All the good folks in this one are women, especially Duff's younger, beautiful and very decent wife. He constantly compares her unfavorably to his first wife, though we soon learn that he didn't care much for his first wife, either. At age forty he's still looking for his dream woman. God have mercy on her soul if he ever finds her.
As always with Holding, as with much of Poe, what we have is not so much a plot (though she's as good as Christie) as a phantasmagoria of despair, distrust and suspicion that consumes the protagonist. Is his wife cheating on him? Is she setting up his death so she'll inherit his estate? Is she turning his young son against him? Has his wealthy aunt, his life-long mentor and mother confessor, taken the side of his young wife? Has his drinking disgraced him in his small town and are all those smirks aimed at him? And finally, is he a murderer? And why does he have to sneak around these days to drink?
If you're curious about Holding, this is a good place to start. Anthony Boucher always said that she was the mother of all psychological suspense novelists. What's intresting is how few, fifty-some years after her death, have come close to equaling her enormous powers.
I'd also add to that criticism the various addictions common to the genre, namely alcoholism and drug addiction. Only Lawrence Block and a few others have taken us into the real world of recovering alcoholics. For the most part addiction has become just another keystroke common to the world of mystery fiction.
I've read three novels in my life that have described accurately--in my experience as an alcoholic--the horrors of being drunk most of your life. Certainly Under The Volcano by Malcolm Lowry, After the First Death by Lawrence Block and a novel you've probably never heard of, though alcoholic Raymond Chandler pushed it as one of the finest suspense novels of his time.
For some reason, much as I've pushed her here, I'd never read THE INNOCENT MRS. DUFF by Elizabeth Sanxay Holding. It is remarkable in many ways, not least because the protagonis. Jacob Duff is drunk for virtually the entire novel. And we see 95% of the book through his eyes. Functionally drunk for most of it but also falling-down drunk in places. Holding's genius was to sustain a sense of dread that I don't think even Ruth Rendell has equaled. There are times in her novels when I have to put the book down for a few minutes. They are that claustrophobic in mood and action.
That's the first most remarkable aspect of the book. The second most remarkable is the fact that we see the book through the eyes of one of the most arrogant, self-invoved, cold and self-deluded man I've ever encountered in fiction of any kind. I hated the bastard so much--I'm not enamored of the upper-classes, alas, and Duff embodies everything I loathe about them--I almost gave up after chapter three. I wasn't sure I wanted to learn anything more about this jerk,
But Holding has the voodoo, at least for me. She makes me turn pages faster than any best-seller because what you're rushing to discover is the fate of her people. All the good folks in this one are women, especially Duff's younger, beautiful and very decent wife. He constantly compares her unfavorably to his first wife, though we soon learn that he didn't care much for his first wife, either. At age forty he's still looking for his dream woman. God have mercy on her soul if he ever finds her.
As always with Holding, as with much of Poe, what we have is not so much a plot (though she's as good as Christie) as a phantasmagoria of despair, distrust and suspicion that consumes the protagonist. Is his wife cheating on him? Is she setting up his death so she'll inherit his estate? Is she turning his young son against him? Has his wealthy aunt, his life-long mentor and mother confessor, taken the side of his young wife? Has his drinking disgraced him in his small town and are all those smirks aimed at him? And finally, is he a murderer? And why does he have to sneak around these days to drink?
If you're curious about Holding, this is a good place to start. Anthony Boucher always said that she was the mother of all psychological suspense novelists. What's intresting is how few, fifty-some years after her death, have come close to equaling her enormous powers.
March 2, 2016
Pro-File: Marilyn Todd
Critical acclaim for Marilyn Todd includes: “one of the best mystery short story writers of her generation,” Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine“delectably enjoyable” Daily Mail“the Roman detail is deft, the pace as fast as a champion gladiator” Sunday Express“never boring” Kirkus“terrific read, thoroughly entertaining” The Bookseller“delightful plot machinations, deliciously drawn characters” Library Journal“wry and entertaining”, Mystery Scene Magazine 1.Tell us about your current book."Swords, Sandals & Sirens" - a collection of murder mysteries featuring everyone from Cleopatra to superbitch Claudia Seferius via the Delphic Oracle. Even little Echo saves the day on Mount Olympus. (Published by Crippen & Landru).
2. Can you give a sense of what you're working on now?My 17th novel, a stand-alone set in the world of champagne during the Belle Epoque. A baby is kidnapped. Eight years later, his father is murdered. The crimes are connected, but can anyone prove it?
3. What is the greatest pleasure of a writing career?Freedom!
4. What is the greatest DISpleasure?Researching locations in hot Mediterranean climates. Drinking champagne to be able to write authoritatively on the subject. Visiting ghost towns in America that win me awards for my writing. This life is hell.
5. If you have one piece of advice for the publishing world, what is it?Take me, I'm yours..........
6. Are there two or three forgotten mystery writers you'd like to see in print again?Damon Runyon. Damon Runyon. Damon Runyon.
7. Tell us about selling your first novel. Most writers never forget that moment. I'd sent an agent a novel about … pirates in the Caribbean on a ship called the Black Pearl. She was very complimentary about my writing style, but said it wasn’t what she was looking for. So I rang her, asked ‘What are you looking for, then?’ She said "Ancient Rome, murder, pro-active female protagonist.’ Six months later, Macmillan gave me a contract for "I, Claudia" and eighty publishing contracts later, I've never looked back.
March 1, 2016
Brand new from Max Allan Collins
The Big ShowdownMarch 1st, 2016 by Max Allan Collins
[Nate here:] Before we get to M.A.C.’s pre-written blog update, I have a quick update on M.A.C. Dad’s recovery has been going great (aside from the food, but they got the important things right, at least!) and he should be on his way home today. Here’s a picture from this weekend:
– – – – – –
Hardcover:
E-Book:
THE BIG SHOWDOWN, second of the Caleb York westerns – there will be at least three – will be published April 26.
This is the first time I’ve published a novel where I share a byline with Mickey Spillane despite there being no Spillane content. As regular readers of these updates (and my novels) know, I have been completing Mike Hammer manuscripts (and a few other novels) that were unfinished in Mickey’s files. He specifically directed his wife Jane and me to do so.
But also in the files were three unproduced screenplays. Two are noir horror pieces that I hope to find a home for, but one was THE SAGA OF CALLI YORK, a screenplay written for John Wayne. I took Mickey’s script and essentially novelized it (could I hate that term more?); I changed “Calli” to “Caleb,” which Calli was short for, though I never use that nickname in the novels, and “Saga” to “Legend,” because the latter term plays better for the narrative at hand.
The trouble was, my terrific editor at Kensington, Michaela Hamilton, wanted at least three books. Rather than leave Caleb hanging (so to speak), I said yes…then for many months drove my wife Barb crazy as I speculated on what to do with the other two novels.
Mickey’s backstory indicated York was a famous detective for Western Union, and I considered doing prequels to THE LEGEND OF CALEB YORK, possibly focusing on real desperados. But it was Barb who rode to the rescue (sorry), suggesting that instead I write a sequel (possibly a series of them) utilizing the setting, characters and conflicts Mickey had created – taking Mickey’s story and letting it really play out. That made it feel more proper to share byline with him.
“Stay in his world,” Barb advised.
So that’s what I did. I had a blast writing it and have already plotted the third, again playing off of what Mickey wrote. Again, I tried to do a western in the Hollywood tradition of Randolph Scott, Joel McRea and Audie Murphy, but with the violence ratcheted up a notch.
I just read the galley proofs and liked it a lot. You may, also.
M.A.C.
[Nate here for the review round-up:]
A nice review for Murder Never Knocks showed up from across the pond on Crimetime, originally posted on Irresistible Target. (“one of the best of the Max and Mickey Mike Hammers.”)
Halifax’s (The) Chronicle Herald gave Kill Me, Darling a much appreciated mention in a recommended reading list for winter vacation, which is apparently a thing. (“Not just a great Mike Hammer novel; a great crime novel, without qualification.“)
The Open Book Society posted a flat-out rave for Quarry’s List . (“The plot is Mickey Spillane and Mario Puzo balled into one and spit out faster than the gout of flame from a jet engine.“) It’s been fun seeing the earlier Quarrys get some nice attention lately, especially since I’ve been reading them again, too, for the first time since pulling them out of my father’s basement library when I was younger than I should admit here.
J. Kingston Pierce’s Killer Covers blog gave a shout-out to The Consummata . Definitely click that link (here it is again) because he features some supremely cool covers there.
The X-Files anthology, Trust No One , got a nice review from the Lawrence Public Library blog, with Max’s short story “The House on Hickory Hill” garnering a special recommendation. (“[Trust No One] brings new life into an area that bookish fans of the program have sorely missed.“)
N.A.C.Tags: Caleb York, Kill Me Darling, Mike Hammer, Murder Never Knocks, Quarry, Quarry's List, Reviews, Spillane, The Big Showdown, The Consummata, The Legend of Caleb York, The X-Files, Trust No One
Posted in Message from M.A.C. | 1 Comment »
[Nate here:] Before we get to M.A.C.’s pre-written blog update, I have a quick update on M.A.C. Dad’s recovery has been going great (aside from the food, but they got the important things right, at least!) and he should be on his way home today. Here’s a picture from this weekend:
– – – – – –
Hardcover:
E-Book:
THE BIG SHOWDOWN, second of the Caleb York westerns – there will be at least three – will be published April 26.This is the first time I’ve published a novel where I share a byline with Mickey Spillane despite there being no Spillane content. As regular readers of these updates (and my novels) know, I have been completing Mike Hammer manuscripts (and a few other novels) that were unfinished in Mickey’s files. He specifically directed his wife Jane and me to do so.
But also in the files were three unproduced screenplays. Two are noir horror pieces that I hope to find a home for, but one was THE SAGA OF CALLI YORK, a screenplay written for John Wayne. I took Mickey’s script and essentially novelized it (could I hate that term more?); I changed “Calli” to “Caleb,” which Calli was short for, though I never use that nickname in the novels, and “Saga” to “Legend,” because the latter term plays better for the narrative at hand.
The trouble was, my terrific editor at Kensington, Michaela Hamilton, wanted at least three books. Rather than leave Caleb hanging (so to speak), I said yes…then for many months drove my wife Barb crazy as I speculated on what to do with the other two novels.
Mickey’s backstory indicated York was a famous detective for Western Union, and I considered doing prequels to THE LEGEND OF CALEB YORK, possibly focusing on real desperados. But it was Barb who rode to the rescue (sorry), suggesting that instead I write a sequel (possibly a series of them) utilizing the setting, characters and conflicts Mickey had created – taking Mickey’s story and letting it really play out. That made it feel more proper to share byline with him.
“Stay in his world,” Barb advised.
So that’s what I did. I had a blast writing it and have already plotted the third, again playing off of what Mickey wrote. Again, I tried to do a western in the Hollywood tradition of Randolph Scott, Joel McRea and Audie Murphy, but with the violence ratcheted up a notch.
I just read the galley proofs and liked it a lot. You may, also.
M.A.C.
[Nate here for the review round-up:]
A nice review for Murder Never Knocks showed up from across the pond on Crimetime, originally posted on Irresistible Target. (“one of the best of the Max and Mickey Mike Hammers.”)
Halifax’s (The) Chronicle Herald gave Kill Me, Darling a much appreciated mention in a recommended reading list for winter vacation, which is apparently a thing. (“Not just a great Mike Hammer novel; a great crime novel, without qualification.“)
The Open Book Society posted a flat-out rave for Quarry’s List . (“The plot is Mickey Spillane and Mario Puzo balled into one and spit out faster than the gout of flame from a jet engine.“) It’s been fun seeing the earlier Quarrys get some nice attention lately, especially since I’ve been reading them again, too, for the first time since pulling them out of my father’s basement library when I was younger than I should admit here.
J. Kingston Pierce’s Killer Covers blog gave a shout-out to The Consummata . Definitely click that link (here it is again) because he features some supremely cool covers there.
The X-Files anthology, Trust No One , got a nice review from the Lawrence Public Library blog, with Max’s short story “The House on Hickory Hill” garnering a special recommendation. (“[Trust No One] brings new life into an area that bookish fans of the program have sorely missed.“)
N.A.C.Tags: Caleb York, Kill Me Darling, Mike Hammer, Murder Never Knocks, Quarry, Quarry's List, Reviews, Spillane, The Big Showdown, The Consummata, The Legend of Caleb York, The X-Files, Trust No One
Posted in Message from M.A.C. | 1 Comment »
February 25, 2016
Forgotten Books: Down There by David Goodis from 2010
Forgotten Books: Down There by David Goodis from 2010
"Love between the ugly/is the most beautiful love of all."
--Todd Rundgren
I haven't kept up with all the Goodis mania of the past five years or so so forgive me if what I'm about to say has been said not only better but quite often as well.
To me Down There is one of Goodis' finest novels filled with all his strengths and none of his weaknesses. The world here is his natural milieu, the world of America's underclass. Yes, there are working class men and women in Harriet's Hut, the tavern in which a good share of the action happens, but most of the book centers on two people, Eddie Lynn, the strange protagonist and piano player and Lena, the strange somewhat masochistic waitress. They live on pennies.
The story is this: Eddie's brother Turley is a criminal and a criminal being sought by two killers. In defending Turley, allowing him to escape, Eddie himself becomes a target. Not until well into the novel do we learn why the killers want to "talk" to Turley. It takes almost as long to learn Eddie's personal secret, that he was once a Carnegie Hall attraction with a golden future of him. What happened?
Triffault filmed this in the sixties. Much as I like Triffault's films I was disappointed by this one. There is a purity of composition here that Triffault missed entirely. Few crime writers have the skill to vary melodrama and comedy as well as Goodis did. Even fewer have the nerve to extend set pieces the way he does.
For just one example there's a scene where the two killers have captured Eddie and Lena and are taking them to find Turley. The two men, Morris and Feather, begin to argue about Feather's driving. This becomes a mean, bitchy Laurel and Hardy sequence with the heavy threat of violence. This is a kidnapping scene. The comedy isn't foreshadowed. A high risk break in mood. And it works perfectly. And it is three or four times longer than most scenes found in the paperback originals of the time.
The Todd Rundgren quote applies to many of Goodis' lovers and never more so than here. Even by Goodis standards these two people are ugly with failure, with distrust of the world, with contempt for the values most people hold dear and most of all with loathing for what they've become. Goodis breaks your heart with them, especially in the surreal scene in which they are forced to hide out. Lena touches Eddie's arm--one of the first time they have any physical contact of any kind--and it's powerfully erotic because it is charged with desperation and an inkling of trust and forgiveness.
No matter where you look you won't find a novel as unique, and as shrewdly observed (there's a long bar scene that would fit perfectly into The Iceman Cometh) as Down There. I guess it's time I need to get all caught up in this Goodis mania after all.
"Love between the ugly/is the most beautiful love of all."
--Todd Rundgren
I haven't kept up with all the Goodis mania of the past five years or so so forgive me if what I'm about to say has been said not only better but quite often as well.
To me Down There is one of Goodis' finest novels filled with all his strengths and none of his weaknesses. The world here is his natural milieu, the world of America's underclass. Yes, there are working class men and women in Harriet's Hut, the tavern in which a good share of the action happens, but most of the book centers on two people, Eddie Lynn, the strange protagonist and piano player and Lena, the strange somewhat masochistic waitress. They live on pennies.
The story is this: Eddie's brother Turley is a criminal and a criminal being sought by two killers. In defending Turley, allowing him to escape, Eddie himself becomes a target. Not until well into the novel do we learn why the killers want to "talk" to Turley. It takes almost as long to learn Eddie's personal secret, that he was once a Carnegie Hall attraction with a golden future of him. What happened?
Triffault filmed this in the sixties. Much as I like Triffault's films I was disappointed by this one. There is a purity of composition here that Triffault missed entirely. Few crime writers have the skill to vary melodrama and comedy as well as Goodis did. Even fewer have the nerve to extend set pieces the way he does.
For just one example there's a scene where the two killers have captured Eddie and Lena and are taking them to find Turley. The two men, Morris and Feather, begin to argue about Feather's driving. This becomes a mean, bitchy Laurel and Hardy sequence with the heavy threat of violence. This is a kidnapping scene. The comedy isn't foreshadowed. A high risk break in mood. And it works perfectly. And it is three or four times longer than most scenes found in the paperback originals of the time.
The Todd Rundgren quote applies to many of Goodis' lovers and never more so than here. Even by Goodis standards these two people are ugly with failure, with distrust of the world, with contempt for the values most people hold dear and most of all with loathing for what they've become. Goodis breaks your heart with them, especially in the surreal scene in which they are forced to hide out. Lena touches Eddie's arm--one of the first time they have any physical contact of any kind--and it's powerfully erotic because it is charged with desperation and an inkling of trust and forgiveness.
No matter where you look you won't find a novel as unique, and as shrewdly observed (there's a long bar scene that would fit perfectly into The Iceman Cometh) as Down There. I guess it's time I need to get all caught up in this Goodis mania after all.
February 23, 2016
Max Allan Collins' new post
Ed here: I'm adjusting to the (now) six-seven hour infusions so I'm posting again. Isn't it great to see Al Collins posting after his surgery!!!!!!
Murder Never KnocksFebruary 23rd, 2016 by Max Allan Collins
[Before we get to this week’s post, a quick update from Nate: Dad has graduated from the ICU to the step-down unit and now on to the inpatient rehabilitation unit where he’s working hard to get back on his feet. Thank you everyone for your outpouring of support, which gave us something we could always turn to when we needed a boost.]
Hardcover:
E-Book:
Audio MP3 CD:
Audible:
As some of you may know, MURDER NEVER KNOCKS was originally announced – and even listed at Amazon, including cover art – as DON’T LOOK BEHIND YOU. I was asked to come up with a different title, more overtly noir/PI, when the Titan sales force noted that sales were better for LADY, GO DIE! and KILL ME, DARLINGthan for COMPLEX 90 and KING OF THE WEEDS.
Stacy Keach pointed out to me, when we were doing the radio-play-style novels-for-audio, THE LITTLE DEATH and ENCORE FOR MURDER, that all of the Hammer TV movies he starred in had “murder” in the title. That steered me toward the title I finally picked for this novel…or I should say that Titan finally picked, as I gave them half a dozen possibilities.
Mickey’s title, DON’T LOOK BEHIND YOU, was in part a tribute to his favorite crime writer, Frederic Brown, who wrote a famous and wonderful story of that title about a demented typesetter. Mickey had two alternate titles, THE CONTROLLED KILL and THE CONTROLLER, which I didn’t think were right for the novel as it developed. Mickey devised some of the greatest titles in mystery fiction – hard to top I, THE JURY and KISS ME, DEADLY – so it’s important that I go with titles that serve him well. I happen to like both COMPLEX 90 and KING OF THE WEEDS as titles – both were Mickey’s choice – but I understand that neither one immediately suggests mystery or suspense. Still, terrific titles, I think.
This time I worked from around thirty pages of Mickey’s, plus some plot notes and the ending of the book. Mickey often spoke about writing the ending first, but this is only one of two times (the other being THE GOLIATH BONE) that I found those endings. By the way, Mickey’s ending for THE GOLIATH BONE was reworked into that of the second-to-the-last chapter of that novel; the actual last chapter is mine, as Mickey’s manuscript was a thriller and did not contain a murder mystery aspect…and I felt it necessary to add that.
On the other hand, several of our collaborative novels reflect endings that Mickey told me about – THE BIG BANG and KING OF THE WEEDS in particular.
It’s also necessary for me to try to figure out when Mickey’s partial manuscripts were written, so that I can set them properly within the chronology, as well as know what books of Mickey’s to read to get me in the right mind set. Initially, I thought MURDER NEVER KNOCKS/DON’T LOOK BEHIND YOU was a ’50s manuscript. But interior evidence – for example, mention of certain NYC newspapers that had recently gone out of business – indicated the late ’60s. That allowed me to do some Greenwich Village characters and scenes that reflect the hippie era.
The basic plot has Hammer up against a Moriarty-type villain (as was the case in KING OF THE WEEDS). This time Hammer has been selected by the superstar hitman among hitmen, preparing to retire, for the honor of being his last kill.
MURDER NEVER KNOCKS will be out March 8 – in time for Mickey’s 98th birthday on March 9.
In celebration of that, here’s a fun excerpt from a great interview with Woody Allen in the January issue of WRITTEN BY, the Screen Writer’s Guild magazine. The interviewer notes that the filmmaker became a great reader, despite a lack of a university education. Woody says:
“I read because the women that I liked when I was a teenager lived down in Greenwich Village and they all had those black clothes. The Jules Feiffer women with the black leather bags and the blonde hair and the silver earrings and they all had read Proust and Kafka and Nietzche. And so when I said, ‘No, the only thing I’ve ever read were two books by Mickey Spillane,’ they would look at their watch and I was out. So in order to be able to carry on a conversation with these women who I thought were so beautiful and fascinating, I had to read. So I read. But it wasn’t something I did out of love. I did it out of lust.”M.A.C.
[Nate here:] Two early reviews came in for MURDER NEVER KNOCKS this week. One from the great Mike Dennis (“Score another winner for Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins,” and another from the Garbage File that was decidedly not garbage (“Very enjoyable indeed!”).Tags: Don't Look Behind You, King of the Weeds, Mike Hammer, Murder Never Knocks, Reviews, Spillane, The Big Bang, The Goliath Bone
Posted in Message from M.A.C. | 4 Comments »
Murder Never KnocksFebruary 23rd, 2016 by Max Allan Collins
[Before we get to this week’s post, a quick update from Nate: Dad has graduated from the ICU to the step-down unit and now on to the inpatient rehabilitation unit where he’s working hard to get back on his feet. Thank you everyone for your outpouring of support, which gave us something we could always turn to when we needed a boost.]
Hardcover:
E-Book:
Audio MP3 CD:
Audible:
As some of you may know, MURDER NEVER KNOCKS was originally announced – and even listed at Amazon, including cover art – as DON’T LOOK BEHIND YOU. I was asked to come up with a different title, more overtly noir/PI, when the Titan sales force noted that sales were better for LADY, GO DIE! and KILL ME, DARLINGthan for COMPLEX 90 and KING OF THE WEEDS.Stacy Keach pointed out to me, when we were doing the radio-play-style novels-for-audio, THE LITTLE DEATH and ENCORE FOR MURDER, that all of the Hammer TV movies he starred in had “murder” in the title. That steered me toward the title I finally picked for this novel…or I should say that Titan finally picked, as I gave them half a dozen possibilities.
Mickey’s title, DON’T LOOK BEHIND YOU, was in part a tribute to his favorite crime writer, Frederic Brown, who wrote a famous and wonderful story of that title about a demented typesetter. Mickey had two alternate titles, THE CONTROLLED KILL and THE CONTROLLER, which I didn’t think were right for the novel as it developed. Mickey devised some of the greatest titles in mystery fiction – hard to top I, THE JURY and KISS ME, DEADLY – so it’s important that I go with titles that serve him well. I happen to like both COMPLEX 90 and KING OF THE WEEDS as titles – both were Mickey’s choice – but I understand that neither one immediately suggests mystery or suspense. Still, terrific titles, I think.
This time I worked from around thirty pages of Mickey’s, plus some plot notes and the ending of the book. Mickey often spoke about writing the ending first, but this is only one of two times (the other being THE GOLIATH BONE) that I found those endings. By the way, Mickey’s ending for THE GOLIATH BONE was reworked into that of the second-to-the-last chapter of that novel; the actual last chapter is mine, as Mickey’s manuscript was a thriller and did not contain a murder mystery aspect…and I felt it necessary to add that.
On the other hand, several of our collaborative novels reflect endings that Mickey told me about – THE BIG BANG and KING OF THE WEEDS in particular.
It’s also necessary for me to try to figure out when Mickey’s partial manuscripts were written, so that I can set them properly within the chronology, as well as know what books of Mickey’s to read to get me in the right mind set. Initially, I thought MURDER NEVER KNOCKS/DON’T LOOK BEHIND YOU was a ’50s manuscript. But interior evidence – for example, mention of certain NYC newspapers that had recently gone out of business – indicated the late ’60s. That allowed me to do some Greenwich Village characters and scenes that reflect the hippie era.
The basic plot has Hammer up against a Moriarty-type villain (as was the case in KING OF THE WEEDS). This time Hammer has been selected by the superstar hitman among hitmen, preparing to retire, for the honor of being his last kill.
MURDER NEVER KNOCKS will be out March 8 – in time for Mickey’s 98th birthday on March 9.
In celebration of that, here’s a fun excerpt from a great interview with Woody Allen in the January issue of WRITTEN BY, the Screen Writer’s Guild magazine. The interviewer notes that the filmmaker became a great reader, despite a lack of a university education. Woody says:
“I read because the women that I liked when I was a teenager lived down in Greenwich Village and they all had those black clothes. The Jules Feiffer women with the black leather bags and the blonde hair and the silver earrings and they all had read Proust and Kafka and Nietzche. And so when I said, ‘No, the only thing I’ve ever read were two books by Mickey Spillane,’ they would look at their watch and I was out. So in order to be able to carry on a conversation with these women who I thought were so beautiful and fascinating, I had to read. So I read. But it wasn’t something I did out of love. I did it out of lust.”M.A.C.
[Nate here:] Two early reviews came in for MURDER NEVER KNOCKS this week. One from the great Mike Dennis (“Score another winner for Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins,” and another from the Garbage File that was decidedly not garbage (“Very enjoyable indeed!”).Tags: Don't Look Behind You, King of the Weeds, Mike Hammer, Murder Never Knocks, Reviews, Spillane, The Big Bang, The Goliath Bone
Posted in Message from M.A.C. | 4 Comments »
February 2, 2016
health update
I thought I handled my health news pretty well but then Carol read it after I posted it (and three good friends called to check in) and said I needed to explain myself. I've been getting cancer drug infusions of up to twelve hours each. I haven't been this sick since my stem cell transplant. I have several more of these to deal with over the coming months so I need to save my strength. That's why I won't be posting for a while. Thanks.
February 1, 2016
GOLD MEDAL IN THE ‘90s: ‘THE THREATENERS’ BY DONALD HAMILTON (1992)
GOLD MEDAL IN THE ‘90s: ‘THE THREATENERS’ BY DONALD HAMILTON (1992)Fred Blosser
The Matt Helm series ended in 1993 with “The Damagers,” at least in terms of published works by Donald Hamilton. There’s said to be an unpublished manuscript, “The Dominators.” You’re not going to find fugitive PDFs of that one on Google (I looked), and at that, “The Damagers” isn’t much more accessible unless you’re a completist with a generous budget; copies are relatively expensive from used-book dealers. However, you can find the next-to-final published installment, “The Threateners” from September 1992, at reasonable prices.
In this final decade of Fawcett Gold Medal Books, Hamilton was one of the last of the old-timers still in the stable, along with Marvin Albert at the tag end of his late-career “Stone Angel” series and John D. MacDonald simply in reprint form. The label itself, by then owned by Ballantine Books, in turn a division of Random House, was nearly moribund. I don’t think it survived into the new millennium, in any form, to celebrate a 50th anniversary in 2000, but I could be wrong.
At 293 pages, “The Threateners” is twice the length of the earliest, leanest Matt Helm novels. The cover art is generic for ‘90s-era men’s fiction: a bullet-riddled outline of South America, with a gat and crosshairs superimposed. Matt Helm’s name is mentioned in the cover blurb, but there’s no reference to the book being part of a series, although the fact is acknowledged inside with a full listing of all 25 previous titles.
With most of the earlier books out of print by then, maybe the marketing department had no financial incentive to promote “The Threateners” as “#26 in the series,” as it once would have. That sad decline from the series’ golden days in the 1960s, and the simple but touching dedication at the front of the book (“In memory of Kathleen Hamilton, 1915-1989”), cast a melancholy shadow over the novel for those of us who came to Hamilton and Helm in their prime.
By 1992, with Soviet and Red Chinese conspiracies no longer an international menace, Helm’s missions had begun to center on other threats to world peace such as freelance terrorists and rogue states. In “The Threateners,” it’s a Colombian drug kingpin, Gregorio Vasquez, “El Viejo.” A Peruvian journalist under U.S. protection is investigating Vasquez’s plan to “destroy the U.S. by flooding the country with drugs at bargain prices that no one can resist.” Vasquez has put a million-dollar bounty on the journalist’s head to keep the writer from publishing his expose. Hamilton’s inspiration for this plot element in then-recent, real-life events is duly noted when one character comments, “The Latins obviously got the idea from the Rushdie case.”
Agent Eric is skeptical that the plot to flood the States with cheap coke, even if executed, would wreak the intended havoc: “there’s a liquor store on every corner now, and we aren’t all running around drunk.” Nevertheless, events set him on a collision course with El Viejo. The journalist is murdered by the kingpin’s hit men, and the journalist’s U.S.-born widow travels to South America to retrieve the dead man’s completed but unpublished book, stored on a series of encrypted diskettes in five different cities (this feature now dates the book as quaintly as the Cold War backdrop dates the 1960s novels). Helm is assigned to tag along to protect her. El Viejo’s killer compañeros aren’t his only worry; a band of radical environmentalists also covets the reward that the diskettes will bring from the kingpin, and a team of rival U.S. agents, drug enforcement variety, intends to stake its own claim. Fellow Fed or not, Helm is just an obstacle to move out of the way or trample under, as circumstances dictate.
Helm’s assignment doesn’t get under way until page 83. That’s where Hamilton probably would have started the novel in the early ‘60s, when the books ran 176 pages at most, and my favorites, “Death of a Citizen” (1960) and “Murderers’ Row” (1962), clocked in at 142 pages and 144 pages, respectively. The backstory would have been filled in with a few expository paragraphs as Matt’s boss Mac handed him his traveling orders.
If you’re a Helm fan no matter whether the novel runs 144 pages or 293 as “The Threateners” does, then the difference isn’t a big deal. You might argue that it’s unfair to judge Hamilton on page count, since he was writing to the publisher’s specs. In earlier days, shorter books were the preferred GM format. Later, as cover prices rose and the page counts increased so that dollar-conscious readers wouldn’t feel stiffed, going longer was the new norm for the market. From that perspective, you could make a case that my preference for the shorter novels is mostly a matter of taste, influenced by nostalgia, since those were the ones that I found on the spinner racks at the impressionable age of 16. I’m not convinced that’s true, but I’ll grant you the argument.
You might also contend that, plot-wise, the first 82 pages of “The Threateners” serve a useful dramatic function by giving us a longer look under Helm’s flinty, sardonic exterior, describing his off-duty routine more fully than the shorter books did, and giving him a couple of additional reasons (besides orders from his boss Mac) to see the mission through to his satisfaction. “This time, it’s personal,” as the movie ad cliche goes.
Ultimately, however, that doesn’t seem to count for much: confronting Vasquez, Helm falls back on professional duty as his motive for liquidating the kingpin: “[The murdered journalist] came to the U.S. for help and we failed him; the least we can do is make certain you don’t ever threaten another writer or journalist or TV reporter.”
Two other interesting features about the novel: when Vasquez’s hit team invades in Chapter 8, one of them tries to strangle Helm with a silken handkerchief; seems they’re adept in the old murder technique of Thugee. Helm, having grabbed an ornamental but functional Bowie knife, nearly beheads his assailant with a killing stroke. It seems more like a flamboyant scene out of one of Robert E. Howard’s ‘30s action-detective pulp stories than a typically understated Matt Helm kill, although it has something of a precedent, going way back, in Helm’s machete duel with the bad guy Von Sachs in “The Ambushers” (1963).Hamilton also seems to have some fun with Helm’s movie image, which arguably would have been fresher in the public mind in 1992 than today. Helm’s occasional consumption of highballs on the South American road trip starts off as a source of friction with the widow in his charge, but it doesn’t dull his edge any, and he realizes it may provide a convenient cover if his enemies underestimate him as “an incompetent stumblebum who [spends] most of his time in an alcoholic daze.” Calling Dean Martin.
The Matt Helm series ended in 1993 with “The Damagers,” at least in terms of published works by Donald Hamilton. There’s said to be an unpublished manuscript, “The Dominators.” You’re not going to find fugitive PDFs of that one on Google (I looked), and at that, “The Damagers” isn’t much more accessible unless you’re a completist with a generous budget; copies are relatively expensive from used-book dealers. However, you can find the next-to-final published installment, “The Threateners” from September 1992, at reasonable prices.
In this final decade of Fawcett Gold Medal Books, Hamilton was one of the last of the old-timers still in the stable, along with Marvin Albert at the tag end of his late-career “Stone Angel” series and John D. MacDonald simply in reprint form. The label itself, by then owned by Ballantine Books, in turn a division of Random House, was nearly moribund. I don’t think it survived into the new millennium, in any form, to celebrate a 50th anniversary in 2000, but I could be wrong.
At 293 pages, “The Threateners” is twice the length of the earliest, leanest Matt Helm novels. The cover art is generic for ‘90s-era men’s fiction: a bullet-riddled outline of South America, with a gat and crosshairs superimposed. Matt Helm’s name is mentioned in the cover blurb, but there’s no reference to the book being part of a series, although the fact is acknowledged inside with a full listing of all 25 previous titles.
With most of the earlier books out of print by then, maybe the marketing department had no financial incentive to promote “The Threateners” as “#26 in the series,” as it once would have. That sad decline from the series’ golden days in the 1960s, and the simple but touching dedication at the front of the book (“In memory of Kathleen Hamilton, 1915-1989”), cast a melancholy shadow over the novel for those of us who came to Hamilton and Helm in their prime.
By 1992, with Soviet and Red Chinese conspiracies no longer an international menace, Helm’s missions had begun to center on other threats to world peace such as freelance terrorists and rogue states. In “The Threateners,” it’s a Colombian drug kingpin, Gregorio Vasquez, “El Viejo.” A Peruvian journalist under U.S. protection is investigating Vasquez’s plan to “destroy the U.S. by flooding the country with drugs at bargain prices that no one can resist.” Vasquez has put a million-dollar bounty on the journalist’s head to keep the writer from publishing his expose. Hamilton’s inspiration for this plot element in then-recent, real-life events is duly noted when one character comments, “The Latins obviously got the idea from the Rushdie case.”
Agent Eric is skeptical that the plot to flood the States with cheap coke, even if executed, would wreak the intended havoc: “there’s a liquor store on every corner now, and we aren’t all running around drunk.” Nevertheless, events set him on a collision course with El Viejo. The journalist is murdered by the kingpin’s hit men, and the journalist’s U.S.-born widow travels to South America to retrieve the dead man’s completed but unpublished book, stored on a series of encrypted diskettes in five different cities (this feature now dates the book as quaintly as the Cold War backdrop dates the 1960s novels). Helm is assigned to tag along to protect her. El Viejo’s killer compañeros aren’t his only worry; a band of radical environmentalists also covets the reward that the diskettes will bring from the kingpin, and a team of rival U.S. agents, drug enforcement variety, intends to stake its own claim. Fellow Fed or not, Helm is just an obstacle to move out of the way or trample under, as circumstances dictate.
Helm’s assignment doesn’t get under way until page 83. That’s where Hamilton probably would have started the novel in the early ‘60s, when the books ran 176 pages at most, and my favorites, “Death of a Citizen” (1960) and “Murderers’ Row” (1962), clocked in at 142 pages and 144 pages, respectively. The backstory would have been filled in with a few expository paragraphs as Matt’s boss Mac handed him his traveling orders.
If you’re a Helm fan no matter whether the novel runs 144 pages or 293 as “The Threateners” does, then the difference isn’t a big deal. You might argue that it’s unfair to judge Hamilton on page count, since he was writing to the publisher’s specs. In earlier days, shorter books were the preferred GM format. Later, as cover prices rose and the page counts increased so that dollar-conscious readers wouldn’t feel stiffed, going longer was the new norm for the market. From that perspective, you could make a case that my preference for the shorter novels is mostly a matter of taste, influenced by nostalgia, since those were the ones that I found on the spinner racks at the impressionable age of 16. I’m not convinced that’s true, but I’ll grant you the argument.
You might also contend that, plot-wise, the first 82 pages of “The Threateners” serve a useful dramatic function by giving us a longer look under Helm’s flinty, sardonic exterior, describing his off-duty routine more fully than the shorter books did, and giving him a couple of additional reasons (besides orders from his boss Mac) to see the mission through to his satisfaction. “This time, it’s personal,” as the movie ad cliche goes.
Ultimately, however, that doesn’t seem to count for much: confronting Vasquez, Helm falls back on professional duty as his motive for liquidating the kingpin: “[The murdered journalist] came to the U.S. for help and we failed him; the least we can do is make certain you don’t ever threaten another writer or journalist or TV reporter.”
Two other interesting features about the novel: when Vasquez’s hit team invades in Chapter 8, one of them tries to strangle Helm with a silken handkerchief; seems they’re adept in the old murder technique of Thugee. Helm, having grabbed an ornamental but functional Bowie knife, nearly beheads his assailant with a killing stroke. It seems more like a flamboyant scene out of one of Robert E. Howard’s ‘30s action-detective pulp stories than a typically understated Matt Helm kill, although it has something of a precedent, going way back, in Helm’s machete duel with the bad guy Von Sachs in “The Ambushers” (1963).Hamilton also seems to have some fun with Helm’s movie image, which arguably would have been fresher in the public mind in 1992 than today. Helm’s occasional consumption of highballs on the South American road trip starts off as a source of friction with the widow in his charge, but it doesn’t dull his edge any, and he realizes it may provide a convenient cover if his enemies underestimate him as “an incompetent stumblebum who [spends] most of his time in an alcoholic daze.” Calling Dean Martin.
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