Rules?

While teaching classes over the years on how to write a mystery, I've come across other people's rules for how to and how not to write. And there are some fine rules out there. But, let's face it, as writers we are already dancing to the beat of a different drummer. Is it okay to bend some of these rules? Break one or two? Or totally ignore them? To screw up a wonderful quote, “Rules? We don't need no stinky rules!”

Now a man named Resnicow wrote some charming rules on how to write a mystery. He didn't specify – but I must – that these rules are only for the classics, or cozies, or drawing room mysteries.

Number one I agree with, unless you're writing under the name of Carolyn Keene:

“1. You're writing a mystery: so kill someone.” That's mostly a keeper.

“2. All clues should be presented clearly and preferably more than once.” Unless you're writing a police procedural, hard-boiled, or suspense.

“3. The information given the reader must be accurate. Do your research.” Okay, another keeper.

“4. All questions must be answered, all loose ends tied up.” Unless, of course, the book is going to have a sequel, or the whole point of the story is unanswered questions.

 That's just some of Mr. Resnicow's rules. But he's not the only one with a list. Back in the day, I found an interesting publication by a group of sci-fi writers out of Houston. They called their opus “The Turkey City Lexicon,” and they divided their rules into groups: Words, Sentences and Paragraphs, Background, and Plot. I'll just recount some of my favorites.

From Words:

“Said” Bookism: Artificial, literary verb used to avoid the perfectly good word “said.” “Said” is one of the few invisible words in the language; it is almost impossible to overuse. Infinitely less distracting than “he retorted,” “she inquired,” or the all time favorite, “he ejaculated.”

And on that subject, my own pet peeve, no identifiers in a discussion involving more than two people. For God's sake, it's two extra words, people! (Now putting soap box away.)

 Tom Swifty: Similar compulsion to follow the word “said” with an adverb. As in, “We'd better hurry,” said Tom swiftly.” Remember, the adverb is a leech sucking the strength from a verb. (I love that last line!)

“Burly Detective” Syndrome: Fear of proper names. This is when you can't call Mike Shayne “Shayne,” but substitute “the burly detective” or “the red-headed sleuth.” It comes from the entirely wrong-headed conviction that you can't use the same word twice in the same sentence.

From Sentences and Paragraphs:

Laugh-track: Characters giving cues to the reader as to how to react. They laugh at their own jokes, cry at their own pain, and (unintentionally) feel everything so the reader doesn't have to.

Hand Waving: Distracting readers with dazzling prose or other fireworks to keep them from noticing a severe logical flaw.

Fuzz: Element of motivation the author is too lazy to supply. The word “somehow” is an automatic tip-off to fuzzy areas of a story: “Somehow she forgot to bring her gun.”

Background:

 

Info Dump: large chunks of indigestible expository matter intended to explain the background situation. This can be overt, as in fake newspaper of “Encyclopedia Glactia” articles inserted in the test, or covert, in which all action stops as the author assumes center stage and lectures.

As you Know, Bob: A form of info dump in which the characters tell each other things they already know, for the sake of getting the reader up to speed.

I've Suffered for My Art And Now It's Your turn: Research dump.

I call this my personal favorite because, if I do the research, by damn, I'm gonna use it! Okay, half the time I have to go back and delete the boring stuff I learned, but please, ask me about it! I'll give you all the details!

 

And my favorite under Plots:

 

God-in-the-Box: Miraculous solution to an otherwise insoluble problem. “Look, the Martians all caught cold and died!”

Like I mentioned earlier, rules are meant to be used, edited, adapted or broken, but sometimes it's fun to see what other people think good writing is all about.

Harper Lee and Alabama

Sign in front of the Harper Lee Museum, Monroeville, Alabama 
(From FiveThirtyEight; attributed to Andrea Mabry, AP)

Fleetingly we will skirt Georgia before our southerly run continues down the State of Alabama, through Birmingham, and then just east of Monroeville, where Harper Lee still resides.

                         Me                                                                      SleuthSayers
                         January 31, 2016

You never understand a person until you consider things from his point of view . . . until you climb into his skin and walk around in it. 

Before I can live with other folks I’ve got to live with myself. The one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience.

                                                                 Harper Lee 

                                                                 To Kill a Mockingbird 

       One month ago I drove south through the State of Alabama, and as always I thought of Harper Lee when we passed just east of Monroeville, her Alabama refuge for most of her life and the model for the Alabama town of Maycomb, in which To Kill a Mockingbird and Go Set a Watchman take place. It was while I was in Alabama last year that it was announced that Go Set a Watchman, a book that took most of us completely by surprise, would be published. And now this year, during our annual month in Alabama, Harper Lee has passed.  Tomorrow we leave.  But again this year I have spent a lot of time here thinking about Harper Lee, her two books, and what they teach us about Alabama.

       Harper Lee rarely gave interviews. But in one of the few that she did give she had this to say back in 1964:

I would like . . . to do one thing, and I’ve never spoken much about it because it’s such a personal thing. I would like to leave some record of the kind of life that existed in a very small world.

All told Harper Lee left us only two novels -- To Kill a Mockingbird and Go Set a Watchman. Publication of the latter volume was the catalyst for a lot of criticism. That criticism, both literary and ad hominem, is familiar to most readers and need not be regurgitated here. But I would argue (in fact, I have argued) that the two volumes, comprising virtually all of Harper Lee’s literary output, tell us a lot about Harper Lee’s Alabama, and much of what she tells us remains true today. 

       For most of my life I never set foot in Alabama. But in each of the last five years my wife and I have spent the month of February in the State, hunkered down in a rented condominium in Gulf Shores overlooking the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico. We first made this trip at the urging of my wife’s sisters, who had already discovered Gulf Shores, which is convenient to their Midwest homes. They were hardly alone in this discovery -- the stretch of South Alabama has become a flocking ground for so-called “snowbirds,” since it offers a very reasonable retreat from the weather extremes that roll across the nation several hundred miles to the north. This small strip of Alabama shoreline is not as warm as Florida, but is more reasonably priced, enticing us northerners to trade a few degrees of warmth for several dollars of savings. 

       So, what’s not to like?  Well, there is that little problem of history and its imprints.

       The United States has a large footprint, and its many regions have spawned many sub cultures, some of which tend to divide us. So I will admit that when my wife and I first considered re-locating here for the month of February I approached the possibility with a significant degree of historical trepidation. I grew up in St. Louis, Missouri, which certainly is not the liberal bastion of my present home in Washington, D.C. But even in St. Louis, in the 1950s and 1960s of my childhood, Alabama was a place we looked at uncomprehendingly and, well, a bit aghast. From afar we watched the civil rights marches and riots on our television news.  We watched George Wallace’s defiant confrontation with Federal marshals as he attempted to block the doorway to the registrar’s office on the steps of the University of Alabama. 

       All of this had an effect. It was easy -- very easy -- to conclude that while we were far from perfect, these angry folks digging in their heels against racial equality were still uncomfortably different from us. We couldn't figure them out and, indeed, we really did not want to.  My father, I remember, vowed never to set foot in the state. Mississippi either. But today we are talking Alabama. 

      All of this was pretty deeply ingrained in me that first time, five years ago, that I drove south to Alabama. But just as life presents many faces, so, too, does Alabama. Driving south down Interstate 65 the occasional Confederate flag flying by the side of the highway was, in each case, both a confirmation of what I already expected and also off-putting. In contrast, the people we encountered were uniformly charming, gracious and inviting. Alabama’s stories, like all of ours, are complex.

       Here are two. 

       On our first trip to Gulf Shores I wandered into a liquor store on West Beach Boulevard to purchase some scotch. There were no large bottles of Dewars, my favorite brand, on display and I asked the manager if he had any in the back. Shaking his head he apologized, telling me that their stock was a bit low since February was still off season. Then, smiling, he told me to just pick up two smaller bottles and he would knock a few bucks off. Wow, I thought. Never had that happen before. When I brought the two bottles up to checkout the manager pulled a bottle of single malt scotch from under the counter. “This is my favorite,” he said. He then produced two glasses, poured a finger in each, and handed one to me. I picked up the proffered glass and, at 10:30 in the morning we sipped scotch together and talked about the weather and good places to purchase seafood. When I finally got back to the car my wife, waiting patiently inside, asked where I had been for such a long time. “Drinking scotch with my new best friend,” I replied. 

       But then there is this:  On that same trip one evening we went to dinner at DeSoto’s Seafood Kitchen, a Gulf Shores restaurant popular for its southern charm and local fare. As we ate our dinner we became aware of a woman seated at a nearby table.  Indeed, she couldn't be ignored.  In a voice loud enough to make clear that her words were intended to reach beyond her immediate dinner party we (and many others) heard the following harangue:  “Things have gotten so bad,” she hectored, for all to hear, “that in Washington they went and passed a secret Constitutional amendment making it legal for a black man from Kenya to be president.” 

       Each of these stories is Alabama. 

       For years now I have enjoyed the warmth of the sun and of the people here in Gulf Shores. Everyone is uniformly friendly. Smiles abound. But just as Sherlock Holmes famously observed in the context of the dog that did not bark in the night, we need to pay attention to what is present and also to what may be absent.  I never noticed this at first, but it eventually struck me that in all of the restaurants, supermarkets, pharmacies, fish markets, liquor stores and souvenir shops that I have visited in and around Gulf Shores over the years all of the employees that I recall encountering have been Caucasian. Just like in that Sherlock Holmes story, when you recognize the absence, well, it can tell you a lot.  And that is yet another Alabama story.

       As noted at the outset of this piece, Harper Lee was subjected to a good deal of criticism last year when Go Tell a Watchman was published. Many critics could not abide the contrasting portrayals of Atticus Finch that Lee’s two books offered up. How can we square the paragon of Mockingbird with the segregationist of Watchman? Like Alabama, the answer to that question is complex. 

     The two Harper Lee passages at the top of this piece illustrate the dual, and at times conflicting perspectives that the author brought to her life view and to her writing. She balanced the competing tasks of understanding those around her while at the same time judging those characters, and herself, by her own conscience. While some have been critical of Watchman, and its portrayal of Atticus, it seems to me that we need both books to understand Harper Lee and her complicated verdict on Alabama.

       It is Mockingbird that allows us to understand the conscience of Atticus, what Harper Lee identified as “the one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule.” But it is Watchman that reminds us that for all of this Atticus was still a son of Alabama. As Harper Lee explained, you cannot understand anyone, even Atticus, “until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.” Climbing into that skin is Watchman. Abiding by your own conscience is To Kill a Mockingbird. Both are Atticus and both are Alabama. Harper Lee could understand, and love without condoning.

       In the wake of Harper Lee's death the statistical website FiveThirtyEight posted an article this week summarizing the historical demographics of Harper Lee’s town, Monroeville.  The article concluded that little there has really changed over the years.  The 1930s, when Mockingbird was set, appears to be not all that different from the the 1960s, when the novel was published, and not all that different from today. I have never visited Monroeville.  But this sure sounds like Alabama. History leaves footprints, and they sometimes wash away very slowly. 

       Just after the prophet Isaiah uttered the words “go set a watchman” he continued with these: “Let him declare what he seeth.” That is what Harper Lee did when she wrote about Alabama.  And that is what she said she would do in that 1964 interview.

That Astounding Teaching Moment: The Bechdel Test

by Melodie Campbell

In which we address the question:  Will your book appeal to both men and women?

As part of my Crafting a Novel course, which I teach at Sheridan College, I introduce the concept of The Bechdel Test:  that is, does your book (or screenplay) have more than one woman in it with a speaking part; if so, do those two women talk to each other; if so, do they talk about more than a man?

I teach this from the point of view of marketing.  Sixty percent of book purchasers are female.  If you want a female audience as well as male, it’s smart to have a likeable female character that girls or women readers can relate to.  (To contrast, can you imagine many men wanting to read endless books where there was only one male in the book, and he turned out to be a rotter?)

At this point in the last class, one of my thirty-something male students looked down at his own work, in which the only female character turns out to be bad, and is killed before the end.  He then looked up, stunned, and said, “I can’t believe it.  White male privilege – I pride myself in thinking I am especially sensitive to this, and yet, here I am, guilty of it in my own novel. Without even realizing it.”

It was an astounding teaching moment.

Of my current class of ten, four out of five men were indeed writing books that failed the Bechdel test.  They hadn’t even realized it.  They certainly didn’t intend this.  And they all plan to revise their manuscripts to address it.

Which brings me to the second point of this post: sometimes the teacher can be the student.

I love when this happens. 

A few weeks ago, I asked another student of mine why she liked to read genre romance books.  I am not a romance reader, so I am always curious about what compels other women to read the genre.  She said, “Because they’re about women.”

Huh? That shocked me. I responded, “Well, really they are about the growing romance between a two people and overcoming obstacles to being together.”  We had covered this in depth, during our breakdown of the genres.  Did she miss that class?

My student said, “But they are written from the point of view of a woman.  And the woman always has friends.  Ever since I stopped reading YA, I’ve had problems finding strong female characters in novels, or sometimes any at all. That’s what was so good about YA.  There were always female characters I could relate to.”

Which got me thinking.  Many fantasy books are published, including both sword and sorcery, and dystopian.  But I bet when you think of recent bestsellers (meaning 21^st century) you think of Harry Potter, and The Hunger Games.  Okay, and maybe Twilight.  Did the soaring success of these have a lot to do with the fact that there were strong female characters in significant roles? 

Damn straight. Hermione is a delight.  What a role model for young female readers.  The female star of The Hunger Games is a very different sort of heroine, but also wonderful.  One might even say, unique.

Like many, many readers, when I read a book, the experience is all the better if I can find a character to relate to.  Let me go further:  I like to sit on the shoulder of this character, and even imagine I have become the character for the duration of the story.  That’s magic for me.

And it’s magic for many readers. 

This term, while my students learned about The Bechtel Test, I discovered, or perhaps relearned, another important lesson from my romance-reading student:

Write for readers.  Anyone can write for themselves.  That’s easy.  Writing for 10,000 readers - that's much harder.

If you are a professional, you are writing for others, as well as yourself. 

Always keep your reader in mind.

Melodie Campbell's award-winning mob Goddaughter series passes the Bechdel test for both men and women.   The latest has just been released:  THE GODDAUGHTER CAPER

You can buy it most places.

on Amazon

A Short Post (Shocking, I know)

By Dixon Hill

If all goes well, as you read this I'm beginning my second day at my first mystery writers conference.

I've never attended a conference of this type before.  For one thing, I have neither the resources nor time to travel much.  When I learned that Left Coast Crime was to be held in downtown Phoenix, however, my travel concerns evaporated.  And, when I got the word, a few days ago, that my employer was willing to let me take the necessary time off work, I suddenly found I could finally attend a writers conference!

So, this weekend, I'm attending Left Coast Crime.

I have no idea what I'm in for.  But, I'm looking forward to meeting other members of SleuthSayers, as well as other authors and various members of the publishing industry.  I only got my final permissions lined up at the last moment, however, so I'm busy jumping through hoops to complete everything I need to finish before taking off for the conference.

Thus, my entry today will be short.  Something that's sure to astound most folks who've read my posts!

I'll do my best to take some pics, so I can post them and let you know how things went.

If you have any suggestions for me -- such as, for instance, conference activities I should definitely attend -- feel free to make them in the "Comments" section of this blog post.  I'll have my cell phone with me, so I should get the chance to read them, though I might not have the chance to respond in a timely manner.

See you in two weeks!
--Dixon

R.I.P. Maurice White

by Brian Thornton

Another month, another death of a musical icon who made a name for himself in the musical proving ground of the 1970s.

I did not start out as a fan of Earth, Wind & Fire. In fact, it was years after their late '70s peak before I

The great Maurice White, sans kalimba

gave them much thought at all. That goes double for the guy dancing center stage, singing and either joyfully whacking on a tympani or joyfully playing on a kalimba, Maurice White.

At the time I was barely into my teens, and like many (but hardly all) of my peers, I had an intense loathing for that hottest of music fads of the era: disco. So when Earth, Wind & Fire released "Boogie Wonderland," with that steady beat and those simplistic lyrics, I lumped them in with the likes of K.C. & the Sunshine Band, Alicia Bridges, Amii Stewart, Andy Gibb (Lot of "A" listers there, I know!), Yvonne Eliman, the S.O.S. Band, and so on.

In other words, I didn't get Earth, Wind & Fire, at all.

Because you could call these guys a soul band, or a funk band, a pop band or even a rock band,  but disco? Nope. Bassist Verdine White (Maurice's younger brother) famously said of "Boogie Wonderland": "I guess you could say we were at the party but didn't get on the dance floor."

The great Maurice White, with kalimba, but sans fashion sense

And it all started with the inimitable Maurice White.

From a recent article in UK paper The Independent:

"Maurice White, a sometime jazz session drummer for the Ramsey Lewis Trio, founded the band that would become Earth, Wind & Fire in Chicago in pre-disco 1969. His outfit has undergone several sonic shifts over the years. 'When we go to Europe everyone says we’re a funk group,' says Bailey. 'But if you got to know us through "Zanzibar" [from the 1973 LP Head to the Sky], you’d say we were a fusion band. If you came in on [the 1979 single] "After the Love is Gone", you’d say we were a love song group. We’re a cross between all of those things. Maurice always called it ‘Spectrum Music’.”

And giving their catalog a listen bears this notion out. Songs like "September", "After the Love Is Gone", "Fantasy", "Shining Star", "That's The Way Of The World", "Sing A Song", and "Let's Groove", just to name a few, are all over the place, tied together by a soulful approach and the infectious joy that is EWF's calling card.

In interview after interview, band members like vocalists Phillip Bailey, Ralph Johnson and younger

Verdine and Maurice, showing some joy, but still not much fashion sense

brother Verdine are unanimous in laying the credit for this core of joy in their music at the feet of EWF founder and long-time front man Maurice White.

Of all things it was not one of their terrific original songs, but their cover of a Beatles song that really got me to pay attention and really listen to EWF. I'm speaking, of course, about "Got To Get You Into My Life". I mean, jeeze, just listen to those horn lines! And everything is so tight.

Truly a masterpiece.

And can there be a better example of "Spectrum Music" than this "Afro-Soul" reinterpretation of one of a British pop-rock band's lesser hits?

I think not.

Maurice White had health problems for decades, suffering first from Multiple Sclerosis and then from Parkinson's Disease, the combination of which led to him giving up first touring and eventually even recording with the band that he founded and helped make into a decades-spanning legend.

All that said, he seems never to have lost that megawatt smile and the joie de vivre that seems to have been his defining characteristic.

Maurice White: at age 74, still gone too soon.

Truly a masterpiece.

Sauce for the Goose

Meanwhile, back on the spook front, a couple or three developments. Maybe not all of a piece. They just bunched up on the radar around the same time.

To begin with, NSA has announced the establishment of a new Directorate of Operations, to oversee two previously separate missions - known as Signals Intelligence and Information Assurance - the first their offensive eavesdropping capacity, and the second their security firewalls. This is kind of a big deal, although it might not seem like it to an outside. The intelligence agencies prefer not to cross-pollinate.

Although inter-agency and intra-agency transparency looks good on paper, there are inherent risks, and they don't necessarily have a lot to do with jurisdiction or budget fights. Yes, you always have to live with dedicated turf warriors, but this is actually about keeping your assets secure and compartmentalized. For many years, CIA has maintained an institutional divide between Intelligence and Operations, and resisted calls to integrate. You could argue one mission is passive and the other active, but more to the point, a compromise on one side of the shop doesn't jeopardize the other. You limit your exposure. You're not giving up a roadmap to sources and methods.

So it's a trade-off. NSA may well enhance its analytical skills, of intercepted traffic and in defense against cyber attack. They may also be opening the watertight doors.

The next thing that caught my attention probably falls under the heading of Old Wine, New Bottles. Some while ago, DARPA came up with a program, or a menu of programs, called Total Information Awareness. This was shelved, for a time, and then implemented by fits and starts, not as a fully coherent approach. Then come the Snowden leaks, and data-mining is on everybody's lips. Nancy Pelosi and the House Intelligence Committee are shocked, shocked, but eventually the smoke blows away. Now a new tool has surfaced, called Information Volume and Velocity. (Don't you love these names?) This is designed to model trends on social media, among other platforms.

The most obvious application is counterterrorism. ISIS, for one, and the insurgents in the North Caucasus, for another, are more than familiar with Twitter and Facebook. They use them for recruitment, and public relations, and for command-and-control in the field - although lately the more popular vehicle has been on-line simulator games. You can see the appeal of a first-person shooter.

The problem, from NSA's point of view (or CIA, or the FBI, or Homeland Security), isn't data collection. The issue is how to process the material, and spin gold out of straw. The volume, not to mention the velocity, is impossible to keep up with. What they've got is an embarrassment of riches. The information environment is overwhelming. They need a filtering mechanism, to define the threat posture.

Last but not least, we have the recent Apple dust-up. This isn't a theoretical, or preventative policing. It's a question that came up after the San Bernadino shootings last December. Farook, one of the shooters, had an iPhone. FBI investigators would like to unlock it, and Apple says they won't provide a way to defeat the encryption. What we got here is real quicksand.

These issues are nowhere near clear-cut, although Apple CEO Tim Cook seems determined to frame it in apocalyptic terms and FBI Director James Comey is taking a predictably hard line. The law-and-order argument is uncomplicated. Comey says, we need to pursue every lead, in case other people are involved. We have a duly-issued search warrant for the digital contents of the phone, and the manufacturer has a legal and moral obligation to comply. Apple has in fact given the FBI everything it could download from the Cloud, but it refuses to write code that would reverse-engineer the encrypted data that's on the phone itself. Apple maintains that this would of necessity amount to a master key, that would unlock any iPhone. In other words, they could no longer market a secure product. They may cloak it in civil liberties, but it's a business decision.

The disingenuousness, or hypocrisy, on both sides, doesn't take away from either position. Comey's point is perfectly well taken, and so is Cook's. And for once, although I'm sure there are people who probably think I never met a surveillance program I didn't like, I'm with Apple on this one. Whether you trust U.S. federal agencies to take the high road is irrelevant. There are other countries in the world. There are more than a few that bully their own citizens, and whose management of information technology is anything but benign. We'd be handing them a loaded gun.

Is there a common thread? I dunno. There's no hard and fast. Maybe it signifies, maybe not. Stuff drifts past in my peripheral vision, and sometimes it catches the light.

The Line-Up (Great Lines) – Pt. I, Film Noir 1

One of my favorite film noirs is Born to Kill, with Lawrence Tierney, Claire Trevor, Walter Slezak and Elisha Cook, Jr. If you’re in too good of a mood and you want to get knocked down a little, spend a couple hours with these people. Some of the nastiest in the original noir cycle. After you do you’ll need a shower.

That said, the movie has one of my favorite lines of any movie, spoken by Walter Slezak’s sleazy detective character:

Delivery Boy: My that coffee smells good. Ain't it funny how coffee never tastes as good as it smells.

Albert Arnett (Slezak): As you grow older, you'll discover that life is very much like coffee: the aroma is always better than the actuality. May that be your thought for the day.

I think about that line a lot because it’s so true. Not just about coffee but about all kinds of things in life, the expectation of something often being better than the reality. But this post isn’t really about the line and its philosophical undertones. So maybe I’ll leave that for another time.

But the line got me thinking about a lot of great lines. So that’s what this post is about and Part One will be great lines from three of my favorite noir movies (though not my top 3 except for Double Indemnity). Later parts will deal with other types of movies, westerns, dramas, etc. And then onto the books... But since I’m a noir addict I’ll start with my favorite film addiction.

***

Double Indemnity

For my money the ultimate film noir. If I had to show one noir to a Martian to say “this is film noir” it would be this one. Fred MacMurray plays Walter Neff, the hapless insurance salesman to Barbara Stanwyck’s blonde-wigged femme fatale. She hooks him with her anklet and it’s off to the races after that:

Walter Neff: That's a honey of an anklet you're wearing, Mrs. Dietrichson.

*

Walter Neff: Yes, I killed him. I killed him for money - and a woman - and I didn't get the money and I didn't get the woman. Pretty, isn't it.

*

Walter Neff: Suddenly it came over me that everything would go wrong. It sounds crazy, Keyes, but it's true, so help me. I couldn't hear my own footsteps. It was the walk of a dead man.

*

Walter Neff: How could I have known that murder could sometimes smell like honeysuckle?

*

Phyllis: We're both rotten.
Walter Neff: Only you're a little more rotten.

*

Phyllis: I'm a native Californian. Born right here in Los Angeles.
Walter Neff: They say all native Californians come from Iowa.

*

Walter Neff: You'll be here too?
Phyllis: I guess so, I usually am.
Walter Neff: Same chair, same perfume, same anklet?
Phyllis: I wonder if I know what you mean.
Walter Neff: I wonder if you wonder.

*

Walter Neff: It's just like the first time I came here, isn't it? We were talking about automobile insurance, only you were thinking about murder. And I was thinking about that anklet.

*

Walter Neff: Know why you couldn't figure this one, Keyes? I'll tell ya. 'Cause the guy you were looking for was too close. Right across the desk from ya.
Barton Keyes (Edward G. Robinson): Closer than that, Walter.
Walter Neff: I love you, too.

***

Born to Kill

Claire Trevor and Lawrence Tierney play two of the lowest, meanest, nastiest people you never want to run across. Different from some noirs, much of the movie takes place in upper class San Francisco instead of on the meaner, lower class streets. We see the sleaze and depravity beneath the veneer of civility and respectability. Tierney is a thug, and apparently that’s not too far from the reality of his life. He was busted for drunk and disorderly and assault and battery. And apparently even in his 70s he was getting into trouble. When he played Elaine’s father (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) on Seinfeld they were so scared of him they never asked him back to repeat the role. And on Reservoir Dogs he almost came to blows with Quentin Tarantino because he would show up drunk and not take directions.

In Born to Kill, we have the coffee line mentioned above and several other good ones as well:

Sam Wild (Lawrence Tierney): Oh, I see. You cross the tracks on May Day with a basket of goodies

for the poor slum kid, but back you scoot - and fast - to your own neck o' the woods. Don't you?
Helen Brent (Claire Trevor): I wouldn't say that.
Sam Wild: No, you wouldn't *say* it... but that's the way it is.

*

Mrs. Kraft (to Claire Trevor): You're the coldest iceberg of a woman I ever saw, and the rottenest inside. I've seen plenty, too. I wouldn't trade places with you if they sliced me into little pieces.

*

Helen Brent: I must warn you, though, liquor makes me nosy. I've been known to ask all sorts of personal questions after four cocktails.
Marty Waterman (Cook): 'Sallright. I've been known to tell people to mind their own business. Cold sober, too.

*

Mrs. Kraft: How come you got a hold of this information?
Marty Waterman (Cook): Through underworld connections, like it says in the newspapers. I'm a bad boy.

*

Marty Waterman: You can't just go around killing people when the notion strikes you. It's just not feasible.

*

Mrs. Kraft: Are you trying to scare me?
Helen Brent: I'm just warning you. Perhaps you don't realize - it's painful being killed. A piece of metal sliding into your body, finding its way into your heart. Or a bullet tearing through your skin, crashing into a bone. It takes a while to die, too. Sometimes a long while.

***

The Blue Dahlia

Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake’s third full outing together and probably my favorite. Along for the ride in this Raymond Chandler original screenplay are Hugh Beaumont (later Leave it Beaver’s dad) and the great character actor William Bendix (who also had TV success in The Life of Riley). Ladd and his buddies Bendix and Beaumont are just back from the war—and you know when you say just ‘the war’ it has to be World War II. It seems that Ladd’s wife has been fooling around on him and when she ends up dead the police suspect the estranged husband—or maybe it’s the crazy vet with the plate in his head (Bendix). We’ll see.

Talk about subtext:
'Dad' Newell (Wil Wright): Well, I guess I better be goin', Mr. Harwood.
Eddie Harwood (Howard Da Silva): Wait a minute - you forgot your cigar.
'Dad' Newell: Oh.
Eddie Harwood: I think it's out.
Eddie Harwood: [he lights it] Cigars go out awful easy, don't they, Dad?
Eddie Harwood: [he blows out his lighter for emphasis] Good night.

*

Eddie Harwood: Half the cops in L.A. are looking for you.
Johnny Morrison (Ladd): Only half?

*

Joyce Harwood (Lake): [Joyce offers Johnny a lift in the rain] Get in.
[Johnny hesitates]
Joyce Harwood: Well, you could get wetter if you lie down in the gutter.

*

Eddie Harwood: Drink?
'Dad' Newell: Don't mind if I do but easy on the water.

*

Corelli, motel operator: You still want that room?
Johnny Morrison: [sarcastically] You sure nobody's dead in it?
Corelli, motel operator: [leading him to the room] Right back this way. You live in San Francisco?
Johnny Morrison: [laconically] Yeah, when I'm there.

*

'Dad' Newell: [examining Helen's – Ladd’s wife's – body] Been dead for hours.
Mr. Hughes, assistant hotel manager: Suicide?
'Dad' Newell: Could be.
Mr. Hughes, assistant hotel manager: Better be!
'Dad' Newell: Unh-unh! Too much gun!

*

Johnny Morrison: [discovering his wife in close proximity to Harwood] You've got the wrong lipstick on, Mister.

*

Helen Morrison (Ladd’s wife): I take all the drinks I like, any time, any place. I go where I want to with anybody I want. I just happen to be that kind of a girl.

*

Johnny Morrison: [to the partygoers] Seems I've lost my manners or would anyone here know the difference?

***

Please check out Pam Stack of Authors on the Air Interviewing me a couple of weeks ago: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/authorsontheair/2016/02/04/paul-d-marks-talks-about-writing-and-more-on-authors-on-the-air-live 

And my reading of my Anthony and Macavity-nominated story Howling at the Moon, from Ellery Queen. I don’t think the Barrymore clan has to worry: http://eqmm.podomatic.com/entry/2016-02-01T06_56_00-08_00 

And look for my post on Drinks with Reads at Mystery Playground, going live on Wednesday, Feb. 26th, but one of the pix is already up on the front page: http://www.mysteryplayground.net/p/summer-drinks-with-reads-series.html 

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Check out my website: PaulDMarks.com

Well, that’s all folks. At least for now.

Too Many Cooks...er,Uh...Characters

by Jan Grape

I love to read good books with characters I can care about, root for or at last give them a chance to grow on me enough to keep turning pages and finish the book. Sometimes I think an author gets carried away or else so many characters keep talking that he has to write them all down before they quit talking and he doesn't know what to do.

There are many, many books that have characters that I like so much I'll keep buying that authors books forever. Even in hardback because I can't wait for the next installment. Lee Child's books starring Jack Reacher is one. Child starts off many times giving you a bit of background, a bit of scenery or immediately telling you the problem that Reacher is facing. You may read twenty or thirty pages with only three or four characters introduced. There might be two or three other names mentioned but they probably aren't going to be major...like a sheriff who picks up the walking Jack Reacher or Navy lieutenant who will escort Reacher to a private jet. Before long you've read the aforementioned twenty or so pages and you are right there into the story and know what is going on.

I looked at a half a dozen books on my shelf and discovered that was more or less exactly what Harlan Coben, Sara Paretsky, Michael Collins, Marcia Muller, James Lee Burke and Bill Pronzini do. In the first twenty or thirty pages they will introduce their main character and perhaps two or four other characters that may have something major to contribute to the story. They may even mention three or four other characters who probably only have a walk-in part but are necessary.

Recently, I read a book by an author I admire very much but had not read in years. Everything was fine in the first twenty-five or thirty pages but suddenly a new scene opened up with two new characters. Okay, I guess these two were necessary. Turned out they were what I might call minor/major characters.

They showed up every so often and were important to the story but before I could turn around twice another major/minor showed up and then three more major/minor folks and this happened in the first fifty pages. And the real major character was lost in the shuffle in my opinion.

Honestly, it seemed to me as if the major character should be the one introducing in these other characters and not handling them all out at once. I more or less got so lost that I lost interest in the book. It took me weeks to finish it. And in between I read three other books.

No, I can't say I enjoyed that book as much and I doubt I'll ever purchase another by that particular author. The author did connect all the dots at the end but I mostly didn't care one way or the other. I may be the only one who feels this way but I don't think so. After thinking about it this week, I remembered when we owned our bookstore there were a few customers who complained about too many characters dumped on you immediately. I don't mind if you wind up with 79 characters but please don't dump them on me in the first forty or so pages. I confuse easily.

Which in turn led to my title...too many cooks spoil...er...uh too many characters spoil the book.

Let me know what you think. See you on down the road.

Wilkie Collins - The Dead Alive

Wilkie Collins, 1853

So often the stories we enjoyed as kids don’t hold up when we reread them as supposedly mature adults. Dale Andrews discussed this in particular about the Hardy Boys and I’ve noted this recently while rereading S. S. Van Dyne.

One of the earliest novels I read in the 4th or 5th grade was a battered copy of The Moonstone, one of the many hundreds of books my family hoarded in case of cultural collapse and literary starvation. At the time, I didn’t know The Moonstone was special, that it was considered the first modern English mystery novel. I simply enjoyed it so much I would remember it for decades.

Its author, Wilkie Collins (1824–1889), is recognized as one of the great authors of the Victorian era, reaching his peak during the 1860s. It was during this decade he published The Woman in White (1860), No Name (1862), Armadale (1866), and The Moonstone (1868). Also during this time his friendship with Charles Dickens grew and developed to the point of collaboration.

Bully

Many of us feel a particular distaste for school bullies, but Collins credits a class tormentor for awakening his creative talent where he “learnt to be amusing on short notice.” When Collins was 14, he appeased his in-residence persecutor with stories. “It was this brute who first awakened in me, his poor little victim, a power of which but for him I might never have been aware. … When I left school, I continued story telling for my own pleasure.”

The Dead Alive
ebook PDF
The Dead Alive
print PDF

Today’s The Dead Alive, sometimes called John Jago’s Ghost, features at least one bully and arguably a second. Note Collins’ smooth, modern style. While not as ‘deep’ as his friend Dickens’, Collins’ writing isn’t nearly as dense. Some Victorians require intense mental mastication, but Collins’ words dissolve on the tongue like a well-made pastry.

A few reviewers believe Abraham Lincoln’s Trailor Murder Mystery was answered by this Wilkie Collins’ story. That assessment is likely a mistake. While it’s impossible to determine whether Collins was aware of Lincoln’s case, it’s far more certain Collins based his story on another American case, that of the Boorn Brothers in Vermont. Not only will readers will find the parallels irrefutable, but Collins himself admits such in his afterword.

And now, a tale by Wilkie Collins…

A Writer's Guide to Booksignings

My favorite story about signings was told by Erma Bombeck years ago. She said that during one of her book signing events at a large store, only two people stopped by her signing table all day: one needed directions to the restroom and one asked her how much she wanted for the table. Funny story, but it can be a pretty accurate description of some of these signings. Nothing's ever certain, nothing's ever guaranteed. All you can do is show up, bring along a positive attitude, and hope you don't wind up sitting there twiddling your thumbs, or playing checkers with the manager in an otherwise empty store.

By the way, note that the title of this piece isn't "The Writer's Guide . . ."--it's "A Writer's Guide . . ." The opinions this writer will voice later are mine alone, and I welcome any and all opposing views (I might learn something).

The best of times/the worst of times

The nicest thing ever to happen to me at a booksigning occurred last spring, at a noon-to-four Saturday signing at a Books-A-Million in Meridian, Mississippi (about 100 miles east of my home). A middle-aged guy came in, saw me signing books, and introduced himself. He told me he had been here in this very store a week earlier, when he'd been driving through on I-20 on his way to Atlanta from his home in Dallas, and had spotted one of my books in the mystery section and had purchased it to have something to read during his spare time in Georgia. I thanked him for having done that, and he said, "No, thank you. The reason I'm here again is that I'm on my way back to Texas today and I liked the book so much I stopped in to buy your other four books too." That was of course music to my ears, and I would never have known anything about it if I hadn't happened to be signing there that afternoon.

On the flip side of that is a trip I made a couple years ago to a signing at an indie store elsewhere in the state. I ended up sitting there for three hours, staring out the window at the street and watching the parking meters expire. Not one customer came through the front door that afternoon. The owner of the store was as gracious as could be, and I enjoyed meeting her, but saleswise that was my worst day so far, at a signing. My best days at regular (non-special-event) signings have been at chain bookstores at Christmastime, and my best days otherwise have been the launch/kickoff signings for new books (all my launches so far have been at Lemuria, a wonderful independent bookstore here in Jackson). All writers seem to do well at those "special" events because they're widely publicized and attract friends and family.

It goes without saying that every author has his or her own approach to booksignings. Some sit there with arms folded and glare at everyone who passes, and others leap over tables in frantic pursuit of any customer who happens to glance in their direction. Most, thank goodness, use methods that fall somewhere between these two extremes.

Not that it matters, but here's what I have always done (or tried to do) at non-indie-store booksignings:


Ten-point checklist

1. I arrive early.

2. When I get there, I introduce myself to the manager and as many of the staff as I can. These are people you want on your side, and they're usually interesting folks anyhow.

3. If my signing area hasn't already been set up, I offer suggestions of where I'd like to be located. I've found that someplace near the front entrance works best. You might think that would be obvious, but some managers like to position their visiting authors in the in-store cafe area, or in an out-of-the-way spot to give them more room. That doesn't work well, for me. If you're in the cafe you're stuck among a bunch of folks more interested in eating and drinking and talking to each other than in buying your book--or having to listen to you talk to people about buying your book--and if you're in the back of the store or any other low-traffic area there's always the chance that a potential buyer will enter and leave without ever even knowing you're there.

4. Again, if everything hasn't been set up yet, I go back to the shelves or the storeroom and help the staff carry my books to my table. In some cases I've even lugged the table and chair to the signing area myself. Authors who consider themselves above these kinds of menial tasks should get a grip on reality. (Unless maybe they're Stephen King. Nobody's going to think less of me for doing it, because nobody knows who I am anyway.)

5. If there's an in-store cafe, I ask whoever's behind the counter for a bottle of water or a refillable cup of water to keep with me at the signing table. If he or she later happens to bring me a cookie or an apple danish to help sustain me during my ordeal, so much the better.

6. I remain standing most of the time, and use my chair only when I'm signing a book. But that's just me. And I'm careful never to have more than one chair at my table. I did that once, and a tired lady with two babies in a stroller wound up sitting there and talking to me for half an hour. She of course didn't buy a book.

7. I try to make eye contact and at least nod a greeting to shoppers when they enter the store or pass my table. If it seems natural enough, I'll walk over and hand them a brochure of my book and say, "I'm John Floyd--I'm here signing books today," and then get out of their way. I don't ask them if they like to read or if they like mystery stories or if they've heard of my books. There's a fine line here, between being proactive and being annoying, and I have an extremely low tolerance level for this kind of thing, when I'm the shopper. Besides, the person you give a brochure to will often come back later and want to hear about your books, and when that happens you have a far better chance of a sale. (NOTE: My publisher provides a simple three-fold color brochure for each book title, and to me those are more important than bookmarks, posters, or any other kind of promotional material.)

8. If a buyer wants me to personalize his or her book, I ask how the name is spelled. Even if it's John or Jane. And I have yet to guess correctly on Sara vs. Sarah.

9. I stick a bookmark (usually for one of my other titles) in every book I sign.

10. I leave late.


Random observations

If I have observed anything in the ten years I've been doing this (my first collection of shorts was published in '06), I have observed that a writer stands a better chance of selling a lot of books if he or she signs at a chain bookstore. Independent stores are fantastic and will always be dear to my heart, but unless you're hosting a launch or the store is in your hometown, I predict you'll sign more books at a Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million, etc., simply because there'll be more people in the store. More foot-traffic equals more sales.

In the Believe-It-or-Not department, I have learned that you'll sell more books at a solo signing than at a joint signing with other authors. You'll probably have more fun at the multiple-author signings because you always meet new contacts and renew old friendships, but I can almost guarantee that you will sell fewer books. In my case, I always, always sell more if I'm the only writer signing in a particular venue on a particular day. I think it has something to do with human nature: a prospective buyer is much more likely to approach one person at a table than to approach a group of people, especially a group of people who might already be chatting with each other. Another thing I have found is that sometimes a reader will hesitate to buy a book from only one writer at a multi-author table for fear the other(s) might take offense. Maybe this is just a southern thing.

A third observation: If your best chance of selling a reasonable number of books is at a mega-bookstore, your least chance is (1) at a store that doesn't otherwise sell books and (2) a presentation to a group of people other than readers. Don't get me wrong: I gratefully accept invitations to do signings at coffeeshops and gift shops and to speak to groups at retirement homes and local schools--I spoke to a high-school class last week, and had a great time. But if we're talking profitability, those places obviously don't produce a lot of sales. I think the ten best-to-worst venues, in terms of the probability of selling/signing a lot of books at one time, are:

1. Chain bookstores (B&N, B.A.M, the now-defunct Borders, etc.)
2. Independent bookstores
3. Writers' conferences and book festivals (local, regional, national)
4. Book clubs
5. "Friends of the Library" groups
6. Other library events (brown-bag luncheons, author roundtables, etc.)
7. Civic club meetings (Rotary, Lions, Kiwanis, etc.)
8. Area events (fairs, flea markets, church socials)
9. Stores other than bookstores
10. Senior centers and school classrooms

Many of you will certainly disagree with this ranking, and that's fine. Some authors' comfort level at something like a library or church event might be greater than at a more commercial or unfamiliar venue, and if that's true for you, do whatever works. Again, these are my observations only. Remember too that ANY of these opportunities is a lot better than sitting at home or in your publisher's office looking at your hopefully-good-but-possibly-dismal sales figures.

Let me mention a couple more advantages/disadvantages regarding chain bookstores vs. indies. Chain-store signings can sometimes be easier on the author because the books are usually already on the shelves (handled via the publisher and distributor), and you don't have to transport them to and from the store as you might at a smaller bookstore. Conversely, though, if you sell out of all your books in a chain store, they often won't allow you to bring more books in; at independent stores you can just go out to your car and fetch another stack.

A final note. I've found that the best signing times are the last two or three weekends before Mother's Day and the eight or ten weekends before Christmas. (At least here in the South.) My publisher always tries to schedule me at large bookstores almost every Saturday in December, November, and late October. For the past seven or eight years, I've even appeared at some of the same stores twice during the pre-Christmas season (once in October and once in December). I have never yet signed on Christmas Eve because that's family time for me, but that's obviously one of the best days of the year if it suits your schedule.

Questions

For those of you who are writers, where are the places you most enjoy signing books? At which places have you been most successful? Do you consider signings fun, or a chore? (I actually enjoy them.) Do you schedule your own events, or does your publisher handle that? Do you prefer solo signings or multi-author events? Do you ever try to schedule signings in different locations for different times of the same day? (I don't.) Have your sales been better at indie stores or the big chains? Do you or your publisher produce bookmarks and/or brochures, and do you use them during signings? Do you often speak to civic/library/school groups and sell your books there? How aggressive are you at approaching readers (potential buyers) at signings? Are you sick of shoppers who go into a bookstore, buy an Elf on the Shelf or a Batman T-shirt, and never once look at a book? Are you sick of these questions?

The truth is, unless you're a big-name writer, signings are a necessary task. Like 'em or not, they remain a great way to meet the reading public and move the books you've written. So, as my publisher would say, grin and bear it.

Is that name spelled Catherine or Katherine?


BY THE WAY … I'd like to announce that my friend and fellow writer Herschel Cozine will be posting a guest column in this space two weeks from now, on March 5. Be sure to tune in for that piece--I suspect it will be shorter than this one and I'm certain it will be better written. Herschel, welcome once again to SleuthSayers!

Learning From Children's Books

I'm almost certain that I never read Arnold Lobel's books when I was a child myself—or at least none of them stand among all the many books I do remember reading and rereading and adoring when I was younger. Lobel, as many probably already know, was the author and illustrator behind nearly 100 books, some of which he wrote himself, some which he illustrated for others. Among his best-known creations are probably the various Frog and Toad books—Frog and Toad Are Friends (1970), Frog and Toad Together (1972), Frog and Toad All Year (1976), and Days with Frog and Toad (1979)—but he's also the author of Prince Bertram the Bad (1963), Small Pig (1969), Owl at Home (1975), Mouse Soup (1977), Uncle Elephant (1981), and the Caldecott Medal winner Fables (1980), among scores of others.
While many of these books were certainly published in time for me to have read them as a child myself, my own experiences with Lobel's books has come later. The son of an old girlfriend loved Small Pig, and the two of us bonded over a reading of it. One of my wife Tara's favorite childhood books was Prince Bertram the Bad, a well-worn copy now, and when our son Dash was born, I tracked down a pristine first edition of it for us to share with him. And in addition to that book, Dash has grown to love other of the titles above—particular those Frog and Toad books (a gift from good friends) and Uncle Elephant, the title that first introduced him to the idea of chapter books, of stories that add up to a larger story. (Is this the point where I plug my own novel-in-stories? Oh, well, why not?)

I don't know that there's any part of the day I enjoy better than reading stories with Dash, and when I get to pick the evening's books, I often gravitate toward the Lobel titles on his shelves—stories that strike me again and again with their simplicity, their beauty, and their humanity.

Many people may think of children's books as teaching opportunities on various levels. Children need to learn to read, of course (our Frog and Toad collection is part of the "I Can Read!" series), but there's also the sense of lessons being learned, values being instilled, often some moral to the story in many books at this level. And I'm certain that there are lessons to be found in Lobel's books too—in the case of Frog and Toad, lessons about what friendship means and how friendship works, clearly, and it's been argued, persuasively, that these books also promote positive images of same-sex relationships; here's just one essay of many on this idea.

What strikes me as much as those positive messages, however, is the fact that not everything in the books stays positive—which isn't to say that it's negative, but rather that the author seems to acknowledge and appreciate the foibles and faults of characters as much as their strengths; in the story "A Swim," Toad is embarrassed by people seeing his bathing suit and laughing at him, and while a conventional story might have Frog ease him out of his embarrassment, boosting his ego, saving his pride, this one has Frog laughing along with everyone else at the end of the story, because, as he says, "you do look funny in your bathing suit." The stories recognize too the capriciousness of the world, maybe even the indifference of the universe. I adore the story "The Surprise" in which Frog and Toad each sneak over to the other's yard to rake October's messy fallen leaves—such generosity!—but then, as each of them are returning home, a wind comes up and the piles of leaves that each of them have raked blow everywhere. With this twist, each of them get home to find not a freshly raked yard but the same old mess they'd left. As Frog says, "Tomorrow I will clean up the leaves that are all over my own lawn. How surprised Toad must be!" And in perfect balance, over at his own house, Toad says, "Tomorrow I will get to work and rake all of my own leaves. How surprised Frog must be!" The story ends with the sentence, "That night Frog and Toad were both happy when they each turned out the light and went to bed." O. Henry couldn't have done it better.

When I read Lobel with my son, I find myself not thinking of the lessons learned or the values instilled but of the sheer perfection—I do not use that word lightly—of the stories as stories...and of what I as a writer might take from them. I mentioned simplicity above as a hallmark of his work, but I'm often in awe of the brilliant balance in these stories: the establishment of character, the laying in of only the necessary elements, the balance of all those elements, and the rightness of the endings—which seem to me to strike that ideal mixture of being both surprising and inevitable...and, to fall back on that other word, all too human. In the story "Christmas Eve," Toad is worried that Frog is late for the holiday dinner but he doesn't know how late because his clock is broken. Stuck in that timelessness and the literally immeasurable waiting, Toad begins to imagine the worst that could've happened to his friend, and he begins to gather everything he needs to save him: a rope to pull him from the hole he must have fallen in, a lantern to guide him from wherever he's become lost, a frying pan to battle the beast who might be threatening him. Thus armed, he rushes out into the cold night—only to run into Frog coming in. "I am very sorry to be late," says Frog. "I was wrapping your present"—which is, of course....

The New York Times obituary for Lobel noted that drawing came easier for him than writing: ''Writing is very painful to me,'' he said in an interview in 1979. ''I have to force myself not to think in visual terms, because I know if I start to think of pictures, I'll cop out on the text.'' Whatever the process, the stories themselves prove that the pain paid off—at least for us readers and us writers too, who maybe can learn something of our own from all this.

What about others? Any other writers out there who can point to children's books or stories that have informed their own work? or that serve as a model for what you yourself want to do? I'm intrigued to hear—for selfish reasons, ultimately. Dash always needs more good things to read.

The Good Soldier

Ford Madox Ford

I was on a panel about writing at our local library and the moderator asked each of us "What book or story would you love to have written, and have put your name to?"  My answer was - and is - The Good Soldier, by Ford Madox Ford.

It may be the perfect novel.  I read it every year both for pleasure and to analyze its amazing structure.  Very short (under 200 pages), tightly woven, seemingly infinitely layered and complex, Ford himself said that "I had never really tried to put into any novel of mine all that I knew about writing...  On the day I was 40, I sat down to show what I could do – and The Good Soldier resulted."

It begins, "This is the saddest story I have ever heard."  And right there is the first hint that we're dealing with one of the most unreliable narrators in history.  Because John Dowell didn't hear this story:  he lived it.  John Dowell and his wife Florence, both Americans, meet Captain Edward Ashburnham and his wife, Leonora, of Branshaw Teleragh, England, at a spa in Nauheim, Germany, where Edward and Florence are being treated for heart ailments.  The Ashburnhams "take up" with the Dowells, and they spend all their time together for the next nine years.  Until it all collapses when Florence dies, and Dowell discovers a number of things:

• that Edward and Florence having an affair, which he never knew.
• that Florence never had a heart problem at all.  Instead, she'd faked a heart complaint to stay in Europe, originally so that she could continue her affair with her uncle's American bodyguard and helper, Jimmy. 
• that Edward and Leonora hadn't spoken in private for perhaps twenty years.
• that Edward was a serial philanderer, whose known adventures began with a conviction (!) for assaulting an Irish servant on a train.  
• that Edward was now in love with his young ward, Nancy Rufford.  
• that Florence killed herself... well, look down under questions...

The 1981 TV adaptation, with Jeremy Brett and others

Dowell also admits a few things:

• that he and Florence never had sex, because of her supposed heart problem.
• that he is extremely glad to be rid of Florence.  Florence begins as "poor dear Florence" and ends up "a contaminating influence...  vulgar... a common flirt... an unstoppable talker..."
• that he is now extremely wealthy, because Florence was an heiress. 
• that he wants to marry Nancy Rufford. 

And then there are the things that are hinted at, implied, downright said but then denied.

• Dowell admires Leonora Ashburnham more than any woman on earth, and also considers her "the villain of the piece".  
• Dowell's admiration of certain men, beginning and ending with Edward Ashburnham, of whom he says, "I loved Edward Ashburnham - and that I love him because he was just myself.  If I had had the courage and the virility and possibly also the physique of Edward Ashburnham I should, I fancy, have done much what he did..."  But there was also a nephew, Carter ("handsome and dark and gentle and tall and modest....  [whose] relatives... seemed to have something darkly mysterious against him") , and hints at others.  
• Dowell's greed for the sensuous pleasures of life, from caviar to Kummel to... other things...
• Dowell has never worked a day in his life.

The first reading of the book is heartbreaking.  Both Edward and Florence commit suicide, and Nancy Rufford goes insane.  Believe it or not, this is not a spoiler:  this is first chapter stuff.  The point is, that the first reading, gives you the plot, the second - maybe - gives you the motivations, and the third...  well, there's a lot of questions.

• Why did Florence commit suicide?  Was she really that heartbroken about Edward and/or that terrified of Dowell?  (Dowell describes them both as "violent" men...) 
• Did Florence commit suicide?  (There was a letter...) 
• What was Dowell doing during the two to four hours between Florence's death and and the discovery of her body? 
• Why did Dowell marry Florence, a woman he did not love, take her straight to Europe, and do everything she and the doctors told him to?  
• How many women was Edward Ashburnham involved with?  (Six are detailed, but there's also "the poor girl, the daughter of one of his gardeners" who was accused of murdering her baby at the end...) 
• Did Edward commit suicide?  And how?  Two different ways are given...
• What about Edward's alcoholism?  
• What about Dowell's alcoholism?

In other words, what the blazing hell really happened?

And all is told in a magnificent, elegiac, Edwardian style that is rich as plumcake.  Read it, and let me know what you think.

Available at Gutenberg Press for free at:  Gutenberg Press Edition
Available on Kindle for free at Kindle Edition
(Though I still prefer a hard copy, where I can scribble notes - almost as cryptic as the text - all over it...)

Also, the most interesting article of all that I've ever found on "The Good Soldier" compares Ford Madox Ford to H. P. Lovecraft:  "Ford Madox Ford: As Scary as HP Lovecraft?"



Maybe...