Writing Advice From 1908, Part 1

A few months ago John Floyd asked if I would be interested in a very old book about creative writing.  Mary Lou Condike had found it and offered it to him.  John didn't want it but thought I might.  I said sure, why not. Mary Lou very kindly mailed it to me and it has been part of my bedtime reading for a while.  

Writing the Short-Story by J. Berg Esenwein was published in 1908.  According to Wikipedia it is one of the first creative writing manuals.  When Esenwein wrote it he was the editor of Lippincott's Magazine.

So clearly the information was going to be a little dated.  But I thought it would be fun to see what, if anything, I could learn from this book.  Don't expect a review, just a summary of things I thought were interesting for one reason or another. Some still make sense. A few will astonish you.

* Let's start with something that appears near the end of the book which I am sure will move the hearts of all the writers out there. In discussing the processing of submitting stories to magazines Esenwein asks:  how long should you wait to hear from an editor? "If you do not get an answer in three weeks, it may be wise to drop a line courteously asking for a decision, but you had better wait the month out."  That sound you just heard was the rueful laughter of thousands of authors.  In today's modern age of mad speed and instant communication, well... I have fourteen stories out waiting for judgment by editors.  The wait is currently an average of 131 days, with the median being 95 days.  Considerably more than four weeks.  

* Esenwein tells us the oldest known story is in The Westcar Papyrus.  I had never heard of it but it turns out to be an Egyptian manuscript from roughly 1600 BCE, although the stories seem to be a millennium older.  The tales are about priests and magicians doing amazing things. If you have ever heard that cutting an animal in half and restoring it to life is "the oldest trick in the book," this papyrus is the book.

* "Men are often interested in fictional characters whom they would not care to know in life."

* Mystery writers "all introduce the detective, amateur or professional, for the purpose of unraveling the mystery before the reader's very eyes and yet concealing the key-thread until the last.  Sometimes the web  of entanglement is woven also in full sight -- with the author's sleeves rolled up as a guarantee of good faith; and the closer you watch the less you see."

Esenwein

* Character "names should be fitting. Phyllis ought not to weigh two hundred, nor ought Tommy to commit suicide. Luther must not be a burglar, Maud a washerwoman, nor John spout tepid romance.  The wrong surname will handicap a character as surely as the wrong pair of hands.  Hardscrabble does not fit the philanthropist any more than Tinker suggests the polished diplomat, or Darnaway the clergyman."

* "A man who has a stirring fact or a thrilling experience has not a story until he has used it in some proper way - has constructed it, has built it." - Walter Page 

* Esenwein gives us a list of things a short story is not: an episode, a scenario or synopsis, a biography, a mere sketch, or a tale.  In a tale "events take a simple course," but in a short-story "this course is interrupted by a complication."

* "Never write back sarcastic letters when your offerings are rejected. You may need that editor some day."

* "In the detective plot, the author seems to match his wits against the detective's, by striving to concoct a mystery which presents an apparently impossible situation. It adds to his problem that he must leave the real clue in full sight, yet so disguised that the reader cannot solve the mystery before some casual happening, or the ingenuity of the detective, shows it to the reader at the proper moment."* "To make a first-class short-story longer would be to spoil it."

* Some themes for stories may just "pop into your mind." "Sir, Madame, I am a Story. Write me up!" I wish that would happen more often.

*The advice on the left will make most modern writers, not to say editors, shudder in horror.

* Sir Arthur Phelps quotes an anonymous friend: "Whenever you write a sentence that particularly pleases you, CUT IT OUT." An early statement of "Kill your darlings."

* "Whatever may be the thing which one wishes to say, there is but one word for expressing it, only one verb to animate it, only one adjective to qualify it.  It is essential to search for this word, for this verb, for this adjective, until they are discovered, and to be satisfied with nothing else." - Flaubert

* "Write at white heat because you can think big thoughts only under stress of emotion; but revise in a cool mood."

* Esenwein criticizes writers who "debase their gifts by presenting distorted views of life, placing false values upon the things of experience, and picturing unclean situations -- all for the sake of gain." Thank heavens that never happens anymore.

This is getting long so I will give you the rest of Esenwein's wisdom next Monday.   See you then!

Of Word Counts and Crickets

     My doorbell rang yesterday. Looking up, I saw a man's silhouette through the drawn shade. He was walking away. Assuming he was another delivery driver, I opened the door. A young man in a white shirt and tie turned back to face me. He launched into a long-winded spiel about the job skills he learned by going door-to-door peddling magazines. I interrupted, declined, and backed away, wishing him 'good luck.' 

    "I don't believe in luck," he told me. 

    I knew then that he had never submitted a story for publication in one of his magazines. 

    Publishing isn't just about luck--we know that. Follow the submission rules, adhere to the deadlines and word count, send a manuscript as error-free as possible, and stay true to the call's theme--all good and necessary rules for success. But don't discount luck. 

    Suppose you present a solid Super Bowl story to a sports-themed anthology. The editor, however, reads it moments after accepting a different Super Bowl tale. Your piece likely won't get published. The anthology has room for only big football game yarn. Good story--bad luck. 

    Since this is the holiday season and my last Sleuth blog of 2024, I've scoured the holiday legends for the best ways to maximize your luck in the new year. 

    Stick a loaf of bread on a broomstick. Jam the stick in the ground on Christmas Eve and leave it in front of your house overnight. Bad luck won't come your way all year. At a minimum, an impaled loaf of bread might make the magazine salesmen think twice. 

    On Christmas Day, rise before the sun and feed your pets by candlelight. They will be well-behaved throughout the upcoming year. How many stories have been waylaid by barking dogs? This sounds like the surefire cure. 

    It's bad luck to go fishing on Christmas. A writer should be home writing. 

    It is, however, good luck to find a fish scale under your plate. This is easier when your household serves the traditional Czech yuletide meal of fried carp. A fish scale signals luck and prosperity. Traditionalists carry the scale in their wallets throughout the year. If word count is the issue, leave it on your keyboard. (To maximize their holiday luck, Czechs allow the fish to swim in their bathtubs for a few days before preparing it. This may test your mettle or your hygiene.)

    Food matters. Eat an apple at midnight on Christmas Eve for good luck. Or toss down twelve grapes on New Year's Eve. Black-eyed peas, of course, are the down-home good luck standard for the New Year. Wrinkled collard greens are supposed to represent folded money; eating them will improve your chances of success in the upcoming year. Oplatki, thin Polish wafers, are to be passed around and shared with family as a good luck stimulus. The pink one in the package is intended to be eaten by the family pet. Giving them a biscuit is easier than feeding them at midnight. 

    Don't eat lobster on New Year's Eve. Many believe that because lobsters swim backward, consuming them will cause you to regress rather than move forward. 

    But do eat a herring to usher in the new year. The Swedes believe it promotes good luck. The legends don't say whether eating red ones helps a crime writer. 

    Should you eat a raw egg on Christmas morning? Superstition says it will make you strong throughout the year. Medical science, however, thinks it might give you food poisoning. Raw eggs worked wonders for Rocky Balboa. The signals on this practice, therefore, are mixed. You decide. 

    If the egg isn't upsetting enough, a South African tradition is to eat a fried caterpillar on Christmas for extra luck. The logic may be that if you finish off the year with something disgusting, it helps put your other troubles into perspective. 

    Give your cow a present. You'll be rewarded. The earliest practitioners probably anticipated increased milk production from their happy cows. I like to believe that the beasts will reciprocate with writing success. 

    Sneezing and hearing a cricket chirp on Christmas Day will reportedly gift you good luck. These are separate events. No legend requires you to sneeze while hearing a cricket chirp, although this would likely be the grand slam of luck hoarding. 

    In Finland, having a ritual sauna with your family as part of your Christmas Eve celebration is believed to be lucky. When finished, some families leave the sauna slightly warm, making it comfortable for the house elves to visit and leave good fortune. I don't know if it works, but as a practice, it sounds way better than chugging a raw egg. 

    A story completed on New Year's Day will always sell if the first draft was written using Helvetica font. I made up this one, but it's no stranger than eating a fried caterpillar. 

    Writers do have their lucky rituals and talismans. Charles Dickens always slept facing north. Dr. Seuss reportedly kept a secret closet filled with hats. When he felt stuck, he chose one to wear until he became inspired. Do you have any charms you want to confess?

    By whatever means you conjure up success, I wish you safe and happy holidays and a fruitful 2025. 

    Until next year.  

    

A curmudgeon’s guide to erudition.

             I read an engagingly relevant article by Nick Hornby in Lit Hub, by way of McSweeny’s, about how his reading habits had changed as he’s aged.  Lamenting almost turning 60 (which made me yearn earnestly for this dubious misfortune) he went on to write about loads of obscure books, that all sounded great, and also reminded me there are far more well-read people in the world than I will ever be.

            But his greater point resonated – that ones tolerance for bad books wanes considerably as our allotted time on earth narrows.  I once felt a moral obligation to read a book I’m not enjoying to the end, especially works others had praised, assuming those judgments would prove out in the end.  They rarely did.  Now I drop a stinker faster than a hot skillet without a potholder, swifter than Usain Bolt on amphetamines, speedier than the electro-chemical arc between a pair of synapses, quicker than a guy caught in bed with his boss’s wife can make it to the window. 

            I did the same with a very well-written book, by an acclaimed author I like, not because it was bad, but because the story was just too dreary.  I looked at the remaining 200-plus pages of sadness and tragedy and said to myself, nah. 

 

            I also occasionally reread a book I know I’m going to like.  This is the equivalent of eating comfort food, say my wife’s chicken piccata, or turkey stuffing with homemade gravy or a cheese steak from Vito’s in Gulph Mills, Pennsylvania.  Though I do resist this urge, since there is likely another promising unread book waiting in the wings, specifically on my nightstand, that might add to my preferred canon.

            I read as many articles and commentaries as books these days, and apply the same rules.  If it’s poorly written, I move on immediately.  If it’s a bit clunky, but teaching me something, I hang in there, though only for so long.  Enjoying fine writing, while simultaneously learning something and feeling validated in ones own opinion, is a marvelous pleasure. 

            Hornby also noted that contemporary nonfiction can elicit the same joy and fulfillment as any splendid novel or short story.  Again, I agree whole-heartedly.  With the advent of New Journalism back in the 60s and 70s, nonfiction writers are now much better story tellers, and the reading public has rewarded them with strong enough sales to encourage the practice. 

          Though if you want to learn more about their progenitors, I recommend Winston Churchill, Freud, De Tocqueville and even Charles Darwin, who often got a bit in the weeds, but had a gift for narrative.  More recently, Stephen Jay Gould, Oliver Sacks, (Simon Winchester, Walter Issacson and Bill Bryson, still with us), Norman Mailer (Armies of the Night – his fiction stinks), Hunter Thompson and Tom Wolfe.

             If you’re a young person trying to understand the vaunted world of great fiction, you might read things like Gravity’s Rainbow or Finnegan’s Wake.  These are books that make little sense to anyone but the authors, and for me, not worth the precious time to prove otherwise.  You can read The Crying of Lot 49, or Ulysses, and be better for it.  It’s a matter of wise curation.  I read all of Faulkner, and am glad about it, though I feel no irresistible urge to reread Absalom, Absalom! The time is better spent with Lee Child or Gillian Flynn.  Or Amor Towles.

            As with the depressing book by the fine nonfiction author, I just don’t want to slog through giant, dense tomes by towering heroes of Western literature.  I’m too old for that stuff.  Though I’m glad I did when I was still able to swim miles in open water, carry a full keg across a bar room floor and split two cord of wood in a few hours.

            I’m still very much in the market for enthralling books by people I’ve never heard of.  My hope is they’ll appear before me without too much searching, since I need to meter out my discretionary vitality.  Let me know if you have any suggestions.  If I don’t want to read the book, please don't hold it against me, and I'll return the favor.  You might even like Norman Mailer’s fiction, and that is your prerogative.  I might be fussier about books as I age, but my tolerance for other’s tastes has only become more expansive.  I’ve learned it’s a more pleasant attitude. 

Though at this point, I’ll politely acknowledge your enthusiasm for stuff I don’t like, and just move on.  Youth may be wasted on the young, but neither should one squander old age.   

           

The Good, The Bad, and The Confusing

The ‘Wicked’ Witch of the West

At first blush, the home life of Rebecca and Maddie, Hunter and Christina might sound make-believe. They live on an idyllic farm where they raise goats, chickens, and garden vegetables south of the big city of Indianapolis. Their father is a dual-degree family physician and their mother started life as a ballerina.

They’re real, I assure you, but they have a few rules. One of them is no television. Although mother and father have different reasons for forbidding TV, they reached the same agreement.

The family actually owns a television, a huge clunker, but it’s not hooked up to anything, not even stray signals that might beam far into the countryside. Instead, it’s use is restricted to videos deemed suitable by the parents. When I visited, I raided the town’s library and borrowed a number of classic comedies the kids hadn’t seen. They loved Marx Brothers and Buster Keaton, and liked It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World and Betty Boop. They didn’t care much for Laurel and Hardy– Stan and Ollie slapstick didn’t appeal to them.

Popcorn Capitalism

To a degree, their upbringing mirrored my experience, including no television. The only kids’ movie I recall as a child (not counting the devastating The Little Match Girl) was sponsored by Indianapolis merchants on a shopping Saturday. To give moms a break, parents could drop off their younglings at a theatre that provided popcorn, a drink, and Abbot & Costello on the silvery screen. Our visit happened only once. A voyage into the city was a 70 miles (112km) round trip, a little over an hour and a half of driving.

However, our nearby town hosted a free summer movie nights. They showed classic (and cheap) films on an outdoor screen attached to a wall of the Armory, Masonic Lodge, or other large building. Viewers would bring blankets and cushions, and snuggle as Chief Crazy Horse played on the screen. Like drive-ins of the era, the show often led with a cartoon followed by an adult drama.

Then a funny thing happened. The venue shifted to the school, where show operators hooked the large screen to the outer wall of the school gymnasium directly across a narrow street from my grandmother’s house. Had she chosen, granny could have enjoyed the movie from the comfort of her living room.

Instead, my mother had a brainstorm. She cooked popcorn and steeped iced tea. Within minutes of our arrival, movie-goers came sniffing and mom handed out cups of Kool-Ade, tea, and brown bags of popcorn. The fare disappeared within minutes. Next time, she iced a tub of Coke and Nehi soda, and again sold out. Throughout the summer, my family ran a de facto concession stand. Mom, bless her, figured out a way to make money from free movies.

Catchin’ Up with the Crowd

But, the time and distance of running a farm and a second job meant my parents couldn’t take off to visit a city for a movie night. Until I dated in high school, I had never seen a current kids’ film. I wasn’t unaware of current showings, but when Peter Pan, Alice in Wonderland, and Wizard of Oz cycled through movie houses, I read the stories but didn’t see the films.

Not until I was an adult. As previously mentioned, I consulted for Walt Disney World. I wasn’t an employee, a ‘cast member’ in Disney parlance, but they often extended privileges to me.

Follow me here: As you emerge from under the Magic Kingdom’s train station and face the park, to the immediate right is a theatre. Not the silent showing of Steamboat Willie under the marquee up the street, but a real theatre. On Fridays, Disney occasionally sponsored free family movie nights. For the first time, I saw Peter Pan, Alice in Wonderland, Fantasia, and other classic animated films.

And I soaked them up. As a little kid, I loved Peter Pan. I read all versions– J.M. Barrie’s novel evolved over time from a short story of a wild boy who frequented Regent’s Park, to the novel we know and love. My Aunt Esther gave me a huge Peter Pan comic book, 25¢ instead of the usual dime. I spent hours reading and re-reading it. I would have gladly traded my brothers for one Tinkerbell and a sister like Wendy. Along the line, I fell in love with Indian Princess Tiger Lily.

But an odd thing happened when as an adult, I saw the films. I empathized with Captain Hook. He was intelligent, erudite, well-spoken, well-dressed, and very, very annoyed by a pestering brat who cost him his right hand and fed it to a crocodile. (Or left hand… it changed with stage showings and even between scenes.) Much as I admired Peter, I’d feel irritated too. I must not have been the only one to feel that way– Disney released Hook, which I saw in their Magic Kingdom theatre.

Wicked Thoughts

The same phenomenon happened with the Wicked Witches of the East and West in The Wizard of Oz. Why did sister witches hate each other so much? Was it simply because of a skin condition surprisingly similar to that which affected the Grinch, the Hulk, and perhaps Mr. Spock, all known for ill temper and lack of patience? Couldn’t one of the beautiful witch sisters lend green ones their extensive supply of Neutrogena or Aveeno?

When East Witch was unceremoniously crunched under Dorothy’s house, why couldn’t someone show sympathy to her Western sister? While thinking about it, did some witchery party give the house a little nudge to alter its landing?

Didn’t Witches North and South lie to Dorothy about how to get home?

Consider the following contrasts:

Good Witches, North and South	Wicked Witches, East and West
• are blest with great beauty	• are afflicted with green skin
• celebrate death of fellow witch	• squashed sister is mocked and derided
• lie to Dorothy knowing shoes can return her to Kansas	• mother’s valuable shoes stolen by Glinda given to Dorothy
• set Dorothy on path to kill rivals	• East Witch killed by Dorothy
• seize power after Wizard departs	• West Witch killed by Dorothy

Who exactly is the bad guy? Could it be the so-called‘good witches’? Or even Dorothy? Sure, she slummed around with Straw Man, Metal Man, and the Frightened Feline, but toward what end?

Gregory Maguire may agree with me, the author who wrote Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West. I confess I haven’t read the novel, enjoyed the award-winning stage play, or seen the movie (Part 1), as I’d hoped this weekend. But hey, the showing isn’t over yet.

In what movies or stories did you find heroes to be less than honorable?

Yes, There Is a Santa Claus, and He Pays His Damn Taxes

Santa Claus. Does he exist? If so, does he hang at the North Pole? What sort of being is he? It's all folklore, even the St. Nicholas origin story. The Santa legend has become whatever anyone wants from it. But you might be surprised to learn the American legal system has weighed in here. According to the Ohio courts, there is a Santa Claus, he lived in Warren, and he owned a '65 VW.

Fittingly, our story picks up at the holidays. December 21, 2001, and Santa--also known as Warren Hayes--just bumped his VW into another car. Being Santa, he owned up to causing the minor damage. This Santa also carried hard cash and reimbursed the other driver on the spot. Even jolly old elves understand not to get insurance involved.

It was the Warren City P.D. showing up that started the trouble. The cop wanted ID, as cops will do. Santa produced an official Ohio Identification Card with himself in full beard and red suit. Unquestionably legit, and the card said this guy was Santa Claus, of 1 Noel Drive in Warren, Ohio. 

The cop had problems with his story. Besides the Santa part. By law, Ohioans could only get state ID cards if they didn't already have a driver's license, and Hayes, as Hayes, had a duly-issued license. 

Also, Noel Drive didn't exist. It was a playful crossroads sign posted for the driveway to Hayes Industries, a shopping cart repair company and by-God Chamber of Commerce member. The Warren P.D. was playing it straight, and they believed Santa was operating under a false ID.

But this was Christmas, right? The Warren P.D. would let Santa off easy, right? 

Wrong. The cops booked Santa on "displaying or possessing an identification card knowing it to be fictitious," a class one misdemeanor. The max penalty was six months and a $1,000 fine. 

Santa was fighting this one, damn it. And he had evidence. Hayes was known around town as Santa and for his generous gifts to area kids out of his own pocket. He had the suit, the ID, and a joint bank account opened under Santa Claus, with his wife as Mrs. Claus. That's right. Hayes wrote many a check signed as Santa, and those checks cleared. 

Santa lawyered up. In a motion to dismiss, Santa's counsel produced motor vehicle records showing that the very VW from the fender-bender had been registered to "Santa Claus" for almost two decades. Santa had duly paid all fees and vehicle taxes. From his Santa checking account. He'd also maintained that Santa Ohio ID card for decades. 

The prosecution cried humbug. They pointed to actual precedent where Ohio had denied an aspiring Santa a legal name change based on the public's "proprietary interest" in Santa's "persona." And if Ohio didn't allow a Santa, and Hayes was flashing ID as Santa, how could that ID be anything but fictitious?

Santa was in a tight spot. What he needed--what all great Christmas stories need--was a miracle.

Enter the Warren Municipal Court. The judge pointed to the Bureau of Motor Vehicles and their repeated transactions with Santa Claus. After so many years of taking his checks, this was an odd time to raise a concern. 

Hayes also hadn't filed papers to change his name. He'd just started holding himself out as Santa. Except when he needed to be Hayes, such as for the cart repair game or when tooling around as Santa. Common law allows it, provided no illicit intent is involved. As to intent, and on top of his duly filed VW paperwork, Hayes introduced into evidence a "Certificate of Birth" claiming he'd been born in 383 A.D. to Mr. Claus and Holly Noel. 

Fictitious? If anything, this guy was working hard to prove his Santa bona fides. 

In a Solomon-worthy verdict, the judge ruled that Ohio could issue Hayes a driver's license, so he could drive, and also issue Santa an ID card, so he could Santa. Charges, dismissed.

So that's the story of Santa Claus and his Ohio address. There is a moral here, maybe. Maybe it's that whatever season you celebrate or whatever spirit floats your boat, you can become that if you're generous enough, if you're committed enough. If you believe it about yourself enough. 

Or maybe it's to get yourself a good lawyer.

Read the judge's ruling here. And the interview with Hayes' attorney here. 

Who Killed the Chauffeur?

There's a legendary Hollywood anecdote about the making of the classic 1946 film noir The Big Sleep, which starred Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. It involves the fate of Owen Taylor, the chauffeur working for the depraved, old-money Sternwood family. In both the film and the source novel by Raymond Chandler, Taylor is found dead in the Sternwood limousine, which had been driven off the end of Lido Pier ("Lido" being Chandler-speak for Malibu). Since Taylor's head had been bludgeoned, it was not a natural death, but no one during the films production, not director Howard Hawks nor screenwriters Leigh Bracket, Jules Furthman, or William Faulkner, could figure out how actually killed Taylor and/or how he ended up awash in the Pacific. When Hawks called Chandler directly to ask, the author reportedly said, "I have no idea," and hung up.

Even though the murder of Taylor is just one tile in an incredibly complex mosaic, somebody had to off him, and for some reason. It likely had to do with the fact that the chauffeur had been madly in love with Carmen Sternwood, the unstable, vixenish younger daughter of rich, elderly General Sternwood, who was posing for pornographic photos for a Hollywood bookseller named A.G. Geiger (Carmen was posing, not the general; the family's not that depraved). Taylor followed Carmen to Geiger's Hollywood Hills bungalow, which Geiger was renting from a mobster named Eddie Mars, and either found her naked in front of a camera (the book) or "high as a kite" (the movie). Enraged, Taylor shot Geiger and took the photo negatives, fleeing the scene in the Sternwood limo. But a cheap hood named Joe Brody, who was also part of Geiger's porno operation, was there, too. Brody got into his car and chased Taylor through the city, finally catching up with him, sapping him, and taking back the negs.

At that point, Owen Taylor was still alive. How he ended up miles away in the drink is the missing puzzle piece, one that was overlooked within the labyrinthine plot, which also involved Eddie Mars blackmailing the Sternwood sisters over a murder cover-up.

The Big Sleep was shot in the fall of 1944 and was ready for release in March 1945. Today it is renowned for its convoluted plot, but the original 1945 cut contained a scene in which Philip Marlowe (Bogart) recaps everything that has happened up to that point for the District Attorney who steered him toward the Sternwood case. This included the strong implication that Joe Brody not only assaulted Taylor but helped him on his way to the big sleep. When the film was previewed, though, it received shockingly negative responses, which panicked the Warner Bros. front office which was then building up Lauren Bacall, who played the elder Sternwood daughter Vivian, as their next big wowee. The film was pulled back for retakes.

The new scenes would focus almost exclusively on the steamy chemistry between Bogie and Baby (as they were known), who had fallen in love on the set of Hawks' s previous film To Have and Have Not and were by then married. But to make room for those scenes, some existing ones had to go. The easiest one to cut, since it was self-contained, was the plot recap. As confusing as the new edit was as a result, the film became a big hit in 1946. The original 1945 version, incidentally, was show only to American servicemen overseas, though it can now be found on DVD.

But the identity of Owen Taylor's killer remained a mystery. 

While remaking a classic is rarely a good idea, I can envision a new version of The Big Sleep presented in the style of the 1985 comedic whodunit Clue, which was released with three different endings that alternated with each screening. Applied to The Big Sleep, once the story was wrapped up, an off-camera voice would holler, "Wait, who killed the chauffeur?" One of three speculative theories would follow.

SOLUTION ONE: Joe Brody saps Taylor, takes the photo negs and Taylor's gun, and flees. Taylor eventually wakes up disoriented and realizes that not only has he murdered a man, which will likely be detected, he's failed to protect his beloved Carmen. Guilt-ridden and with his brains addled by the blow, Taylor vows to end it all. He can't shoot himself, since Brody took his gun, so he drives to Lido Pier and plunges through the rails and into the ocean. The murder is really suicide.

SOLUTION TWO: Owen Taylor regains consciousness in the car and realizes the trouble he's in, which will splash back onto Carmen if he's caught and grilled by the police. He decides his best option is to disappear. Taylor plans to flee the country, figuring he can hire a boat at Lido to take him to Mexico. But in his weakened condition, he either blacks out again or dies once he's on the pier and unconsciously guns the car off the end of it and into the ocean. Technically, Joe Brody is responsible for his death since he inflicted the blow that led to Taylor's demise.

SOLUTION THREE: After he saps Taylor and takes the negs, Joe Brody panics and contacts Eddie Mars and tells him what he's done. Mars in turn calls his lieutenant, a particularly vicious torpedo named Lash Canino, to clean up the scene. Canino drives out to the limo and finds Taylor barely clinging to life. Taylor asks Canino for help, and Canino replies, "Sure, I'll help you," and then shoots him. Shoving him over on the car seat, Canino drives to Lido Pier and accelerates the car toward its end, jumping out a second before it crashes through the rail and goes over. Canino then returns to Mars to tell him the matter is taken care of.

There are surely other possibilities, though perhaps the best on-screen response to the question of who killed the chauffeur would be an AI-generated image of Raymond Chandler turning to the camera and saying, "I have no idea," and then smiling for the fade-out.

---

Michael Mallory is an L.A.-based writer.

Quotes from Around and About

I thought I'd share some of my new (and a few old) favorites:    

  "There is always a well-known solution to every human problem: neat, plausible, and wrong. — H. L. Mencken 

  "To fight and proclaim hope is to actively fight against the death-dealing forces of the world." — Grace Aheron. 

  "He's the sort of man who'd push you in the water rather than have no one to rescue." — Cleggy in Last of the Summer Wine

The Last of the Summer Wine:  Foggy, Cleggy, and Compo

   "There is nothing perhaps so generally consoling to a man as a well-established grievance; a feeling of having been injured, on which his mind can brood from hour to hour, allowing him to plead his own cause in his own court, within his own heart, and always to plead it successfully." — Anthony Trollope, Orley Farm.

Illustration of Orley Farm by Millais

   "The power of facing unpleasant facts is clearly an attribute of decent, sane grownups as opposed to the immature, the silly, the nutty, or the doctrinaire. Some exemplary unpleasant facts are these: that life is short and almost always ends messily; that if you live in the actual world you can't have your own way; that if you do get what you want it turns out not to be the thing you wanted; that no one thinks as well of you as you do yourself; and that in one or two generations from now you will be forgotten entirely and the world will go on as if you had never existed." — Paul Fussel, A Power of Facing Unpleasant Facts

    "Life seems so short that people feel they must cram in as much as possible. For me, the most happens when nothing happens. Every day here is indeed a good piece of life. What is the value of a day in which there's no moment to reflect or to be able not to reflect at all? Life changes us little by little into beings who think only by halves, dealing in scraps like rag collectors of thought." — Andrzej Bobkowski, Wartime Notebooks, August 5, 1943 

    "The first thing a principle does – if it really is a principle – is to kill somebody." — Lord Peter Wimsey, in Gaudy Night, by Dorothy L. Sayers 

    "Once you realize that "deep state" is code for "the rule of law," you can translate their gibberish into something more like English" — David Frum (May 19, 2017)   

    "DARVO is an acronym for "deny, attack, and reverse victim and offender". Some researchers and advocates have characterized it as a common manipulation strategy of psychological abusers. The abuser denies the abuse ever took place, attacks the victim for attempting to hold the abuser accountable, and claims that they, the abuser, are actually the victim in the situation, thus reversing the reality of the victim and offender. This usually involves not just "playing the victim" but also victim blaming."  (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARVO)

    "People are all exactly alike. There's no such thing as a race and barely such a thing as an ethnic group. If we were dogs, we'd be the same breed. George Bush and an Australian Aborigine have fewer differences than a Lhasa apso and a toy fox terrier. A Japanese raised in Riyadh would be an Arab. A Zulu raised in New Rochelle would be an orthodontist. People are all the same, though their circumstances differ terribly." ― P.J. O'Rourke 

    "Most modern freedom is at root fear. It is not so much that we are too bold to endure rules; it is rather that we are too timid to endure responsibilities." — G. K. Chesterton, What's Wrong With the World 

    "The real argument against aristocracy is that it always means the rule of the ignorant. For the most dangerous of all forms of ignorance is ignorance of work." — G.K. Chesterson, NY Sun 11/3/18 

    "Contrarian arguments are generally contrarian because they're bullshit." — Scott Lemieux

    "If there's anything that a study of history tells us, it's that things can get worse, and also that when people thought they were in end times, they weren't." — Neil Gaiman 

    "He didn't cry: orphan babies learn there's no point in it." — John Irving, Cider House Rules 

    "Don't be afraid of anything. This is our country and it's the only one we have. The only thing we should fear is that we will surrender our homeland to be plundered by a gang of liars, thieves, and hypocrites. That we will surrender without a fight, voluntarily, our own future and the future of our children." — Alexei Navalny, Prison Diaries 

Alexei Navalny in Court

Никита Баталов @nikbatalov Коммерсант ФМ
https://twitter.com/#!/nikbatalov/status/144145553075351553 "для Википедии
CC-BY-SA-3.0." - https://yfrog.com/hwnhaecj

The Drummer Girl

 

I’m clearly coming late to the party, when everybody and their mum knows who Florence Pugh is but me.  I didn’t see her in Little Women – which probably got Greta Gerwig the greenlight for Barbie.  I haven’t seen a single picture in the Marvel superhero universe.  I didn’t have a clue that Cooking With Flo has 52K subscribers on Instagram.  And last but not least, I haven’t brought myself to sit through Oppenheimer, in spite of my admiration for Cillian Murphy in Peaky Blinders, and my fascination with the Manhattan Project.  So, watching Florence in the six-episode BBC adaption of The Little Drummer Girl (released in 2018, six years ago, already) was eye-popping.  She may be the hottest thing since sliced bread, as an influencer, but she took that part in her jaws, and shook it like a big cat.  It wasn’t one of those things where the actor is chewing up the scenery, not in service to the script, it was an actor completely inhabiting the character, no light between the cracks.  Florence was so much Charlie, in all her random willfulness, her hesitations and her fury, her heart on her sleeve, her transparent pretense, that you couldn’t keep up.  Charlie kept you guessing, Florence kept you guessing.  There was no disguise; it was all disguise.

A word about the story, and Charlie’s place in it.  The Little Drummer Girl is my favorite le Carré, and I think his most skillful book.  It has that extraordinary opening, the terror bombing in the Bonn suburbs.  “Sooner or later, they say in the trade, a man will sign his name.”  And then the introduction of the relentless Kurtz.  Charlie seems like a device, in the novel, a kind of Vanessa Redgrave avatar.  In the 1984 movie, which fails mostly because it’s compressed into a two-hour runtime and doesn’t have enough breathing room, Diane Keaton plays to Charlie’s naiveté, which isn’t wrong, exactly, but it’s not enough.  Charlie is brittle, a shell of defense mechanisms, and her handlers break her, and then remake her in her own image.  That’s the biggest trick, or narrative reversal, that Charlie isn’t an empty vessel, who’s filled – or fulfilled – by her mission.  She’s already waiting in the wings, her role is only waiting to be cast.  The reason the mini-series works, and the reason Florence Pugh works so well as Charlie, is that everybody seems to understand the meta aspect of this.  Charlie isn’t acting the part, she’s reimagining herself.  It’s her audition for the theater of the real, but as Gadi Becker tells himself at the end of the book, the last thing he wants is to invent somebody. 

There was a lot of huffing and puffing, when the book was first published, because people took issue with le Carré’s sympathies.  Or what they assumed were his sympathies.  And that, of course, depended on what theirs were.  The book describes an Israeli deception operation – but for our Charlie’s recruitment to work, it’s the Israeli spy-runner, Gadi, who voices Palestinian grievances.  This doubling effect mirrors Charlie’s conflicted inner discipline.  The end public result, though, was that reviewers got their panties in a bunch.  If you had sympathy for the Palestinians, you thought the book was an apology for Israeli violence; if you sympathized with the Israelis, you thought the book was an apology for Palestinian terror.  The idea that le Carré was trying to give voice to both, in an intractable, Biblical struggle, was lost.

I don’t think the struggle is any less intractable; if anything, given Bibi Netanyahu’s worst instincts, it’s even more so.  (It has to be said that le Carré’s political sympathies were very much not in support of the Arik Sharon scorched-earth philosophy.)  On the other hand, after the October 7^th attacks, and in the wake of the pretty much complete collapse of Iran’s proxies in Gaza and Lebanon, is it possible we might actually see some daylight?  I don’t know.  My point in writing this piece is only that the newer, more extended version of The Little Drummer Girl is an adult entertainment.  It’s not simple-minded, it’s ambiguous.  I admire the impulse of the people who made it, who clearly thought the time was right, and got the right people on board to make it happen.  It’s hard enough, these days, God knows.  I salute the effort. 

Life is What Happens...

The mess of interrupted projects on my desk.

Do writers and other artists ever actually retire?

Sure, sooner or later we leave our day jobs, but—barring physical or mental decline—we rarely abandon our artistic pursuits. Even so, leaving the daily grind behind presents us with a new set of challenges.

For me, leaving my part-time day job early last year should have opened up twenty-plus hours each week to spend writing and editing. I had my schedule planned. I would do this on Mondays, that on Tuesdays, and this other thing on Wednesdays. I would even—unlike when I worked part-time and freelanced the rest of the time—take Sundays off.

That plan went right to hell in a handbasket.

Instead of working around the requirements of my former salaried position, I’m now working around other things—deliveries, home repairs, family emergencies, and planned and unplanned medical appointments. (Trust me, getting older is time-consuming.)

Little of what I had planned to accomplish has come to pass, and I’m only occasionally taking Sundays off. I am—thankfully—not unproductive, just not nearly as productive as I had expected.

And that frustrates me.

I am not a spontaneous person. For example: Temple and I have purchased concert tickets and planned trips as far in the future as next December. But adhering to my day-to-day plans?

Phooey.

When I was younger and worked a full-time job, I was able to switch gears rapidly. I often wrote during my lunch hour, and there was no time to ease into the creative mindset. Once I slapped the metaphorical time clock to begin my lunch break, I had to be ready to write. So, I was.

Nowadays? Not so much.

Even though I try to roll with it when interrupted by things I cannot control, once interrupted it is difficult to get back into the creative swing. I can no longer switch off and on like rebooting a computer. So, after a five-minute interruption, it can take as long as an hour to get back up to speed. It only takes a handful of interruptions to obliterate a day’s productivity.

I wish I weren’t like this.

While I struggle to devise a plan I can adhere to, I console myself with the knowledge that any productivity beats no productivity, and I just keep plowing forward.

What about you? If you’ve left the work-a-day world behind, what has helped you establish and maintain a productive schedule?

* * *

Mickey Finn: 21st Century Noir, vol. 5, the latest in this annual series of noir anthologies, was released earlier this month by Down & Out Books. Volume 6 is already in the can for next December, and I will read submissions for volume 7 during February 2025. Submission guidelines here: https://www.crimefictionwriter.com/submissions.html.

“Twink” was reprinted in Great Googly Moo!

Reading and the Holidays

This is an updated version of a post I first wrote in 2008.

Holiday shopping season is upon us, and not only do books make wonderful presents (to give and to receive), but books also played a part in shaping my perceptions and expectations of the holidays. I suspect that this is true for many people.

One of the great opening lines in literature is Jo's lament in Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women: “Christmas won’t be Christmas without any presents.” Yes, all the way back in 1870, there was no surer way to disappoint a child than not to provide Christmas presents. Thanks to Alcott’s high moral Transcendentalist principles, what the March girls actually do is quit complaining, decide to put their annual one-dollar spending money into presents for their mother instead of treats for themselves, and end up giving away their festive holiday breakfast to an impoverished immigrant family with too many children. Generations of American girls have internalized the lessons in that story.

I can’t remember the name of the children’s book in which the family had a tradition of reading Dickens’s A Christmas Carol aloud on Christmas Eve, but the idea of such a tradition has stuck with me all these years. I also remember that the youngest boy was in the choir, and there was great tension about whether he would be able to hit the high note in his solo, “Glory to God in the highest,” presumably from Handel’s Messiah. (He did.) I shouldn’t have been paying attention to Christmas at all as a kid, but my Jewish parents were so afraid we’d feel deprived if we couldn’t participate in the general fuss that we decorated what we facetiously called a “Chanukah bush” and got stockings stuffed with presents on Christmas morning. Today, there’s an abundance of books about Jewish families celebrating Chanukah, including entries featuring Curious George, the Very Hungry Caterpillar, Grover, Clifford, and Oy, Santa! But I don’t remember any back then.

In my ecumenical present-day family, we celebrate both holidays. Rather than reading aloud, for many years we watched movies made from the great books already mentioned: Alastair Sim as Scrooge in A Christmas Carol and the Gillian Armstrong version of Little Women, which my husband and I both liked in spite of the the terrible miscasting of Winona Ryder as Jo. At my forty-fifth college reunion, I learned that a friend and her family read Dylan Thomas’s A Child’s Christmas in Wales aloud every year. So I know that the tradition of holiday reading survived into the new millennium.

Even today, no gift list in our family is complete unless it includes at least one book. In 2008, I said I wasn't happy unless there was at least one fat hardcover by a favorite mystery author that I wouldn’t have bought for myself under the tree, so I can curl up on the couch with it at some time during the long, lazy day. Now, I'll happily take an Amazon gift certificate so I can gobble up a whole series and binge on it on my Kindle. In 2008, books were the present of choice for my stepdaughter and her husband, who live in London, because we could order just what they wanted from their amazon.co.uk wish lists and have them shipped free. These days, we send money, and some of it still goes for books.

One of the great shopping pleasures these days is buying books for my granddaughters. Talk about books I’d never order for myself! In the 21st century, there are children’s books about everything. On a visit in 2008, the almost-two-year-old had me read her one entitled It’s Potty Time, with separate illustrated editions for boys and girls, and it’s only one of dozens on the subject. Last year, she got books about sports marketing and business—her dream career is managing an NFL superstar—and her older sister, who's at Cornell, got books about hikes and excursions around Ithaca and the Finger Lakes region.

What books are on your holiday gift list? What books, if any, shaped your image of how holidays should be?

A Good News Story of a Cigar, a War Won and Priceless Stolen Art Returned

In these difficult days, we all need a good news story and this one began eighty-four years ago when an Ottawa photographer, Yousuf Karsh, pulled a cigar out of Winston Churchill's mouth, rushed back to his camera and took a photo of the furious Churchill. 

The day was December 30, 1941 and Churchill had just given a speech to the Canadian House of Commons to rally support for the war against Hitler. Britain and Canada had been at war for two long years, endured the loss of many lives, and America had just entered the war on December 8, 1941. Churchill was desperate to steel the resolve of the allies and to rally more help from America; Churchill's annoyance at Karsh for taking his cigar would help with both of those, while also becoming the most reproduced portrait in the history of photography. 

Canada’s leading general interest magazine at the time, Saturday Night, published the scowling photo of Churchill, dubbed the Roaring Lion. When Life magazine put The Roaring Lion on their cover three weeks later, it focused the attention of the American public on the plight of Britain, and convinced them of Britain’s determination to win the war. The Roaring Lion photo is widely credited with helping Churchill rally the support he desperately needed to win the war. 

Maria Tippett, Karsh’s biographer, stated: 

“Just like the Old Masters who made kings and queens appear more beautiful or more powerful than they were, Karsh had used artful manipulation to transform an unpromising negative of a tired, overweight, sick, and slightly annoyed man into a photograph of a heroic figure.”

The Roaring Lion photo also catapulted Karsh's career and he soon became one of the most famous portrait photographers of all time. He went on to  photograph many famous political and military leaders, writers, actors, artists, musicians, scientists, and celebrities in the post-war period. Among his other famous portraits are the iconic photos of Ernest Hemingway, George Bernard Shaw, Dwight D. Eisenhower and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev. 

Karsh gifted the Roaring Lion photo, along with with other portraits, to the Chateau Laurier, the Ottawa hotel that was his home for almost two decades. This was another part of the good news story - these photographs were placed in the Château’s reading lounge, where everyone could enjoy these priceless works of art in the same lounge that Karsh and his wife spent many hours. 

Unfortunately, making The Roaring Lion accessible to everyone who loves art also made it accessible to those who love to steal art and, sometime between December, 2021 and January, 2022, it was, indeed, stolen. However, because it was replaced with a forgery, it was eight months before the theft was discovered. 

Robert K. Wittman, a former Federal Bureau of Investigation special agent said, “The real trick in art crime...is not in the stealing; it’s in the selling.”

The time between the theft and the discovery of that theft gave the thief a window of opportunity to sell it when no one knew it was stolen property. When The Roaring Lion photograph was finally located in Italy, in the home of art lover, Nicola Cassinelli, the problem was that Italian law didn't oblige him to relinquish it. He had bought it in good faith and he could keep it. 

Here's where more good news comes in: Cassinelli waved his rights as a good-faith purchaser along with any financial compensation for the portrait, and he handed it over to Italian police. 

“It cannot belong to one person and cannot be confined to the private space of a living room,” Cassinelli said. “The Roaring Lion belongs to anyone who cherishes freedom… I did not hesitate to return it.” 

The other piece of rather charming good news is that Cassinelli still enjoys the photo, because he purchased a cheap replica from an online poster shop and hung it in place of the stolen original. 

The thief? He was arrested on April 25, 2024, and charged. 

When I first wrote about this art heist, it was not as a good news story but a story of a tragic loss for Canada. Now that the Roaring Lion was put back in it's original place in Chateau Laurier on November fifteenth, 2024, I'm able to see the thread of good news in this eighty-four-year-old story. 

I'm not a 'glass half full' person because, like with most sayings, I don't even understand what it means. If there's good news and bad news, putting it in a glass doesn't change that - it's just good and bad news in a glass - whatever putting it in a glass means in the first place. However, I am forever in love with stories because turning the page in time brings a new twist, another turn, and that can alter everything. 

Who knew that taking away Churchill's cigar could result in the good news stories of helping to win a war and also helping a Canadian photographer capture images of many iconic figures of world history? Many years later, the good news continues in the form two other utterly unique stories; priceless works of art that can be enjoyed by anyone who walks into the reading lounge of a downtown hotel and an Italian returning a priceless piece of art back to its home in Canada, just because it was the right thing to do.