"Writers are Sleazy and Annoying."

Some people hate writers.
They think we are self-absorbed assholes with no clue about how to interact with the real world. We can’t fix your car, we can’t balance a checkbook, we don’t know how to talk to girlies.
And yeah, that’s all true, for the most part (and before you comment, saying, ‘hey, jag-ass, I’m a writer and my checkbook is perfectly balanced and I’m composed and charming with the lady-folk’, please remember I’m talking about everyone except YOU, okay?).
But that’s not really the point, and it’s not the main reason the writah-hatah-playahs hate. They hate because on the social media sites, we spend a lot of time posting about writing—our own writing and the writing of others we admire.
And that just ain’t right.
None of this hate has actually been directed at me, understand. I haven’t had any first-hand encounters with people who gave me hell for posting about my work. But I actually saw this on Twitter once, a couple months ago: “I don’t follow writers, because all they do is try to shove their book down your throat. They’re just sleazy and annoying”. It made me a little sad, because the solution, the thing that would satisfy the writer’s need to get his work out there and at the same time not alienate anyone, doesn’t present itself very easily.
In my case, it comes down to this—a good chunk of my FB friends and Twitter followers are also writers. And as an avid reader and Fan-Boy, I actually WANT to know about their work. I really do. So it’s hard to get my head around someone who is put off by that… but I guess I get it, to some extent. The writers who post absolutely NOTHING but stuff about their latest novel or story or review can be obnoxious, yeah, okay. I’ve learned from watching other writers who’ve been doing this longer than I have that your best bet is to keep the self-promotion stuff down to two or three times a week, if you can. Just so you don’t annoy the people you’re trying to get to buy your stuff.
But here’s what it really comes down to. I don’t have two separate personas. There’s not the “Writer Heath” and the “Average Fella Heath”. It’s the same guy. My posts about writing (whether it’s MY work or someone else’s) don’t come from a different head than the posts about how we went to the museum or how my daughter cracks me up or what I had for breakfast.
So I have to assume that, if you know me, or if you like me at all, you might be interested in knowing that I have a new story out. Or that I’d really like you to buy my book or write a review or something. Just like, if I know and like you, I’m actually INTERESTED in the fact that you got a promotion or saw a kick-ass movie or that your kid is sick this week. I’m not being facetious. If we’re connected on any of the social networking sites, I actually consider you a FRIEND of sorts.
I suspect the problem comes from writers who actually think of themselves as two different personas. They're in it solely to promote their work, and nothing else. But if you're a writer, or artist or dancer or what-have-ya, the people following you are doing so because they want to know something about you other than that. This is not solely a professional venture. Let them know you're a human, and not just a writing-marketing machine. Share something about yourself. Be a real human being.
I bet that would make all the difference.
By the way, come back next time, so I can try to get you to buy something, okay?

Hardboiled/Noir Writers Part 8

Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
Part Five
Part Six
Part Seven

--More Who Carried the Torch--


Throughout the seventies, eighties and nineties, hardboiled fiction held on, despite the industry's best attempts to make it soft and easy. It's because of the few writers who held tight to the hardboiled vision that we're now enjoying a new resurgence of interest in noir.

Here are some more essential talents who carried the torch:


Walter Mosley started his writing career with a terrific run of books about Easy Rawlins, a black P.I. in the L.A. of the 1950’s. Very noir, with writing as rich and evocative as Chandler or Ross MacDonald.

A Red Death
White Butterfly
Black Betty
Little Yellow Dog
Devil in a Blue Dress



James Ellroy is the mad dog of modern crime fiction. He doesn't write thrillers so much as crime-ridden historical epics, examining the darkest corners of the 20th century. His books are benchmarks in the genre—humorless, bleak, violent and cynical. Also, amazingly well written.

L.A. Confidential
The Big Nowhere
Killer on the Road
Brown’s Requiem
The Black Dahlia
Blood's a Rover



Andrew Vachss wrote what was perhaps the most brutal ongoing series in the genre these last few years, the novels about the obsessed Burke. Stark and focused. Vachss is an outspoken advocate for abused children. His non-Burke novel “The Getaway Man” is one of the purest modern noirs you’ll ever read.

Flood
Strega
Blue Belle
Hard Candy
Blossom
The Getaway Man



I don’t need to tell you about Elmore Leonard, do I? Amazingly prolific and one of the finest writers working today. Much has already been said about his dead-on dialogue and seedy characters. To list all his great books would take pages, but here's just a few that I can heartily recommend.

The Hot Kid
Riding The Rap
Out of Sight
Pagan Babies
Toshimingo Blues
Killshot
Maximum Bob



Joe R. Lansdale is, quite simply, the man. His style is distinctly Texas Noir, wry and funny and dark. He writes wonderfully in multiple genres, but when he ventures into noir territory, he’s especially awesome. Lansdale is a good reason not to kill yourself. Here are a few gems:

Savage Season
Cold in July
Mucho Mojo
The Two-Bear Mambo
The Bottoms
Sunset And Sawdust
Vanilla Ride
Devil Red



Surprisingly, one of the best writers of tough-minded noir these days is seldom if ever marketed as such. Cormac McCarthy isn’t the first name you think of when you think of the genre, but his books are tight, spare, and punctuated with sharp and unexpected doses of violence. Amazing stuff.

No Country for Old Men
Blood Meridian
The Road
The Crossing


--Door-Stop Thrillers--

The end of the 20th Century saw the beginning of the Age of the Door-stop Thriller-- that is, crime or mystery novels that are very long and very dense. Until then, the thriller by it's very nature was short and tight-- a quick read for a sleepless night-- but the market had opened up finally to longer works, written by authors with clearly literary concerns... sometimes.

Other times, they were just looong books.

Regardless, these writers appear consistently on best-seller charts, have massive readerships, and are practically cottage industries-- crime fiction straight enough to appeal to the masses but just noir-tinged enough to have appeal to readers with darker tastes.



One of the most popular and influential of these door-stop thriller writers was, and still is, James Lee Burke. His novels about Dave Robiecheux are densely plotted and the language is lush and Faulknerian. They may suffer from 'sprawl', but Robiecheux is a great example of a deeply flawed hero, trying to deal with his inner demons while tracking down the bad guys.

Black Cherry Blues
A Morning for Flamingoes
In the Electric Mist with Confederate Dead
A Stained White Radiance
Crusader’s Cross



John Connolly made a big splash with his first novels about Charlie ‘Bird’ Parker, an ex-cop haunted by the brutal slayings of his wife and daughter. Like James Lee Burke, Connolly's books are often well-padded with extemporaneous filler, but his voice as an author is layered and colorful, and the crime thriller backdrop is sometimes shot through with a strange dose of the supernatural.

Every Dead Thing
Dark Hollow
The Killing Kind
The White Road



Lee Child is most notable for his series featuring tough hero and force of nature, Jack Reacher. Like many other modern suspense writers, Child has a tendency to go longer than the story can maintain, but his books are more violent and intense than most series characters these days. Very hardboiled.

The Killing Floor
The Enemy
One Shot
The Hard Way
Persuader



Ian Rankin has been called the master of ‘Tartan Noir’—which goes to show you that the media loves a silly label. Like some of the other modern writers I just mentioned, Rankin's work is sometimes puffed up with filler. Regardless, his novels about Inspector Rebus are very well-written and relentlessly bleak.

Knots & Crosses
Hide & Seek
Tooth & Nail
Strip Jack
The Black Book
Mortal Causes


Next Wednesday: Part Nine: The New Noir.

Grey Hawthorne in "The Nine Pale Men"

Ron Warren over at The Nautilus Engine has just re-posted "The Nine Pale Men", the first Grey Hawthorne adventure. This is where the intrepid Mississippian's bizarre journey around the world begins!

Hard-Boiled- Bill Pronzini & Jack Adrian, Ed.

There's no shortage of great crime fiction anthologies, no matter what your tastes may be. But HARD-BOILED, edited by Bill Pronzini and Jack Adrian, is still my all-time favorite. I will admit some bias here, because there are many stories from the '50's in this collection, and I find that the best writers of the genre tend to come from that decade.

Anthologies are by their very nature a mixed bag. Usually, for every one great story you’ll have to slog through two or more that leave you cold. Not so with this one. HARD-BOILED comes very close to being the perfect anthology. The editors have terrific taste, and they’ve chosen an amazing selection of hardboiled and noir stories, chronological from the ‘20’s up to the early ‘90’s (when this book was published). The majority of the stories are from the ‘30’s and the ‘50’s, since (as the editors point out) those were the twin Golden Eras of this particular genre.

Honestly, just about every story in this one is at least very good, and more than a handful are down-right brilliant. Here are some highlights:

1929. “Round Trip” by W.R. Burnett, in which a Chicago gangster gets a less-than-friendly reception when he takes a sabbatical to Toledo. Hardboiled, and quietly funny.

1931. “Mistral”, by Raoul Whitfield—a private detective is ordered by his agency to find an American gangster in Genoa, but suffers a crisis of conscience when he realizes the agency’s clients want to murder the man. Fast and tough, and still humane.

1934. “Trouble-Chaser”, by Paul Cain, is the story of a ‘problem solver’ on the fringes of the law who tries to sort things out for a friend accused of murder—by stacking all the cards against the real culprit. Cain was about as hardboiled a writer as you can find.

1953. “Black Pudding”, David Goodis—pursued by gangsters, Ken finds himself aided by a scarred, opium-addicted girl every bit as victimized as himself, and sets out to turn the tables on his enemies. Beautifully tense noir.

1955. “Mama’s Boy”, David Alexander—one of the more disturbing stories, a brutal body-builder who makes his cash by using older women decides he wants to take it one step further and beat his next victim to death. But his anger proves to be his undoing.

1956. “Home”, by Gil Brewer, is the story of a young black man, home from college, and the awful moment in which he forgets where he is and is victimized by the hateful residents of the city. Stark and chilling.

1957. “A Piece of Ground”, Helen Neilson—all the Farmer wants is to save up enough cash so he can go home and purchase a farm with his wife and children. But then he gets involved with a seemingly kind-hearted whore and a hustler who says he can double the Farmer’s money. The Farmer may ‘buy the farm’ a lot sooner than he thought.

1987 “To Florida”, by Robert Sampson—Teller kills the landlord, takes his cash, and with his less-than-attractive girl in tow heads south. It doesn’t take things long to fall apart, though, when the girlfriend starts to fear Teller’s growing violence. A bleak, nihilistic little story.

1989. “Bonding”, by Faye Kellerman. A bored teenage girl turns to prostitution just because she can, seduces her step-father, and manipulates him into murdering her mother. This is probably the boldest, most disturbing story in the book, and had me on the edge of my seat. Brilliant stuff.

Aside from these noted, there are of course many of the usual names—Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, Ross MacDonald, James M. Cain, John D. MacDonald, Jim Thompson, Lawrence Block, Elmore Leonard, James Ellroy… and the list goes on. It’s a veritable who’s who. But the real strength of this book is in the number of stories by writers you might not be familiar with. I guarantee, however, that you’ll want to look up more of their work when you’re done.

If you're relatively new to reading hard-boiled/noir crime fiction, or if you're an old hand looking for some sharp story-telling, this is one you don't want to pass up.

Kindles and Robot Overlords

It’s pretty much a given by now that e-readers aren’t going anywhere. They represent the future, and it won’t be long before we all have computer chips put right into our skulls and we’ll be able to download info from anywhere in the world by blinking our right eye and making a funny gesture in the air with our fingers. Our Robot Overlords will allow us one half-hour every week for recreational purposes before getting back to work on the Brain Feed, supplying virtual candy corn to the Automated Council of Top Dogs.
Yeah, I’m okay with that. We have a while yet before the current crop of presidential hopefuls reveal themselves to be automatons from outer space. So we should use the time we have left to take full advantage of the e-reader revolution.
I mostly don’t mind reading e-books. I mean, they’re okay. Would I rather have an actual paper copy of a book to read? Yes, I would—it’s just what I’m used to is all. The feel of an actual book in your hand, one that requires you to turn pages and stuff, is comfortable to me and I suspect I’ll always prefer that. But reading a book on a Kindle or Nook or laptop is fine—whatever it takes to transmit the story from the author’s head to mine.
My own personal criterion comes down, totally, to price. I rarely buy books—actual paper books, that is—brand new anymore. Honestly, I just can’t afford them. I wish I was in a position to support my favorite writers in that way, but man… times is hard, yeah? I have a car payment coming up, for christ’s sake, and I haven’t been to the dentist in three years.
So when I buy paper books, it’s almost always at the used book store. Being able to buy a stack of old books for five or ten bucks is one of the greatest feelings in the world, and brings home how precious the actual book can be—an e-reader can’t replicate that feeling.
But: if you’re milling around Amazon, window-shopping at the Kindle store, you come across so many great books for SO cheap… a book for anywhere from .99 cents to 3.99 is, honestly, just a killer deal, especially considering that you get to read it within SECONDS of finding it.
When an e-book is priced at more than 3.99, though… I’d rather have it as an actual paper book. It slays me when I see a book put out by one of the major publishing houses, and it’s priced at 10 or 12 or even 16 bucks on Kindle… for real, man?? Honestly, are you fucking serious? My gut reaction to that is: Screw you and your fucking book, okay?
My novel, THE BASTARD HAND, has been available as an e-book for a couple-three months now, and it’s priced at 3.99—which is, honestly, the most I could see paying for an e-book (oh, and it’s totally worth it, I promise). It’s actually selling TONS better than it did in paper. And my short story collection DIG TEN GRAVES (which I put out myself) is .99 cents. It’s been moving steadily, and I suspect the reason for that is how cheap it is. Folks are willing to give something a chance if it’s that cheap.
My point: the so-called “e-book revolution” could be a great thing, if it keeps prices reasonable and brings reading material that would otherwise be unavailable to the masses of us who are hungry for it. But if the publishing industry doesn’t get its collective head out of its collective ass and realize that it’s a different ballgame entirely, then… screw e-books. Give me paper.

image by Ron Warren Photography

Writers Needed: Complete Lack of Morals Required

Writing really can change the world. It’s true. But that’s not necessarily a good thing.
Public discourse these days comes down to who’s got the best writers.
Who can put drama and emotion in a delivery most effectively?
Who’s the best at glossing over inconvenient facts in favor of raw sentiment, designed to appeal to the biggest possible audience?
Basically, we’re talking about ad men here. Highly skilled professional public relations writers. That’s a rarified breed, right there. It requires a total lack of scruples and a complete devotion to cash.
We’ve been seeing an awful lot of it these last three or four years here in America. The actual concept of “truth” is becoming more and more irrelevant, in favor of what Stephen Colbert calls “truthiness”—that is, the thing that appeals most to the common American who doesn’t want to be called upon to think about the issues too deeply. Sound-bites are required. Homilies needed. “Feel-good” bits of half-baked ideology.
Hey, someone’s gotta write this stuff, yeah? Someone has to perfect the science of distilled bullshitting and sleight-of-hand. Only someone who understands what makes a story work is capable of this. A writer. A lousy, sleazy writer.
Need to defend that corporation polluting the Gulf of Mexico? Hell, with a good writer, you can concentrate on job-growth and turn them into heroes in the public eye. Want to make sure your rich-as-hell buddies don’t pay taxes? Easy—get a writer to espouse about how America was built on free enterprise. Voila… you can make those whiny poor people look like ungrateful Pinko Commies.
And of course, the writer has access to an entire catalogue of hot-button words and phrases that people will respond to instinctively. Socialist. Hey, sometimes that’s all you have to say about your opponent to turn the tables on him. Doesn’t make a whit of difference if it’s true or not. Maverick. If doesn’t matter if you’ve been ass-deep in the political game for forty years, if you refer to yourself as a maverick, you instantly become the “Washington outsider”.
See how easy that is?
Another thing you can do that is highly effective: Tell bold-faced lies. Go ahead, don’t worry. No one in the media will call you out on it, I promise. Example: You can say, “Welfare makes up HALF of our budget,” when, in fact, it makes up only 5% to 12%, depending on how “welfare” is defined. If someone DOES actually try to call you out on it, just say the same thing, only LOUDER. Works like a charm.
Bear in mind, these crazy mad writing skills are not solely in the hands of the Right Wing. The Left is equally guilty of bending the truth and even telling outright lies. The Right is winning this particular race to the bottom of the moral barrel at the moment, though, because they have more money to hire the best talent. I feel absolutely certain that, if the Left was as well-funded as the Right, we’d be dealing with an entirely different set of lies.
Either way, hey, writers are needed. If you’ve got the skills and a complete lack of regard for morality, there’s always a gig waiting for you in the political arena.

For a Few Westerns More

About a month ago, I posted here about my new obsession with reading Westerns. It’s a genre that I’d been fairly unschooled in, which is odd considering that I’ve always loved Western movies.
But then I started hammering out the beginnings of a new novel, and realized it would only work as a Western. So I decided I’d best get more familiar with the genre.
I’m awful glad I did. Even if I wasn’t in the early stages of my own Western, I’d still be enjoying the hell out of most of these books. Here’s my first round-up of titles, posted a few weeks ago: A Fistful of Westerns… and here’s seven more.

Quincannon- Bill Pronzini
A tight, fast novel about U.S. Secret Service agent John Quincannon, a man haunted by a horrible mistake in his past and ravaged by booze. He comes to Silver City on the trail of a gang of counterfeiters, and gets caught up in a town-wide conspiracy that can only end in fast action and bloodshed. Pronzini is amazing at spare, clean prose, and has a knack for terrifically believable characters.



Vengeance Valley- Luke Short
Owen Daybright just wants to do right by Jen, a woman wronged by another man and left to raise her baby alone. But when Jen’s brothers show up, looking for revenge against the man they feel wronged their sister, Owen becomes the target. His misplaced sense of loyalty and obligation lead to ever-escalating danger, until the explosive climax. This is one of my absolute favorite Westerns so far—Luke Short wrote most of his books in the fifties, but this one still feels modern, with great characters and a story that just keeps getting more and more tense. I immediately went out and bought more Short after reading this one.



The Badge: The Black Coffin- Bill Reno
Dave Bradford shoots and kills three outlaws when they try to steal his horse, and the folks in town mistake him for his twin brother, Dan Starr. Dave goes along with it, thinking he’ll stick around just long enough to collect the reward money, but when more outlaws come gunning, Dave finds he’s bitten off more than he can chew. To make matters worse, the real Dan Starr shows up… This one’s pretty solid, although the characters occasionally behave in ways that don’t really work, and the pacing is a bit off in places.



True Grit- Charles Portis
A simply amazing book. Headstrong14-year-old Mattie Ross contracts drunken U.S. Marshall Rooster Cogburn to help her track down the man who killed her father. Along with a Texas Ranger named LaBoeuf, the quarrelsome group pursues the killer and the crew he belongs to, and Mattie learns that “true grit” comes in a number of different forms. The voice of Mattie, the narrator, is entirely engaging and original, shot through with real depth and some surprising bits of humor. I highly recommend this book.



Appaloosa- Robert B. Parker
I’m not a big fan of Parker’s Spenser novels, so I came to this one a bit dubiously. It was actually great. Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch take on the job of bringing law and order to the town of Appaloosa, which has been suffering at the hands of a sleazy cattle rancher Bragg. But the job gets more complicated when Cole—a normally stoic, emotionless sort—falls hard for the beautiful and complicated Allie, a woman with a relentless desire to be with the “top stallion”. The violence that follows puts both Cole and Hitch’s ethics to the test.



Shadow of a Star- Elmer Kelton
Young Jim-Bob McClain is trying very hard to make a good deputy, but after making a fool of himself in town trying to do his job, nobody takes him seriously anymore and Jim-Bob starts to doubt himself. Until a vicious bank robber comes to town and kills Jim-Bob’s best friend—and Jim-Bob is forced to face his fears alone and prove he can do the job. This is a terrifically-written novel, with a great deal of emotional depth and a solid moral center; the choices Jim-Bob has to make are of far more consequence than simply shooting someone. In fact, part of his test of manhood involves making sure a killer isn’t lynched. A richly rewarding book, this one. There’s more Elmer Kelton on my list now.

And finally…



Death of a Gunfighter- Lewis B. Patten
This one came highly recommended by Cullen Gallagher and Mike Dennis. It took a while to track down a copy, but it was worth it. Sheriff Frank Patch has been protecting the town of Cottonwood Springs for twenty years, so when the town decides they want him gone, Patch steadfastly refuses to step down. Turns out, Patch has the goods on many of them, and they live in fear that he’ll expose them. What follows is an ever-escalating series of violent encounters as the once-respectable townsfolk take matters into their own hands, with disastrous results. The sense of doom grows stronger and stronger with every page, as things spiral out of control, and the possibility of things ever being right again recedes farther and farther. There’s a lot of dead bodies by the time it’s over, but more importantly, there’s a lot of shattered lives. Death of a Gunfighter is a seriously hardboiled Western.

So that’s seven for now. I’ll have one more round-up in another month or so.