The Definitive Marlowe: Revisited

Last time around I referenced the long, long history of the film industry's attempts to profitably bring Raymond Chandler's iconic gumshoe Philip Marlowe to the big (and the small) screen. I promised to watch the new film Marlowe, (not to be confused with the 1969 James Garner film of the same title), starring Liam Neeson and share my thoughts about it, and also comparing and contrasting it with all of the film Marlowes who came before.

A Fistful of Marlowes: clockwise from upper left–Dick Powell (with the always fabulous Claire Trevor in 1944's Murder, My Sweet), Humphrey Bogart (The Big Sleep, 1946), Robert Mitchum (Farewell, My Lovely, 1975)& one shot of the otherwise camera-shy Robert Montgomery (The Lady in the Lake, 1947)

So let's get started!

First: my thoughts on Neeson's turn as Marlowe:

I loved it.

Neeson is seventy, but he keeps himself in pretty good shape (as demonstrated by his participation in some really well-done fight scenes in the this film), and although clearly an aging Marlowe, and not the age the Marlowe of Raymond Chandler's seven novels and countless short stories would have been in the year of the film's setting (1939), he and the film do not attempt to mask the fact that he's not mid-thirties, as the literary Marlowe would have been in 1939.

Also, director and co-writer Neil Jordan (The Crying Game) further changes things up by making Marlowe Irish-born and raised, at one point referencing the horrors of war he himself had experienced at the horrifying Battle of the Somme in 1916, as a member of the King's Irish Rifles. So this Marlowe is not, specifically Chandler's Marlowe.

Banville & the Black-Eyed Blonde

And that stands to reason, as the source material is not a Chandler novel, but one commissioned by the Chandler estate as a "sequel to Chandler's The Big Sleep," and written by Irish novelist John Banville using his crime fiction pen name Benjamin Black: The Black-Eyed Blonde (2014).

The film is gorgeously shot, with Spain taking the place of 1939 Southern California. The action is set specifically in and around mythical "Bay City," Chandler's fictional avatar for Santa Monica. Cinematographer Xavi Giménez may well be in line for an Oscar nomination. The costumes are period perfect, the acting, by an A-list of mostly Irish actors and headed by Diane Kruger, Jessica Lange, Danny Huston, and the always entertaining (and Scottish) Alan Cumming, is first-rate. The pacing is spot-on, the film never dragged or got bogged down in explanations of plot points, nor did it blast through pages of the script at the rate of a Transformers movie.

But most of all, with Jordan's sure hand on the tiller and Neeson all-in and game to try to pull the whole thing off, it just… works.

At least it did for me. I highly recommend this film based on a non-Chandler book. Very entertaining!

So was Neeson's Marlowe the "definitive Marlowe"? Of course not. It's a Marlowe for our times, even if it is set in the early 20th century. Any "definitive" Marlowe would need to carry the feel of Chandler's character in the way that Humphrey Bogart's Sam Spade was definitive (even if the short, dark Bogart looked nothing like the hulking, slope-shouldered "Blond Satan" of Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon).

With that out of the way, let's take a look at the Marlowes come before…

Other Film Marlowes:

Sanders (Center) looking bored.

1. George Sanders (The Falcon Takes Over-1942)" Nope. Not Marlowe, not even an attempt at Marlowe: British actor George Sanders (who was great in many other things, but mostly seems bored here) plays Gay Lawrence, "the Falcon" in the B-movie series of the same name. Not noir, not hardboiled, broad comic subplot played for laughs and with the central character a "gentleman amateur not-quite-detective." Although John Wayne caddy and future Wagon Train star Ward Bond does a pretty fair job of playing "Moose Malloy" in this B-movie take on Farewell, My Lovely (the first, and weakest of three such film adaptations to be featured in this post). With Bond just a year removed from his solid turn as Detective Tom Polhaus in John Huston's seminal The Maltese Falcon, he's clearly better than the material he's given to work with here.

Not Marlowe-says so right on the door.

2. Lloyd Nolan (Time to Kill-1943) Nope. He's Lloyd Nolan playing Mike Shayne. This one, the first, and better of two film adaptations of Chandler's The Brasher Doubloon (published in the U.K. and in later American versions as The High Window) to be featured in this post, is also a B-movie filmed quick and cheap. Nolan, a talented character actor whose Hollywood career spanned most of the 20th century, is delightful as Mike Shayne, and the film sports a solid supporting cast, plenty of humor too, and it is superior in pretty much every way to 1947's The Brasher Doubloon- more on that, below! More on Nolan below as well. And you can watch the whole thing on YouTube here.

3. Dick Powell (Marlowe in Murder My Sweet-1944) in the film that helped him rebrand himself as a noir film hero and ditch his previous career as a(n aging) song-and-dance man. Powell is great, but too perky to be Marlowe. The film itself, directed by Edward Dmytryk, is a solid adaptation of the Chandler novel Farewell, My Lovely. This adaptation is more faithful to the subject matter than the Sanders version above (slapped on Hollywood ending notwithstanding). It's also better directed, with a stronger supporting cast (the difference between a "B" picture budget and an "A" picture budget) which included the ever-formidable Claire Trevor, and journeyman Mike Mazurky as probably the best ever film incarnation of the hulking, slow-witted brute, Moose Malloy.

Powell, as Marlowe, with Mazurky (right), about to be taken for a ride, Chauffeur and all.

Bogart is Marlowe in The Big Sleep (1946)

4. Humphrey Bogart (Marlowe in The Big Sleep -1946) he's great. One of his best performances. The movie is an interesting mess, plotwise (complete with another Hollywood ending-and not even the likes of of A-list script doctors such as Leigh Brackett and William Faulkner can do much with it). The problem for me is that, as hard as he tries, Bogart still comes across like Sam Spade-his other iconic detective role, and from a much better movie. Great supporting cast: Lauren Bacall (with a teenaged Andy Williams supposedly dubbing her singing voice), Regis Twomey as long-time Marlowe associate Bernie Ohls, the Los Angeles District Attorney's chief investigator, and Marlowe's former boss, the great Elisha Cook, Jr. (riveting as Wilmer Cook, the psychopathic "gunsel" in The Maltese Falcon), and a not-yet-discovered Dorothy Malone sizzling in a single scene with Bogart as the clerk in a bookstore where Marlowe waits out a rainstorm.

Robert Montgomery and Audrey Totter, in the mirror.

5. Robert Montgomery (Two on-screen scenes in the camera-as-eyes-of-the-narrating-detective in The Lady of the Lake-1947). Dubbed a "startling and daring new method of storytelling–a milestone in moviemaking." In truth, an ambitious flop that condensed the source material in what is arguably one of Chandler's better novels (with, wait for it… yet another tacked on Hollywood ending). Mongomery directed, and starred as Marlowe in voice-over, using the camera as the eyes of the main character. He only appears in two scenes where he sees himself in a mirror. Definitive Marlowe? Nope. Although the aforementioned Lloyd Nolan steals the show here as corrupt cop De Garmo.

George Montgomery: Swashbuckling Marlowe!

6. George Montgomery–No Relation– (The Brasher Doubloon / The High Window-1947) B-movie effort and Montgomery, who is game and gives it his all (In spite of the fact that Montgomery's "all" seems to include playing Marlowe as if he were a method actor trying to play the hard-boiled icon as Errol Flynn.), is at the mercy of his own limitations and a script that makes his Marlowe far more interested in "love" than in "saving" the victim as was the case in the source material (Complete with, you guessed it: still another tacked on Hollywood ending!). Right age, and aside from the pencil thin mustache, right "look," but no dice. And you can also watch this one on YouTube here.

The wonderful Rita Moreno & Rockf-ermm Marlowe.

7. James Garner (the title character in Marlowe-1969) plays a P.I. who comes across as more proto-Rockford than as Philip Marlowe in this relatively faithful (no Hollywood ending!) adaptation of the excellent and often overlooked Chandler novel The Little Sister. Updated "modern" setting. Great supporting cast, especially Rita Moreno, Gayle Hunnicutt, Sharon Farrell, and H.M. Wynant as mobster Sonny Steelgrave. Bruce Lee is in it, and he's reliably terrible. Then again, the chops they cast him for weren't his acting chops. (*rimshot*).

"That's okay with me." When "okay" is frequently NOT "okay"...

8. Elliott Gould (Marlowe in Robert Altman's The Long Goodbye 1973) as a shambling, tatterdemalion, sort-of hippy Marlowe? NOPE. Hardly "definitive."

The first time I watched this film I loathed it. A few decades and a number of re-watchings later, and this film has much to recommend it. It is surprisingly faithful to the Chandler novel of the same name. Okay, maybe not so surprising, in light of the fact that Leigh Brackett penned the screenplay. Altman's The Long Goodbye bears the dubious distinction of containing a torture scene that still manages to shock the viewer, a half-century after its release.

The cast (including Gould, who is following Altman's direction to a t) is superb. Sterling Hayden was never better (and that's saying something) than in his role of millionaire author and part-time nutjob Roger Wade. Mark Rydell, known primarily for his work as a director (he would go on to garner an Oscar nomination for On Golden Pond.) is unforgettable in his brief turn as vicious thug Marty Augustine (who does not appear in the novel). Henry Gibson (of Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In fame) is inspired casting as the drug-peddling quack Dr. Verringer. Baseball player (and author of the unforgettable sports memoir Ball Four) Jim Bouton was not an actor and it showed in his mostly wooden performance as Marlowe's doomed pal Terry Lennox, but they can't all be winners. And lastly, this film actually improves on the ending Chandler penned for the book. it's easily my favorite ending of any Marlowe film ever, and one of my favorite film endings, period, regardless of genre.

Not in any way a spoiler, honest.

Mitchum–absolutely GREAT as Marlowe.

9. Robert Mitchum Marlowe in Farewell My Lovely 1975) The third, and best of the three film adaptations of the Chandler novel of the same name. Mitchum was 58 when he took this on, and does nothing to try to play the part as "younger" (Marlowe in the 1942 novel would have been in his mid-thirties), and his performance is the better for it. this one ranks right up there with the best: Bogart, especially. And yet, I can't help but wonder what might have been, had Mitchum taken on this role in 1948, instead of the overrated (in my opinion) Out of the Past? Such a portrayal may well have been the definitive Marlowe. There was an air of sardonic nihilism that younger Mitchum pretty near perfectly embodied: too cool to care what others thought of him and knowing that his target audience were "guys with dirty fingernails and dirty shirts who have lost at least one job for talking back to someone..." And while late-fifties Mitchum is a terrific actor who gives a dynamite performance, he can't help but be more measured, more caring about the effects of his actions. His very age and him acting it, inhibits that performance, albeit slightly. It's a small quibble, but that's the difference between "great" and "definitive." As for the film itself, John Ireland is terrific as police detective Nulty, Harry Dean Stanton chews the scenery (which is appropriate in this instance) as Nulty's corrupt cop partner (and Marlowe foil) Billy Rolfe. Sylvia Miles scored an Oscar nomination for her turn as Jessie Florian, Charlotte Rampling is deathly dull as Helen Grayle (especially when compared to Claire Trevor), Jack O'Halloran is appropriately massive as Moose Malloy. And a year before Rocky, a young Sylvester Stallone has a "blink and you might miss it" role as whorehouse enforcer "Jonnie."

10. Robert Mitchum (Marlowe in The Big Sleep-1978) The less said about this blatant cash grab, the better. So I'll leave it at this: only three years separate this film from the vastly superior Farewell, My Lovely, and yet in this one Mitchum comes across as past-his-prime. Plus it's a modern update of the source material from 1939 to 1978. And the action is inexplicably moved from Los Angeles to London. ENGLAND. None of this is Mitchum's fault, but there you go.

NOPE. Don't bother.

Nah.

10. James Caan (Marlowe in Poodle Springs-1998) I really like James Caan's body of work. But at this point in his career I feel he was pretty much just playing himself. He's supposed to be an older, recently married Marlowe, but his wisecracks even sound like a tired James Caan going through the motions. The caged energy of Sonny Corleone is long dissipated. The grim humor of Frank (the title character in Thief) is sadly lacking. And the professional, practiced readiness for controlled violence of Johnathan E. from Rollerball is nowhere to be found. The script (based on Robert B. Parker's continuation of the first two chapters of the novel of the same name that Chandler left unfinished on his death in 1959) is okay, and the supprting cast seems game, but this isn't really a Chandler Marlowe story, and as such, the seams are showing. But don't just take my word for it. You can catch the entire film on YouTube here for free.

Well-done, Liam!

11. Liam Neeson (Marlowe in the creatively titled Marlowe -2023) As I noted above, Neeson did a fine job, and it's a terrific film, with a wonderful and compelling cast. Neil Jordan's direction and collaboration on the script with William Monahan is pretty well pulled off. Spain as 1939 Southern California is gorgeous.

However, Chandler wrote Marlowe envisioning a scruffy Cary Grant playing the role. 40s Mitchum is pitch-perfect. So, short story long: I think there is no definitive Marlowe on film. Nor is there ever likely to be.

And what's wrong with that?

The definitive Marlowe?

And on that note, time for me to wrap it up and pack it all in for now. Tune in next time when I conclude this Marlowe media deep dive by touching on Marlowe portayals in TV and radio.

See you in two weeks!

A Policeman's Lot is Now an Appy One

Last year I wrote here about my discovery of BBC Sounds, a free app that allows you to listen to shows and podcasts from across the pond.  I recently discovered a program on it which is right up our alley and well worth a listen.  

It's A Fair Cop stars Alfie Moore, a comedian who spent decades as a constable in a city in the north of England.  ("Scunthorpe is like Jupiter.  Everyone knows where it is, but very few have plans to go there.")  In each program he tells a live audience about a real event from his experiences as a cop  and asks them how they would have handled the situation.  

For example, a man found an intruder in his garage and hit him with a blunt object.  Was this a legitimate use of force?  In the course of this episode Moore points out that if you cover your garden wall with, say, bits of  glass, and a potential burglar gets hurt, you are liable, but if you plant abrasive foliage and he falls in them, that's an act of God, "and further proof that God also hates  burglars."  He notes that the Met (the London police) even put out a list of the 30 best anti-burglar plants.

And that's an unusually kind remark from Moore about the Met.  He is from the North, remember, and he manages to insult the capital's coppers in almost every show. "The Met is so overworked now that they are asking you to tamper with your own evidence."

We learn a lot about the rules of British police work, some of which seem pretty odd to me.  For example, if a beat constable thinks a parked car looks suspicious he can observe it while approaching it very, very, slowly, but he can't stop.  That would be surveillance, which requires authorization.

As I said, Moore is a comedian so the show is funny.  A few examples:

"Anyone who says the police are corrupt can kiss my Rolex."

"The last time [that security guard] chased an old woman around the store, she lapped him."

And in the inevitable grim humor of the police: "He said: 'God told me to kill my wife.' I said: 'Too bad he didn't tell you to dig a deeper hole.'"

Oh, you will also learn why Moore says "punching an innocent young man in the face" is the best thing he ever did as a cop.  Highly recommended.

Slightly off-topic: In my earlier piece about BBC Sounds I mentioned the serial Party's Over, about (fictional) Henry Tobin, the worst Prime Minister in British history, kicked out after eight months in office.  I wonder if they will consider him redundant now that Liz Truss has beaten him by six months?

Guest Post: Failing Up

I’m uncertain when I first met Sandra Murphy, but I am certain that we’d crossed paths online for many years before we met in person at the Dallas Bouchercon in 2019. Before we met in person, though, our writing careers intersected in an unexpected way: I posted a smart-alecky remark on Facebook that I wanted to become the James Patterson of short story writers by collaborating with other writers to increase my productivity. Sandra called my bluff and offered to give it a shot. Since then, we’ve finished and sold five short stories, have one in progress that shows great potential, and have a few more that, while not actually dead, are clearly on life-support. Here she explains how her non-writing failures have led to her writing successes. 

— Michael Bracken

Failing Up

By Sandra Murphy

Sandra’s love of learning new things—in this
case learning to create things with mixed
media—has inspired many of her stories.

I speak Spanish and Chinese. I love to dance. As a kid, I signed up for all kinds of after school lessons—swimming, piano, ballet, tap, and baton twirling. In adult education classes, I learned to make a meringue Christmas tree, spinach quiche, and the paper frills that go on a crown rib roast. Such a variety of skills and yet, they all have one thing in common.

I am astonishingly bad at all of them.

Four years of high school Spanish and I can ask what’s your name, how much does this cost, and what is the location of the bathroom. In Chinese, I can let you know, I am tall. There is no doubt that these are not my native languages. To my credit, I never harmed anyone with a misguided baton toss. There was an incident with that quiche and too much Tabasco sauce which apparently reaches fiery levels after baking.

As for as dancing, I have no rhythm and cannot hear the beat except when the Bee Gees are singing. So far, I’ve not harmed anyone on the dance floor either. There’s still time.

I was reminded, double-digit years ago, how much I enjoy the written word. It was also pointed out, I wasn’t limited to reading. I could write as well. Rather than writing well, I scribbled an untold number of articles and stories that will never see the light of publication. As soon as an editor could stop laughing at my pompous attempt to sound like my idea of a writer, an instant rejection would have followed.

I kept writing. There was a short romance story where my main character was deemed to be a stalker rather than a nice guy, chatting up a nice gal. My mystery had no hook, dragged along at a pace compared to that of a snail with a limp. I wrote descriptions of weather, scenery, and characters, just to see if I could.

Surrounded by other writers, I got better. And I began to notice how often my fictitious alter ego used my real-life experiences to tell her stories.

Despite not being able to roll my r’s or sing a tune, I do speak fluent Dog. After years of pet sitting for dogs as small as a three-pound Pom and as large as a 250-pound mastiff, I’ve learned to not just listen to the canine voice but to respond in kind. I shouldn’t have been surprised when a cocky, some might say conceited, Jack Russell Terrier turned up as a drug sniffer in an early story, titled “Arthur.” A mama cat and her litter of four kittens made their debut during Hurricane Harvey, in “Lucy’s Tree.” Denali, a large, rowdy pup of indeterminant parentage, introduced a lonely woman to a shy man. When her ex assumed he was welcome to return, Denali showed him the door, literally. “Denali” is in the Dogs and Dragons anthology. Dogs just run full tilt into my stories, skid to a stop, and refuse to leave. Good dogs!

Cooking bloopers were brought to light in “The Chicken Pot Pie Fiasco,” “The Tater Tot Caper,” and “Bananas Foster.” I swear, I’ve never set anyone on fire with a flaming dessert in real life. I’ve been more into nuking than cooking from scratch since that Tabasco incident.

My unintentionally non-profit business of creating jewelry for drag queens meant time in their dressing room before a performance. Details of those eye-opening visits turned into scenes in “The Exterminator.”

When the words become rowdy and uncooperative or worse, go on break, I resort to playing online gin rummy with avatar Bill, who I suspect cheats. If a couple of games doesn’t set my creativity free, I move on to YouTube videos. My favorites of late are mixed media demos. The artists use paint, junk mail, and expired credit cards to make art. I can’t say I understand it but watching them layer odd bits into a finished piece makes me think of how words on the page, in the right order, layered with emotion, bring a story to life.

In “The Mixed Media Mess,” published in Black Cat Mystery Magazine, issue #13, one of the main characters is a mixed media artist, the other a writer who has a Corgi in her book. Once again, my life oozed into my writing.

I may never hear the beat in music, but reading a story aloud at writers group, I hear the cadence of my words.

In one instance at least, I got rhythm.

---

In St. Louis, Sandra’s enthusiasm and love for bright colors, textures, and shapes, far outweighs her talent for mixed media. Raised by a mother who could turn canned biscuits into hockey pucks, Sandra managed to win the Betty Crocker Homemaker of the Year award in her senior year of high school. Luckily, it was a written exam.

She’s editor of Peace, Love, and Crime: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Songs of the ’60s (Untreed Reads), and her story “The Mixed Media Mess” appears in the just-published Black Cat Mystery Magazine #13.

 

You Can't Make Old Friends

If you’re a writer – even the shuttered, introverted stereotype – it’s nearly impossible to not have any friends.  You can add up all the MFAs in Creative Writing and they don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world, unless you factor in your friends.  Maybe some of your friends are also relatives – a brother, sister, dog or lunatic uncle.  But there’s no better source of creative nutrition than the nutty real-life characters who orbit your private sun.

I had two brilliant instructors in grad school, who became my friends. Did they bestow the same generous help and encouragement on my haughty, self-absorbed classmates?  I’ll never know.  

I have some vague recollection of the academic instruction I received in college, though the real learning came from hanging out at the snack bar with the motley crew of screwball personalities and social deviants with whom I kept company.  We might have ridiculed the pompous professoriate, but we all eagerly debated what they were trying to teach us, and it was through this lively filter that I absorbed most of what my father was reluctantly paying for.   

The late 60s, early 70s were an ideal time to be in college, with permissive administrators, hip young professors trying (unsuccessfully) to be cool, a full buffet of intoxicants and the opportunity to get tear-gassed at an anti-war demonstration. 

A common complaint about the liberal arts heard today is this type of education has little relevance to ones ultimate career ambitions.  The usual rejoinder is that it teaches you how to think and process complex information.  Maybe, but I’m sure it taught me how to keep my student deferment with as little effort as possible, as least until the draft lottery scared the crap out of all of us and sent a few of my classmates directly to Southeast Asia (not me).   I also learned how to write convincing term papers with scant supporting research under ugly self-inflicted deadlines, some just a few hours away, meaning the wee hours of the night. 

My roommate and now longtime friend famously wrote a paper on Boris Pasternak based entirely on the liner notes of the Dr. Zhivago movie soundtrack.  I think he got the A.  My finest effort was writing a paper overnight in heroic couplets, with a little help (okay, a lot of help) from my friends.  I got a B+, but no complaints.     

This type of improvisation was a bedrock capability that allowed for my career in advertising, and greatly abetted writing lots of novels, essays and short stories.  Though if the tactics provided the skills, the culture was the wellspring.  None of my friends have ever recognized themselves in my fiction, though they’re all there, in spirit if not direct description.  The rhythms of their language, their senses of humor, their insights and inexplicable behavior.   

Every novelist mines his or her friends and families to develop characters.  Amply enhanced by imagination and judicious resorting of traits and qualities.  I feel particularly blessed to have an Empire Mine of associations from which to extract limitless fodder and inspiration. 

I’m pleased to report that I appreciated it then, and throughout my life, and treasure it now as we compose those remaining chapters. 

Photo credit: Pierce Bounds

Get Involved

Okay, so you're writing the next great American novel or short story. It will be published and you will become famous. At least that's your plan. Well, hold on there a minute, Shorty. What's your track record on prior publications, plus who knows you?

To begin, you need to finish what you're writing. That program may consist of writing courses, how-to books and/or critique groups. Whatever keeps you writing and learning your tradecraft. Next, you have to submit that manuscript to the appropriate agent, publisher, editor or magazine. AND, you had better get yourself out into the rest of the writing community and get involved.

Attend a few writers conferences. Go to the conference bar and strike up a conversation with someone else at the bar. Writers are a pretty friendly group, and you may be surprised who you can meet that way. What's that, you say you're an introvert? Then talk a friend into going to the conference with you. That way, you can work as a team. There is courage in numbers. Face your fears and force them.

Also keep in mind that conferences are very happy to get volunteers to man the registration tables, be timekeepers for panels, work the book room, take care of the Green Room, etc. Once again, you will be surprised who you can meet that way. At the Austin, Texas Bouchercon, I worked the Mystery Writers of America table for a couple of hours and ended up talking with several published authors and a couple of agents. They had questions and I had been briefed on answers to help them, which meant they remembered me the next time we met.

Often times at these conferences, various writers organizations will sponsor a breakfast or a cocktail reception. Free food and sometimes free drinks. Get out of your hotel room and socialize at these events. It's called networking and you never know when one of these new contacts will be impressed enough with you to provide an opportunity. I once received a proposal over drinks in a NYC bar to write a non-fiction book. Prior to that, I didn't know the lady across the table from me was an editor. It turned out to be a nice contract for a book I wrote under an alias.

Go to author panels that interest you. See how they are run. After you do get published, try to get on one of the writers panels for the next conference. If attendees like the way you talk on the panel, they will look for your book or short story and probably buy it. It's a way to get known.

Do you have a special talent or expertise that mystery writers might be interested in? Write up a proposal for a workshop or class on that talent or expertise and discuss it with the officers for the next conference. For instance, I ran hands-on Surveillance Workshops for three different writers conferences. Not only did the participants learn something, have a lot of fun and acquire stories to tell, but I still have attendees from prior conferences come up to me to say how much fun they had in those workshops. Other presenters have put on workshops or classes about firearms, drug dogs, raids, novel writing, etc. Inventory your skills to see if you have any topic to interest mystery writers.

Join your local writers organizations, AND actively participate in the running of that organization. Years ago, I ran for vice-president of our local MWA chapter on the platform that I would line up speakers for our monthly supper meetings. From VP to Prez was a natural step, and the Chapter President is automatically on the national MWA Board of Directors. Talk about networking with influential people in the mystery writing and publishing business. Now, you are on a level to impact guidelines on the operation of the organization.

Know that our very own Michael Bracken is currently on the national MWA board as a first term Director at Large. He will be a great advocate for short stories and their authors when it comes to establishing rules and requirements.

These are some of my suggestions for getting involved and helping to make a difference in the mystery writing world. Life is short, so have fun with them.

And, for you old hands out there, if you have any other suggestions, feel free to chime in. 

I wanted to start a gang, but it turned into a book club...

"I wanted to start a gang, but it turned into a book club..."

I don't know the kindred spirit who first said the above quote, and I've probably butchered it somewhat, but...Guilty as charged!  Which is saying a lot, because usually I write about the mob...

BOOK CLUBS ROCK...

I love my current book club.  We don't do the 'buy one book and everybody read it' thing.  Instead, we have a list of categories (30 in all) and are expected to read one book that satisfies each criteria in a calendar year.  We can each read a different book that fits the category.  We also give each other two free outs, meaning you can skip two categories if you absolutely hate them.  Bless those outs.

Love this club, because I am pushed into reading things I wouldn't normally pick up.  Other genres, past classics, even cookbooks.  Plus they come with recommendations from people I trust.  We all read more than 30 books a year (I'm close to 100.)  So there's still lots of time to read new releases from favourite authors beyond those 30 on the book club list.

That said, I'm a crime writer and crime reader.  Whodunits are my trade, and I shy away from anything that sniffs of Chicklit.  So you can imagine my surprise when I am pressured to read a book that reaches me in a way I didn't expect.   "What Alice Forgot" by Liane Moriarty, is a perfect example, and I'm exceedingly grateful.  That book made me think about my own past and future, at a time when I had just lost my first husband to cancer (decades earlier than it should have been.)

And let me also say, that I am thrilled that people are reading.  If they want to read things I don't find pleasure reading, that's terrific!  Please, please keep reading, young people.  It doesn't matter what books you cherish, as far as I'm concerned. 

Still, there's the guilt. Yes, I feel guilt.  I should like reading everything.  I should at least recognize that reading diverse books is 'good for me,'  and thus be an enthusiastic participant.

Confessions, confessions.  What things have I learned about myself, through that seemingly innocent little social activity?  Three things come to mind.  Let me take a moral inventory, and feel free to cast aspersions on my virtue.  It wouldn't be the first time (wink).

1.   Non-fiction sucks.

University type here.  Prof at college for 30 years.  Read a lot of non-fiction in my time, in order to be able to teach the stuff.  Guilty secret?  For me, reading non-fiction is work.  I don't want to work in my off-time.

I know.  I can hear the collective gasps from here.  Non-fiction is good for you! It makes you smarter! 

I doubt very much if anything at this stage could make me smarter (much as that might be desirable for all concerned...)  It might make me more knowledgeable, that I accept.  Do I care?  Not much.  My brain is precariously close to full now, and putting more into it threatens to dump other things already lodged there out my ears.  (Medical fact.  I read it online.)

2.  And on that note, I rarely enjoy reading memoirs and biographies.  

Our book club requires us to read one of the above, once a year.  It's not fun for me.  I really don't like spending my time reading about other people's lives, especially the white-washed versions.  Ditto, the poor me versions.

Why?  I read to escape reality. Which brings me to the final point (some of you will gasp.)

3.  I don't care much for fiction written from (many) multiple points of view.

There are some extremely popular books out now that are written from several points of view (I'm thinking The Thursday Murder Club and like.)  I like humour and crime together, so I gave it a try.  And I can see why people would like it. I thought some parts of it were great fun.  Thing is, I kept putting it down.  I could read a chapter and put it down.  Pick it up a few days later and read another two scenes.  Then put down the book and forget about it.

What this tells me:  For me, it wasn't a compelling read.  I didn't care enough about the protagonist to keep reading to find out what would happen.  Wait a minute - to tell the truth, I couldn't even tell who the protagonist was!

And that's the key.  The protagonist.  God Bless Book Club.  I've learned a lot about myself and what I treasure reading.  To wit:

I want to become the protagonist when I read a book.  

(Please let me know in the comments below if you relate to this.)

I want to slip into the skin of the main character and have a rollicking adventure. I want things to happen. I want there to be a satisfactory conclusion to the adventure, so I close the book with a smile on my face.

On the memoir front: For the record and just to be fair, I have no desire to write a memoir myself.  Have the general public read all about my misspent youth and totally embarrassing past mistakes?  Gulp.  Would rather go public on my bra size  (weight is off the table.) In fact, I am puzzled that others do want to share their dirty linen in public. 

 Mine is stuffed into drawers that hopefully my kids will never open.

Melodie Campbell writes fiction (swear to God it's fiction!) from the shores of Lake Ontario.  Book 17 is now available for preorder.  On AMAZON

The Software That Thinks Like You

Photo by Johannes Plenio on Unsplash

There are two experiences everyone that every writer or creative person is familiar with. One is frustrating, the other pleasurable. 

The frustrating one has to do with “idea capture.” Every day ideas for stories pop into our heads. In the course of our days, we also stumble across great quotes, interesting observations, clever articles that spin our heads in new directions, compelling us to keep a copy or write down a single germ of an idea for future use. If you’re like me, you end up with a pile of Post-Its, scraps of paper, or old envelopes on your desk, or PDFs, links, photos, or screenshots buried somewhere on your hard drive. If you’re not careful to tuck these precious morsels away somewhere safe, you’ll have a devil of a time finding them again.

Just a few weeks ago, my fellow SleuthSayer Rob Lopresti dropped one such gem. In a post entitled “On a Winter’s Night, A Writer…” Rob talked about this dilemma and shared this interesting idea:

Decades ago I remember reading that Buckminster Fuller said that from the moment you have an idea you have 17 minutes to do something physical with it—write it down, tie a string around your finger, sing it out loud until it's stuck in your head—or it will disappear.

I loved that Fuller quote. It touched on a few of my interests. For one, I’m a productivity geek, probably because—who are we kidding?—I’m spectacularly unproductive most of the time. But I nevertheless love hearing about ways that creative people work with ideas. I also have a local connection to Fuller. In the late 1940s, Fuller taught at Black Mountain College, a liberal arts college that once operated not far from where I live in North Carolina. The school closed in 1957, but is remembered fondly because it’s where Fuller and his students first began experimenting with geodesic domes.

Could there be a short story about Bucky in my future? Maybe, but I’m not ready to deal with it now. But I wanted to keep this little nugget of an idea. Where do I put it?

In the old days, I would have saved a link to Rob’s piece in a Word doc somewhere, and instantly forgotten where I slipped it into the bottomless morass of folders on my hard drive. Worse, I would have printed out the post and tucked it into a file cabinet, where it would also be lost forever.

These days, I create and devote a page to this single idea in my Obsidian app. Obsidian is an interesting piece of software that works on Mac, Windows, and Linux systems. You can load it on your phone or your desktop. It’s also absolutely free, unless you are buying it for everyone at your business and want access to future developer support.

To save a note, you open a blank window, type your note, then code the text as well. I’m a Luddite, so when I say I’m “coding,” you can bet that doing so is pathetically easy. Tags are generated using the hashtag (#), highlighted/underlined words are generated using double brackets [[like this]]. This is known as a Markdown program, but you don’t need to know that to use Obsidian.

Here’s how the Buckminster Fuller quote page looked when I got done with it. 

Notice: Fuller and Lopresti are underlined and highlighted. Concepts like the 17-Minute Rule, geodesic domes, idea, and Black Mountain College are tagged.

If I’m in a hurry, I don’t bother coding. I’ll do it another day. That’s one of the things I like about Obsidian; you can always return to your collection of notes to see what you’ve collected. I use those sessions to prune, code, and tidy my files. Doing this helps jog my memory and remind me what I’ve amassed. (You can also correct or update old files if new information comes to light. Quotes, for example, are often attributed to the wrong people. In this case, I could not quickly find a source online that could verify that Fuller uttered the observation about the 17-minute-rule. Rob said as much in his post.)

That caveat aside, if you follow through and diligently code your ever-expanding collection of notes, Obsidian establishes connections between all these things. When you underline Robert Lopresti, for instance, the software instantly creates a Robert Lopresti page elsewhere in the software. I can return to that page and drop in other factoids I know about Rob. (For some reason I forgot to add that Rob is a folk singer who has released an actual album.)

Likewise, in the future, if I click on Fuller’s name, the software will pull up the dedicated Fuller page that it has so kindly generated. If I click on a tag, it will find all the references to that item that may be lurking in my otherwise mixed-up files.

Which brings me to the pleasurable experience I referenced above. Imagine a dinner party with good friends in which you and your companions chat well into the night.

“I saw this article on geodesic domes,” one person will say. “And did you know—”

“That’s cool,” another person says. “My great-aunt Gertrude actually dated Buckminster Fuller!”

“No way!” says another, “you know, I heard that he said you can only remember new ideas for 17 minutes. That kinda makes sense! ”

“I hate forgetting ideas. I keep a notebook near my bed at night!”

“I have a tape recorder!”

“I use my phone!”

In any conversation where the speakers are actually listening to each other, everyone starts free-associating, tossing off whatever pops into their head about the current topic of conversation. Granted, the connections between what you are all saying may only be tangentially linked, but you can go hours mining the recesses of your subconscious for factoids that touch upon the central topic. 

This sort of interaction is one of the great pleasures of human relationships. If the conversation goes well, everyone returns home at the end of the night thinking that had a great time. Why? Because they bonded with their fellow humans over a great meal, a glass of wine, and a rich tapestry of ideas.

Obsidian mimics the way our minds draw connections in those situations. The more pages of notes you add to Obsidian, the deeper, richer, better, and, ahem, Fuller, those connections become. Then, when you click on the software’s graph view, you get a picture that resembles drawings I’ve seen of neural networks.

This can be useful if you’re accustomed to writing essays or blog posts. The graph view reminds you of connections you’ve probably forgotten, and suggests ones you haven’t even thought of. In this scenario, the center node—How Long Ideas Last—is the central idea around which slighter connections (Fuller, Lopresti) revolve.

You’ll find videos on YouTube that can help you master Obsidian. At the end of those tutorials, the productivity gurus often say that while it’s fine to just use Obsidian as a file cabinet to collect all your notes in one place, its true value lies in tracking your own ideas—not just ones you picked up in your reading or mined via a SleuthSayers post.

Obsidian hasn’t completely banished paper from my desk. But these days that pile has been reduced to daily to-dos. Creative ideas are collected swiftly. If something pops into my head at night, I can always groggily snatch the phone off the bedside table, type a note into the app, and drift back to Snoozelandia long before that 17 minutes has elapsed. Somewhere, Bucky is smiling.




See you in three weeks!
Joe
josephdagnese.com

Where's Sancho?

A fellow AVP facilitator said she'd learned a new word at the last workshop:  Sancho.  They were doing role plays about going home from prison, which gives inmates a chance to work out some of their fears and hopes in a controlled setting.  It's one of the most popular exercises.  Anyway, various people asked, before and during the role play, "So where's Sancho?" and "What are you gonna do about Sancho?"

• Sancho:  The generic term for the man (or woman) who moves in with your girlfriend / wife while you're in prison.  

SDSP, photo by Alexius Horatius, Wikipedia

There's a lot of slang in prison.

• Fish: Brand new inmates.
• Fishtank: Where the new inmates are kept.
• House: Cell.
• Cellie:  Cellmate.
• Going on Vacation:  Going to the SHU, which is:
• SHU (or the Hole):  Solitary Confinement
• Duck: A guard / staff member / volunteer who's being groomed to get an inmate something the inmate wants.  From the phrase "Downing a Duck", which in turn describes how inmates manipulate non-inmates without the latter realizing it.  Flattery and attention can get you surprising things in prison.  Watch this and learn: (SEE HERE)
• BTW, It works better than you might think, otherwise COs and staff wouldn't get fired from prisons for providing drugs, cell phones, or other contraband, or for having sex with inmates, or for helping them escape...  See my 2015 post "What We Do For Love". Sigh…
• Shot Caller:  Leader of a gang.  Often not the person you think it is.  They don't necessarily want an outsider to know who's really in charge. And it's generally not the loud mouth who's telling you "I run everything 'round here."  Yeah, right.
• Punk:  An inmate who is considered weak and can be used, including sexually.  Sometimes especially sexually. If used as an insult to the wrong person, there will be a fight. See also "Bitch".  
• Prison Wolf:  Gay to the gate.  Lot more of that around than anyone ever admits. 
• High Class:  Hepatitis C. 
• The Monster:  HIV.
• Chomo: Child molester.  Very dangerous term to use about someone. It could get them - or you - killed.
• Apple:  VERY insulting term for Native Americans (Red on the outside, white on the inside).  There's gonna be a fight. 
• Drive By:  You walk by an inmate's cell and fart.  Less lethal than a
• Lock in a Sock: Just what it sounds like, a combination lock in a sock. A very common weapon to cold-cock someone.  
• Back Door Parole: to die in prison.  
• Soups:  Ramen, available through commissary, one of the common currencies of the cells. 
• Burrito:  Feast food of the cells, which uses no tortillas and rarely beans.  It's made of ramen noodles, Doritos, and whatever processed meat and flavoring is on hand.  Mix together in a specific order in a garbage bag, pour boiling water over it, shape it as preferred, and after 10+ minutes it's ready to be cut up and served.  
• Kite: A note passed between inmates; also the term for a genuine request sent by inmates to any staff member. 
• Flat: "I'm going to flat next month", i.e., I will have served my sentence and get out without needing parole.  
• Ninja Turtles:  COs in riot gear.
• Road Dog:  Inmates who are friends, especially those who were friends BEFORE prison.
• Catch:  "So what did you catch?" "I caught a case" or "I caught ten years" - I got sentenced.
• Toochie:  One term for synthetic marijuana, K-2, etc.  The truth is, the slang for drugs changes every time you turn around, especially as new drugs come out, so… this may be old by now.  "Paper" is also used, because a lot of drugs come in as paper that's been soaked in liquid K-2, etc.  Anyway, I used the term in Cool Papa Bell, where one of the softball teams calls themselves "The Toochie Tucks".
• Tucks:  A term for hiding contraband or a weapon up one's ass. Keister, is or was another term for it, and I've rarely heard that one used.

Other teams in "Cool Papa Bell" are:

• "CTQs" (Confined To Quarters), i.e., on cell restriction;
• "Spider Monkeys", i.e., doing hard time;
• "5150s" mental health cases;
• "Soup Skippies", i.e, eating a lot of Ramen and wearing the state-issued tennis shoes, i.e., broke. 

Well, that's a start to understanding what you might overhear when inmates talk among themselves.

---

And now for some BSP:

My story, "Cool Papa Bell", is in Josh Pachter's Paranoia Blues;

Just because you're in prison doesn't mean there's no more crime.  Or opportunities to commit it.

https://downandoutbooks.com/bookstore/pachter-paranoia-blues/ 

And on Amazon HERE

My noir novella, Cruel as the Grave is in Crimeucopia:  We'll Be Right Back

There's nothing like toxic friendships, murder, an unidentifiable body, and a South Dakota winter to make everybody crazy.

Available on Amazon HERE.

And "The Abandoned Bride" (with a wise-cracking Linda Thompson telling more of Laskin's family secrets) is in Black Cat Mystery Magazine #13:

You can keep a secret for a long time in a small town, but eventually it will come out… And always at the wrong time...

On Amazon HERE.

James and The Giant Peach Tar Baby

Sorry to say, but I’m clutching my pearls, here.  Roald Dahl’s publisher, Puffin, an imprint of Penguin, has released new editions of Dahl’s children’s stories with the nasty bits smoothed out. 

We can concede, from the get-go, that Roald Dahl wasn’t the nicest guy, and a lot of it leaks into his writing.  His heavies, primarily bullying adults, are thoroughly unpleasant and scary, but in a way that kids can identify with.  His grotesques are all too genuine; they rival Dickens.  The darkness, however, and the violence, are part and parcel.  Roald Dahl isn’t Roald Dahl without them. 

Now, we know Little Black Sambo is offensive, and it wasn’t all that long ago that the Nancy Drew books were edited to make her more relevant to the contemporary audience, and to eliminate the more egregious racial and class stereotypes in the originals.  For that matter, has anybody read Dr. Dolittle lately?  I thought they were wildly inventive, when I read them (I was, what, eleven or twelve?), but I’m guessing they don’t pass the smell test, nowadays, at least in terms of the way native peoples, say, are presented. 

I’m talking more about bowdlerizing stuff that doesn’t seem to require it.  The Telegraph published an exhaustive list of the changes made the Dahl’s books, and Helen Lewis has a terrific piece in the Atlantic.   [Links below]  One edit that caught my attention was in Matilda, where her choice of reading is changed from Kipling to Jane Austen.  I have nothing but respect for Austen, but eliminating a reference to Kipling – because he’s now considered an apologist for colonialism, or white supremacy? – when with all his faults he’s still one of the great children’s writers, is petty.

Roald Dahl, while we’re on the subject, is one of the most borrowed writers in the British library system.  He’s consistently in Amazon’s top five best-selling children’s authors. 

 His sales to date are reported to have topped 250 millions books.  Why does he need re-branding? 

Thirty years after his death, Dahl’s family publicly apologized for his perceived anti-Semitism.  I don’t mean “perceived” to be a weaselly adjective; he said a lot of ill-thought-through and provoking things, and it’s safe to say he subscribed to any number of cruel stereotypes.  Many of his villains, and especially villainesses, are grossly obese.  He’s a fat-shamer, no question.  He draws an equivalency between obesity and moral weakness.  A close reading probably demonstrates casual racism and a reflexive misogyny. 

I’m not trying to excuse any of this.  But why whitewash it?  What seems to catch and hold Dahl’s younger readership is his anarchy and irreverence.  Leave it be.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/02/17/roald-dahl-books-rewritten-offensive-matilda-witches-twits/

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/02/without-nastiness-roald-dahl-isnt-roald-dahl/673141/

Canine Inspiration

A couple of years ago, I was brushing my teeth, getting ready for bed, thinking how grateful I was that in our current home, my beagle/basset dog, Jingle, couldn't escape from our backyard. Things had been different at our prior home. The six-foot-high split-rail fence in the backyard had wire over it, and that wire was secured into the ground, so you'd think Jingle would have been contained. But where other dogs would see an obstacle, Jingle saw a challenge.

Regularly, he pushed at the wire, testing it for weak spots at ground level, then shoved through when he could. Friends nicknamed him Houdini. Over and over, I took steps to prevent Jingle from escaping, but he kept besting me. One day, after yet another escape, my good friend Donna Andrews (yes, Donna Andrews the author, who lived two miles away from my old house) suggested I buy some large heavy rocks to put on both sides of the fence wherever it was weak. She was going to the garden store and could pick them up for me. I said, yes, please. Soon, I found myself the proud new owner of a lot of rocks.

The dog otherwise known as Houdini

So, circling back to the start of this story, I was brushing my teeth and thinking about how Jingle used to escape from the backyard at our old house. After spitting my toothpaste out, I said, "Before I owned a dog, I never would have imagined I'd spend $37 on ROCKS." (Yes, I often talk aloud to myself.) Then I started thinking of all the other things I never would have done before I owned a dog, like buy a pink pig outfit--that was for my prior dog, Scout. It had been October when I adopted him, and that was the only extra-large Halloween costume I could find at that late date.

My old neighborhood had a Halloween party each year in our cul de sac, and when I took Scout that first year, one of the neighbors laughed at him--not with him, at him--trying to make me feel bad for dressing my large male dog in a pink pig costume. I brushed it off, but all these years later, I remember. So, I was thinking about all of this as I finished getting ready for bed that night, and my writer's brain kicked in. What if I created a character who adopted an escape-artist dog? And what if she had a mean neighbor who did worse than laugh at the dog? What might she do next? And "The Joys of Owning a Dog" was born. 

Look how cute he was!

The story is written in listicle format. It opens with: "Fifty things I never anticipated doing before I owned a dog." The rest of the story is told via a list, including buying rocks to contain my houdini of a dog, dressing my dog as a pig for Halloween, and dealing with a neighbor who hates my dog. (You gotta love real-life inspiration.) It's a crime-fiction story, with each element of the tale building on the prior one. Lest you fear, no animals were harmed in the writing of this story. I can't promise the same about mean neighbors. 

Thanks to editor Michael Bracken for publishing the story. You can read it in issue 13 of Black Cat Mystery Magazine, released last week in trade paperback. You can purchase it by clicking here. The ebook should be out soon. The issue also includes stories from fellow SleuthSayers Eve Fisher and John Floyd, which I'm looking forward to reading.

And now, I have to go. Jingle is demanding royalties for partially inspiring this story. Thankfully, he takes his payment in treats.