My vast pile of bedside noir was dominated earlier this year by one of the most soul-less characters in literature: Donald Westlake's Parker. I dropped head-first into Westlake after his sudden death last New Year's Eve in Mexico at age 75.
Sure, I'd picked up a few Westlakes at airports and beach-side bookmarts over the years and the prolific crime writer wasn't one to disappoint. And partly, it was Lance Mannion's tribute: Lance favored the picaresque side of Westlake, the hilarious Dortmunder gang-of-thieves novels that dominated Westlake's late career and made him, as Lance noted, "an acute social satirist."
But falling into the Parker novels was a vicious free-fall into darkness at the start of a very dark year, a year that latches onto its dangerous and shifting shadows still. And so when I tumbled into Westlake's Richard Stark books - primarily his Parker series - the sheer absence of soul was a narcotic on a par with the hardest blues, a pure vein of criminal noir without a single beam of light. In short, Parker was the perfect literary sideman for my 2009 - a glimpse into the real American heartland, a lightning flash on the dark night that shows you a truth about this country that you don't want to see: the fact that all the do-gooders in the world can't fix some people, whether they're running things on Wall Street or killing a liquor store owner in some nameless mid-western town.
Parker is a remorseless killer, but it's not the murders that hold your attention in the series, which runs to 24 precise and plot-driven novels. Indeed, the murders are generally related without the gory details - they're just stated as mere updates in unfolding events. Rather, it's Parker's criminal knowledge that's interesting: his intricate preparation for the crime, his instincts for the score, his reaction to danger. Parker's violence is vast, but it's not maniacal; it only serves a purpose in the killer's overall goal - to make some money so he can lay low for a while. Westlake told an interviewer a few years ago: "I’ve always believed the books are really about a workman at work,
doing the work to the best of his ability. However, I see him more as
working stiff than professional class."
The University of Chicago Press is putting all the early Parker novels back into print, and I ran through the first eight this year. The Hunter was a repeat read, but you have to start at the beginning, and it came out in 1962, same as me. My favorite is the second in the series, The Man with the Getaway Face, in which Parker emerges after identity-shifting plastic surgery to hold up an armored car at a diner in the backroads of New Jersey. That empty pre-Sopranos northern New Jersey landscape, coupled with some double-crossing dead-enders, sets a grim table for the icy lead thief. The lack of passion in the crime - Westlake's "professional class" - can hook you with barbed end:
Parker lowered the gun. There wasn't enough reason to kill these three. It was dangerous to kill when there wasn't enough reason, because after a while killing became the solution to everything, and when you got to thinking that way you were only one step from the chair.
In some ways, the Parker novels would seem to be perfect cinematic investments: they're all plot, and paced for the screen. Yet only The Hunter has been made into movies - twice, in 1967 as Point Blank with Lee Marvin, and in 1999 with Payback with a poorly-cast Mel Gibson. I can understand why: there's not much character to latch onto, no hand-holds for a leading man. Westlake said he always pictured Parker as resembling Jack Palance, and that stony presence, without even a touch of humor, is required for the part. Tough to portray, harder to film; there are no Tony Soprano remorse sessions on the therapist's couch.
So put Parker on that booklist if it's been a hard year, or if next year looks like a tough one for the noir fan nearest you. Terry Teachout was right about these books: "Anyone who doubts the existence of original sin, or something very much
like it, would do well to reflect on the enduring popularity of the
novels of Richard Stark."
Sometimes you need the badlands.
UPDATE: Over on Facebook (which has taken over a lot of what we used to call blogging, I must admit) our buddy Dan Leo adds a correction on the cinematic side:
By the way, there were a few other
movie adaptations of Stark books: Godard's "Made In USA", based
unofficially on "The Jugger", "Slayground", starring Peter Coyote,
which I never saw; and one pretty good one, "The Split", starring Jim
Brown (!), based on "The Seventh"; oh, and I just remembered, another
good one, "The Outfit", based on the book of that name, starring Robert
Duvall.
