5 Quick Questions with Gerald So

Gerald So is founding editor of the poetry journal The Lineup: Poems on Crime. A distinguished poet in his own right, So holds an M.A. in Creative Writing from Queens College/CUNY.

1. Edgar Allan Poe wrote that “Beauty is the sole legitimate province of the poem,” which raises this question: Can a poem about crime be beautiful?

Crime repulses me, people assuming they have the right to hurt others. To write the honest reactions to crime The Lineup seeks, poets have to deal with hurt, fear, and other forces that would keep them silent. That act of bravery is what I find beautiful.

2. Can a crime poem achieve something that a crime story (or novel) cannot?

Yes. Fictional crime stories and novels are structurally bound to beginning, middle, and end. Any story must establish expectations and meet them. A poem about crime doesn’t have the limitations of fiction. It can spend more time evoking a moment and show most intimately what it means to the people involved.

3. Are there any crime novelists whose writings you find to be particularly poetic?

I’ll go with Hammett, Chandler, Robert B. Parker, Reed Farrel Coleman, and S. J. Rozan.

4. Do you think that The Lineup has attracted readers who otherwise would never have picked up a poetry journal?

I hope so. Crime fiction hooked me on fiction in general, and I hope poetry about crime hooks a new audience on poetry.

5. In your opinion, what’s the single best poem to have appeared in The Lineup?

It’s difficult for me to think of each poem individually after they’ve been published in an issue. I can tell you I like the flow of poems in each issue.

5 Quick Questions with Ed Lynskey

Ed Lynskey is an accomplished poet, essayist, and novelist. His novels tend to the noir side. His most recent, Lake Charles, begins with its protagonist waking up one morning to find his girlfriend next to him in bed. Dead, of course.

1. What’s the first crime novel that you remember reading?

The Zebra-Striped Hearse by Ross Macdonald or a John Jericho title by Hugh Pentecost.

2. Hammett or Chandler?

Chandler’s early work is my preference.

3. Gun, knife, blackjack, or hands?

Gun. I don’t like up close and personal.

4. Which noir novel have you read the most times?

The only title I can think of reading more than once is Cain’s The Postman Always Rings Twice.

5. What’s the best novel by Ed Lynskey?

That’s for the readers and critics to decide. I like Lake Charles, my new Appalachian noir because it took ten years for me to finish writing.

5 More Quick Questions with Max Allan Collins

In the second installment of 5 Quick Questions with Max Allan Collins, M.A.C. gives answers about his friend and collaborator Mickey Spillane. Of the many Spillane/Collins publications, two new ones to be aware of: (1) M.A.C. contributes an essay on Spillane’s One Lonely Night to Thrillers: 100 Must-Reads (2010; edited by David Morrell and Hank Wagner), and (2) M.A.C.’s completion of Spillane’s unfinished manuscript for The Consummata (the sequel to Spillane’s 1967 novel The Delta Factor) will be published in October by Hard Case Crime.

1. What was the first Mickey Spillane novel that you read?

One Lonely Night. Changed my life. My world. The private eye as crazed avenger, the private eye writer as noir poet. It belongs on the short list of great P.I. novels with The Maltese Falcon and Farewell, My Lovely.

2. What do you most admire about Mickey Spillane as a writer?

The surrealistic, fever-dream world he creates in the first six Mike Hammer novels is a unique, compelling creation. I would also cite Hammer himself as a voice/character.

3. True or false: Mickey Spillane is America’s most underrated hardboiled novelist.

Probably true. I say “probably” because those who love him really love him. Some major players consider him hugely important—Otto Penzler for one, Ed Gorman for another. And hundreds of millions of readers.

4. Which is more challenging: co-writing a novel with a living co-author, or completing the work of a deceased author?

I find the process quite similar, because with both Barb Collins (my wife and collaborator on the Antiques novels) and Matthew V. Clemens (collaborator on the forthcoming No One Will Hear You), I work from their rough drafts. The back-and-forth comes at the plotting stage. With Mickey, I work from unfinished manuscripts, which I treat as rough draft, and sometimes notes. Obviously the Spillane collaboration is tricky, but I have been unwittingly training for that role since about 1960.

5. What is your favorite Mickey Spillane novel?

One Lonely Night. Hands down. But the first six Hammer novels combine to make an epic hardboiled fantasy.

5 Quick Questions with Max Allan Collins

Max Allan Collins has cut a wide swath through the noirboiled world (and many other literary worlds, for that matter) as a prolific author of novels (graphic and otherwise), stories, screenplays, movie tie-ins, comic strips, and on and on. He is perhaps best-known to noirboiled fans for the Nathan Heller novels, which blend the private eye genre with historical fiction, as well as his series featuring Quarry (the assassin) and Nolan (the thief).

1. What is the first crime novel that you remember reading?

I read a lot of the Sherlock Holmes stories, and loved the Saint novels—I particularly remember The Saint and the Sizzling Saboteur making an impression. And the Dick Tracy comic books are a very vivid memory—the first story I read was about Junior Tracy’s girl friend, Model, who died as a result of her juvie brother’s misdeeds, quickly followed by a book collecting the Brow sequence, in which the sympathetic Summer Sisters drowned in a car. But the crime novel that kicked off everything came in the seventh grade—The Maltese Falcon. Still my favorite private eye novel.

2. Which crime novelist do you consider to be your biggest influence?

I have to dodge this, at least somewhat. Everybody thinks I would say Mickey Spillane, but he is only one of a quartet of great mystery writers I discovered when I was thirteen—Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, Mickey Spillane, and James M. Cain. I learned 90% of what I know about crime writing from Hammett, Chandler, Spillane, and Cain.

3. Which non-crime novelist do you consider to be your biggest influence?

Probably William March, author of The Bad Seed, which inspired my films (and novels) Mommy and Mommy's Day. My other favorite mainstream writers during my impressionable years were Calder Willingham, who wrote End As a Man, and Willard Motley, who wrote Knock on Any Door. Not your standard picks, I’ll grant you. Later I came to like Mark Harris, author of The Southpaw.

4. Which crime novel (that you didn’t write) do you most wish you had written?

There aren't any. I only want to write my novels.

But I am very thrilled to be collaborating with Mickey Spillane—contributing real entries to the Mike Hammer series is an honor I wish I could share with my thirteen year-old self. Well, I guess I do.

5. What is the best novel by Max Allan Collins?

I don't know. I would suggest that the Nathan Heller novels, taken as a whole, represent my best work and major contribution. Of those I might pick The Million-Dollar Wound as the best representative example, and Flying Blind as the best atypical entry.

5 Quick Questions with John Pelan

John Pelan, who is most known as an author and publisher of horror and science fiction, has begun the ambitious project of publishing the complete short fiction of noirboiled writer Day Keene. The first two volumes of Keene stories—League of the Grateful Dead and Other Stories and We Are the Dead and Other Stories—have recently been published by Ramble House.

1. How did you become aware of Day Keene?

My buddy, the late Richard Laymon (tremendous author in his own right) and I were both fans of 1950s noir; and I recall him bringing Keene up as someone that I would likely enjoy. He was spot on!

2. What’s your favorite Day Keene story?

I’m rather fond of “League of the Grateful Dead,” but ask me tomorrow and I’ll likely have a different answer. . . . Keene was very versatile and depending on my mood, my preferences can run from weird menace such as the aforementioned to Doc Egg to a non-series mystery. . . .

3. What’s your least favorite Day Keene story?

I haven’t read everything yet, so I’ll pass on this one.

4. Do you have a favorite Day Keene novel?

Home Is the Sailor was the first novel I read, so I have a special fondness for it.

5. How did you go about about tracking down so many hard-to-find old pulps to collect Keene’s stories?

Well, I’ve been a collector and part-time bookseller for many years and have a lot of connections; that said, it hasn’t been easy!

5 Quick Questions with Ed Gorman

Ed Gorman’s accomplishments in the noirboiled world are too many to mention, but he is dearest to my (black) heart for being one of the editors of The Big Book of Noir (1998), a sort of grab-bag bible of the noirboiled world. His most recent novel is Stranglehold (2010), his second featuring political consultant Dev Conrad.

1. What’s the first crime novel you remember reading?

Mickey Spillane—I read his first three back to back in the summer of ’55 and was cursed with this preference for hardboiled fiction ever since. He had a huge influence on me. That same summer I started reading Gold Medal novels, too. My first was a Lionel White then Peter Rabe and John D. MacDonald. I knew that this kind of story was for me.

2. Hammett or Chandler?

Hammett for realism, Chandler for romance.

3. If forced to choose, would you trust Sherlock Holmes or Parker to save your life?

Sherlock Holmes.

4. If I recommend a novel to you, and I tell you that it’s noir, have I just spoiled the ending?

No, because noir is a point of view not always a particular group of tropes or storylines. They Shoot Horses Don't They? is noir as is in its way The Day of the Locust. We always think of noir as Bogie and trench coats and drinking too much and dames who did us wrong. But I think that’s too narrow a definition. There are a number of westerns, for instance, that are definitely noir. I’ve read a number of books and stories by Ruth Rendell that I also consider definitely noir.

5. What’s the best novel by Ed Gorman?

Since I've worked in several genres, that's not easy to answer. In crime I'd say Blood Moon (available on Top Suspense Group e books for $2.99) because it's probably my most ambitious book and because I think it's a somewhat unique approach to a series of murders.

5 Quick Questions with Bill Crider

Bill Crider has probably forgotten more about the noirboiled world than most of us will ever know. In addition to his awesome expertise, he is also the author of numerous crime novels himself, both series and standalones. His most recent novel, Murder in the Air (2010), is part of his Sheriff Dan Rhodes series.

1. What’s the first crime novel that you remember reading?

Well, that’s an easy one. I remember it well. The Tower Treasure, a Hardy Boys book by Franklin W. Dixon. The first adult mystery I remember reading is A Most Contagious Game by Samuel Grafton.

2. If you were stuck desert island, which crime novelist’s complete works would you choose to have with you?

That’s a tough one. I hope I’m not stuck on a desert island anytime soon. If I had to choose, though, I’d say Raymond Chandler. Today. Tomorrow I might have a different answer.

3. If your house were on fire, and you could grab one book on your way out the door, which of your books would you grab?

Even tougher. Probably something personally meaningful and expensive. Maybe my copy of The Killer Inside Me.

4. Which crime novel have you read the most times?

Tougher still, since I don’t keep records. It would be something by Hammett, Chandler, or Ross Macdonald, that much I know. Just a guess, but Macdonald’s The Chill might be the one.

5. What’s the best novel by Bill Crider?

They’re all so good (and different) it's hard to choose just one. I’m fond of all of them. The one that’s sold the most copies in various editions is Blood Marks, for whatever that’s worth.

5 Quick Questions with Allan Guthrie

The noir novels of Allan Guthrie include Two-Way Split (2004), Kiss Her Goodbye (2005), Hard Man (2007), Kill Clock (2007), Savage Night (2008), Slammer (2009), and Killing Mum (2009).

1. What’s the first crime novel that you remember reading?

A Pocket Full of Rye, Agatha Christie. My primary five teacher introduced me to Christie and I read one or two before Rye but can't recall what they were.

2. Who’s your favorite Gold Medal novelist?

Ah, easy, there’s no competition: David Goodis. Gold Medal’s a really inappropriate name for his publisher, though. No Goodis character ever came close to the gold, not unless they rolled onto it by accident while they were lying semi-conscious in the gutter.

3. Block or Westlake?

Now that’s a tough one. I don’t think I can choose. I love the Scudder series, love the Parker series, and when I weigh up my favourite standalones from them both, they come out exactly even. So, sorry, it's a draw.

4. Your list of your top 200 noir novels ends in 1997. Name one great noir novel published since then.

Just one? There are so many. OK, the one I read most recently would be Acts of Violence by Ryan David Jahn.

5. What’s the best novel by Allan Guthrie?

I don’t know that it’s the best, but my prison novel, Slammer, is the one I’m most proud of.

5 Quick Questions with Kirk Curnutt

Noir novelist Kirk Curnutt is also an expert on F. Scott Fitzgerald. His works of literary criticism include A Historical Guide to F. Scott Fitzgerald (editor, 2004) and The Cambridge Introduction to F. Scott Fitzgerald (2007). His novels are Breathing Out the Ghost (2007) and Dixie Noir (2009).

1. What’s the first crime novel that you remember reading?

The first crime book was Ed Sanders’ The Family, the first Charles Manson history, soon overshadowed by Helter Skelter but in many ways a much more interesting work because Sanders (of the Fugs, of course) was a counterculture icon. I read it at about ten years old, and it scared the bejeepers out of me. The style is still so freakily Beat it’s disturbing. But fiction-wise, I was a huge Erle Stanley Gardner fan. This was mainly because there was a paperback trade shop in downtown Midland, Michigan, where I grew up, and as my mother and her friends were slipping Fear of Flying into brown-paper sacks I could nab used copies of The Case of the Vagabond Virgin or The Case of the Cautious Coquette for twenty-five cents. These were novels that could usually be read in the same span it took to watch a Perry Mason episode. But the downside of bingeing on Gardner was that it left me addictively attached to alliteration in my own writing.

2. Hammett or Chandler?

Tough call, but I’m going with Hammett, in part because he could rock a prematurely gray coif, something I had to come to grips with before I hit forty. Chandler’s plots are a little too tangled for me. I usually lose the thread about two-thirds of the way through. My favorite Hammetts are Red Harvest and The Glass Key. Plus the story “The Second Story Angel” from Nightmare Town—a pretty witty piece of metafiction on the competitive noir market in the golden age. (It’s online at http://arthursclassicnovels.com/hammett/secstor10.html.)

3. What the noir-est thing that F. Scott Fitzgerald ever wrote?

Fitzgerald actually ceded to the noir voice in the late 1930s when he realized his brand of romanticism was a done deal. He didn’t write crime fiction, but he did hardboil his style for Esquire, something he had resisted for a long time because doing so signaled his acknowledgment that the Hemingway school of minimalism had won out. There is an interesting if virtually unknown story Fitz did called “On an Ocean Wave” that I think deserves more attention. It was published shortly after his death under the pseudonym “Paul Elgin.” It was probably at the printer when he keeled, to be honest. Then there is a piece called “Shaggy’s Morning” that is generally considered one of the worst things he ever did. It’s actually not that bad if you read it as a parody of noir. It’s told from the perspective of a dog—seriously. Just to give the flavor: “I woke up after a lousy dream and as soon as the old beezer came alive I went around the yard trying to pick up something interesting but the wind was too strong. There was an old biscuit in my dish and if there’s anything gloomier than one dead biscuit on a windy morning I don’t know about it.” That’s (sorta) funny!

4. What’s the noir-est thing about the South?

It might be easier to list all the things that aren’t noir-y. I’m not sure sweet tea is noir. Or the Marshall Tucker Band—they weren’t either. But I think “the burden” as we all call it is a good umbrella term for the underbelly. To me Southern guilt and complicity are best manifest in the politics, especially when it comes to racial issues. Most certifiably Southern cities struggle to resolve the opposing legacies of the Civil War and Civil Rights. Those two historical forces create a gyre that has a lot of noir potential—I think Attica Locke’s Black Water Rising is a great example of how that drama can be realized (though BWR isn’t pulpy noir but more straightforward crime fic). There’s also an element of exaggeration in the Southern character that expresses the kink of noir very nicely. You look at some of the more flamboyant personalities that continue to rise in the South and they make Popeye in Faulkner’s Sanctuary look dull. Frank Melton, who was mayor of Jackson, Mississippi, from 2005-09—and voted the worst mayor in America during his one staggeringly corrupt term—seemed to have stepped straight out of a noir novel. He died on election night when he realized he wouldn’t get reelected! Chester Himes could not have created that guy and made him any more realistic.

5. What famous noir novel does your novel Dixie Noir most resemble?

Wow—really tough question. I’d hate to reveal all the sources I ripped off. . . .I was trying to write a corrupt-city noir, a sort of Southern LA Confidential. I wouldn’t say Dixie resembles that book, though. I wanted a page-turner instead of a wide-screen panorama. Maybe some Red Harvest in there, along with some Sanctuary. You know, the more hallucinatory type of noir where the violence seems almost phantasmagoric.