Gil Brewer“The Axe Is Ready”1956
The halls twisted like a digestive tract
through the spacious house.
They hadn’t been designed to be complicated—
at least I thought they hadn’t—
and yet at each intersection I found myself
losing track of where I was.
As I walked along the black floorboards,
I started to feel the illusion of the halls
languidly moving
like the peristalsis of the intestines.
Otsuichi
Black Fairy Tale
2004
(translated by Nathan Collins)
Jim ThompsonBad Boy1953
George H. SmithBayou Babe1960
Gil BrewerThe Three-Way Split1960
Gil BrewerBackwoods Teaser1960
Èmile ZolaThe Kill (La Curée)1872(translated by Brian Nelson)
John D. MacDonaldThe End of the Night1960
Ryu MurakamiAudition1997(translated by Ralph McCarthy)
Damon Runyon“The Eternal Blonde”1927
Having recently read Weep for Me (1951), which John D. MacDonald identified as the worst of his early novels, I felt obligated to follow up by reading The End of the Night (1960), which was his favorite of the early books. The End of the Night chronicles the so-called Wolf Pack, three young men and a young woman who go on a cross-country crime spree. Given that JDM thought so highly of The End of the Night, I was expecting a great read. I did not stop to consider that there is a compelling reason for suspecting that JDM may not have been the best judge of his own work. To wit: Many readers, myself among them, find that JDM’s novels are aging poorly because of his habit of interjecting sociological lectures into his narratives, and these are precisely the sections of his books that JDM liked the best. Therefore, I should not have been surprised to find that The End of the Night is dominated by a pair of pretentious first-person narrators, both of whom are more interested in understanding the world than telling a story. Of course, this is not to say that noir fiction cannot be a vehicle for understanding the world—in fact, this is what distinguishes much of the best noir. But when JDM indulges his love of pontification, he fails to recognize that a well-told story can be not just a sufficient but a superior way of deepening readers’ understanding of the world. Grade: C+
Raymond ChandlerThe Big Sleep1939
Gil BrewerNude on Thin Ice1960
Spoiler alert! The following comments spoil much of Susan Glaspell’s “A Jury of Her Peers.” If you want to read the story, you may do so here.
Though Susan Glaspell’s early noir “A Jury of Her Peers” (1917) has been canonized in Tony Hillerman’s The Best American Mystery Stories of the Century (2001), it is not a mystery story in the conventional sense. Minnie Wright has murdered her husband. No one in the story believes her claim that she slept undisturbed next to him while someone strangled him with a rope, nor is the reader given any reason to doubt her guilt. The only mystery is why Minnie did it. (Significantly, the name “Minnie Wright” never appears in the story. Martha Hale, a neighbor, still thinks of her as Minnie Foster because Martha remembers her as she was before marriage. In all other instances, she is referred to as “Mrs. Wright,” symbolic of the appendage she became.)
The plot of the story proper describes a visit to the Wrights’ empty house as the sheriff (Peters) and the county attorney (Henderson) collect information for the prosecution of Minnie Wright. Peters and Henderson want to interview Martha Hale’s husband, Lewis, at the house, for it was he who discovered the murder. The day before, he had stopped by to see John Wright and was informed by Minnie that her husband was dead. Upstairs, Lewis found the body. The three men are accompanied on their errand by two women. The sheriff’s wife, whose name is given only as Mrs. Peters, is going to gather items that Minnie Wright wants in jail. When Mrs. Peters becomes nervous, she asks Martha Hale to come as well.
Martha feels sympathy for the accused from the outset. When her husband begins talking, she is concerned that he will “say unnecessary things that [will] just make things harder for Minnie Foster.” Thus, she disapproves when Lewis says that he “didn’t know as what [John’s] wife wanted made much difference to John” because this hints at a motive for the murder. Lewis does not follow up on this observation, however, because the attorney asks him to focus on the murder itself.
When the three men go upstairs to look at the murder scene, Martha and Mrs. Peters stay below, and this is when then real action of the story begins. Piecing together evidence that the men are oblivious to (“Nothing here but kitchen things,” says the sheriff), the women come to understand why Minnie Wright killed her husband. First, Martha notices a paper bag of flour only half emptied into a wooden bucket. Then she notices that the kitchen table has been only half cleaned. Then Mrs. Peters notices where Minnie seems to have lost her ability to sew, and she wonders, “What do you suppose she was so—nervous about?” The answer comes, literally and/or symbolically, when they find Minnie’s pet bird, its neck broken, wrapped in a piece of silk in her sewing basket. Earlier, Martha had observed that Minnie Foster was herself like a bird (“Real sweet and pretty, but kind of timid and—fluttery. How—she—did—change”), and now the two women lock eyes “in a look of dawning comprehension, of growing horror.” Literally, the dead bird, along with a birdcage whose door has been forcibly broken, indicates that John killed his wife’s pet. Symbolically, the dead bird shows what marriage to John Foster did to the vibrant young Minnie Foster; as well, the manner of the bird’s death suggests the possibility of spousal abuse.
Though Martha and Mrs. Peters know little about the Wrights’ marriage, they know enough about the naturalistic weight of patriarchy to intuit the details that the dead bird suggests. From their perspective, if the men knew of the dead bird, it “would make certain the conviction” of Minnie Wright. Their sympathy is with Minnie, however, so they will not tell the men what they know. Commentary on the story tends to end here: As a jury, Martha and Mrs. Peters have united in support of their peer. But to stop here is to overlook what may be the story’s deepest irony: While Martha and Mrs. Peters believe that they have the power to prove Minnie’s guilt, they may well be wrong. Throughout the story, the men have treated Martha and Mrs. Peters with condescension bordering on contempt. Just as John Wright did not care what his wife wanted, it seems likely that the men would not take seriously the amateur detective work of the two women. The women’s confidence in their own power, when they may have no power at all, is classic noir.
Frederick Nebel“Rough Justice”1930
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.
Erle Stanley Gardner“Hell’s Kettle”1930
Carroll John Daly“Three Gun Terry”1923
