Thriller Writers Burn It Down

A visit to the mystery/suspense and thriller aisles at Borders this afternoon inspired six observations:

  1. Deceased authors are publishing new novels (i.e., Robert Ludlum, Margaret Truman)
  2. The Cold War is over, the War on Terror has evolved into traditional war, and espionage and conspiracy are bigger than ever
  3. Protagonists in thrillers are best when they are deeply, irredeemably flawed
  4. Women are gaining market share in the pantheon of mystery, suspense and thriller authors (i.e., Lisa Unger, Lisa Scottoline, Kathryn Fox)
  5. The Mystery/Suspense market is growing
  6. Successful writers in these genres ‘burn down the house’ and create palpable peril

In these categories, my reading has yet to venture far beyond Silva, Ludlum, Anthony Hyde, Clancy, Forsythe, and Cruz Smith, so forgive me if my categorization of those other above-mentioned writers contains errors.  In this, I suspect I am like many of my fellow shoppers in the aisles, scanning titles, cover art, jacket copy and blurbs – drawn to personal favorites, interested in broadening my horizons, yet conflicted about the burden on my budget and the quality of my reading, reticent about dropping $7-$12 on an unproven author.  LeCarré is a personal favorite.  He set the standard long ago in the spy novel genre and continues to craft writing that seems transparent, the writer’s holy grail.

Larry went officially missing from the world on the second Monday of October, at ten minutes past eleven, when he failed to deliver his opening lecture of the new academic year. 

- OUR GAME (1995)

There is an entire novel in that single opening line.

In mystery, Martin Cruz Smith raises my expectations, not only for quality writing, but also for my own work.

Blair lit an oil lamp hanging on the wall. Its wan illumination reached to the glory of the room, an oil painting of Christ in a carpenter’s shop.  Jesus appeared delicate and unaccustomed to hard work, and in Blair’s opinion His expression was overly abstracted for a man handling a saw.

- ROSE (1996)

But I digress.  If there is a single thread that unites the work of all of the above, it has to be the last observation.  These writers burn the character’s house down, usually early in the book, and often more than once.

 

LAST ORDERS | Graham Swift

 

Graham Swift‘s sixth novel, LAST ORDERS (1996), follows a day in the lives of the friends, spouse and children of Jack Arthur Dodds, butcher, recently deceased. Their day of remembrance is a metaphor for the ordinary, earnest yet flawed, occasionally misspent life. 

Following Jack’s three men friends and his son as they carry his ashes to the sea at Margate to fulfill one final wish is as driven, surreal and overarchingly important as a salmon’s return up a twisted and turbulent river to its life starting point.  The why of it is never quite clear to subjects, just like real life.  Perhaps Jack’s friends, son and wife discover that nothing in life should go to waste, including one last opportunity to unite with friends and family in the only place that ever held any hope of romantic significance for him. Margate was his Shangri-La, his hope for his and Amy’s connection to each other, even at the end of an estranged lifetime.

Uncompromising in his use of ordinary thoughts and language by the ordinary people of Bermondsey, south London, Swift establishes his contract with the reader early and never lets him or her down.

It aint like your regular sort of day.

…begins Swift and continues with absolute, unblinking objectivity, and an unerring ear for the deceptive riches in thought and dialogue.  At first, the similarity of voice between the characters – Jack Arthur Dodds’ understated, reticent butcher; Vince Dodds, his cagey son; Amy, his wife who chose their mentally disabled daughter, June, over her husband; Ray Johnson, his unreliable mate; Lenny Tate, his resentful Army buddy; Vic Tucker, his funeral director; and Mandy, the stray taken in by Vince – made following the changes in voice difficult to follow. I kept referring back to the chapter titles to see who was carrying the story forward.  Soon, however, each character’s emotional process and relationship with the deceased rippled outward and overlapped other characters’ process and responses.  Before long, cross currents became waypoints and I grew compelled by the journey and the back stories.  Swift’s exploration of ordinary lives in this novel is extraordinarily skilled.

This quiet novel speaks volumes about the quiet lives of its ordinary middle-class south London characters. In doing so, it speaks to the rest of us.

Graham Swift’s interview in SALON

The Booker Prize, which is often a reliable guide to literary excellence, is what originally attracted me to LAST ORDERS.





Last Orders