I picked up The Blue Hammer by Ross MacDonald last night in its new Vantage trade paperback incarnation. Every time I read him, I want to sit right down and write noir. Nothing but noir. I can’t hold a candle to him, though. I know that. When I read a sentence describing his first impressions of a mansion as reminding him of the sort of place where you might go to pay your taxes or get a divorce, my mind reels in awe and admiration. There’s so much loaded into a turn of a phrase like that. I probably read most of MacDonald’s novels back in the 80s, at about the same time as I was consuming the other MacDonald crime writer, but I’m am enjoying rereading them. He exudes such a jaded world view that every noun, adjective and verb is steeped in noir.
Under his influence, I yanked up an old short story this morning, thinking I could noir it up some. Have you ever had the experience of reading something after a year or two, thinking: this is going to suck pretty bad, only to discover that, hey, it’s pretty good after all. This is a story I’ve only submitted twice—once a couple of years ago and once very recently when I discovered a themed call that it seemed to fit. I didn’t even read it, I just sent it in. Surprise of surprises, I received very positive feedback on it from the editors, with some suggestions about where they thought the story went wrong and how I might improve it. While editing it this morning, I saw their point about a story flaw, but came up with a different way to address it that doesn’t require reinventing one of the characters. But I was pleasantly surprised by how world-weary the protagonist is. It’s a much better story than I gave it credit for, so it’s time to send it out into the world and see if I can find someone else who agrees.
Had my follow-up round with the dentist first thing this morning. Permanent crown implanted and aging filling re-excavated and topped off with tooth-like material. I was intrigued by how the dental hygienist patted me on the shoulder while the dentist was anesthetizing my gums. I recognized it for what it was—a distraction from the site of the injection, but it worked even though I knew why she was doing it. It was a very odd mix of primitive and high-level reaction. I even commented on it to the dentist. “Yes, but did it work?” he wanted to know.
Yesterday was a windfall day in terms of receiving books from publishers for review. Four packages, for a total of six novels. Mostly from Knopf, but also from Scribner, too. I also finished my most recent review and posted it: Still Waters by Nigel McCrery. A book that started out with great promise and imploded in the final act, alas. I wrote my review of The Brass Verdict by Michael Connelly, too, but since that book’s not out until October, I set a calendar reminder to poke me in a few months.
