Last week I finally got around to doing something that I\u2019ve been meaning to do for about 45 years. I cracked open a novel by Mickey Spillane, a writer in the pulp-fiction end of the private-eye genre. <\/p>\n
Spillane was born March 9, 1918, so the 100th anniversary of his birth has just crossed paths with our calendars. Born in Brooklyn, he eventually moved to South Carolina, where he passed away in 2006. It\u2019s said that over 200 million copies of his books sold. His claim to fame was a series of novels featuring Mike Hammer, a pugnacious, street-savvy P.I. who was often motivated more by vengeance than money.<\/p>\n
When I was a kid, battered old copies of Mike Hammer paperbacks were always making the rounds. I never managed to get my mitts on a copy, though. As soon as somebody had a book to lend, somebody else snapped it up. You\u2019d have better luck catching a neutrino with a baseball mitt than trying to find an unclaimed copy of a Mike Hammer novel.<\/p>\n
More recently, the pulp fiction genre in general, and Mickey Spillane\u2019s legacy in particular, have gelled into literary lore, part of Americana every bit as much as film noir is. So I wanted to read some Mike Hammer material to see what made it tick and to ponder what accounted for its popularity.<\/p>\n
I read three such books, actually, since the modern reprints often come in three-in-one-volumes. <\/p>\n
Spillane completed 13 books in the Mike Hammer series. He left behind a number of uncompleted manuscripts that were published after someone else finished writing them. Spillane also wrote books outside of the Mike Hammer series, including a couple of children\u2019s books.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m no authority on the detective genre, but my take is that it broadly offers a few flavors. One flavor, such as the Mike Hammer series, is fast-moving stories that involve a lot of fights, interactions with seductive damsels, and, well, that\u2019s pretty much it: blood and lipstick. So what was the raw appeal to the masses? Hey, I just told you. Raw, indeed.<\/p>\n
At the opposite end of the spectrum are the chin-pullers, stories in which intellectual power, not brute force, is on display. There\u2019s more thought than action. The caper might even be cracked from the confines of an overstuffed armchair in a well-appointed study.<\/p>\n
\u201cSomeone in this room,\u201d the sleuth will declare to all assembled therein, \u201cis a murderer.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yeah, and someone else in this room doesn\u2019t care. Namely, me. This stuff could never hold my attention. If I want a puzzle to solve from the confines of my study, I\u2019ll try to balance my checkbook. <\/p>\n
Anyway, back in my beach chair world, where I\u2019m arbitrarily making up literary distinctions, I\u2019ve got another notion to offer: There\u2019s a fertile swath of turf between the blood-and-lipstick fare and the chin-pulling fare. This middle ground is not raw and visceral, but it\u2019s not dry and priggish, either. <\/p>\n
And here I\u2019ll submit that a detective story is often just a convenient way to frame a narrative. After all, a hero has to do something for a living, and needs some excuse to go nose-poking into affairs better left alone. What better excuse than to be a detective, or private eye, or investigator, or even, in the case of John D. MacDonald\u2019s Travis McGee series, a \u201csalvage expert\u201d who salvages money that people were swindled out of? <\/p>\n
I\u2019ll offer that last one as a case in point, since it\u2019s the spot in this genre that I\u2019m most familiar with. My motivation for joining McGee on his adventures isn\u2019t so I can try to match wits with him and solve the caper before he does. I\u2019m not that ambitious. No, it\u2019s because whatever he\u2019s up to is more interesting than what I\u2019m up to. That\u2019s not a hard standard to meet, I\u2019ll admit. Anyway, I also like the way McGee phrases his observations about life. Overall, then, I\u2019m just happy to join him because he\u2019s good company. <\/p>\n
Would Mike Hammer be good company? The character doesn\u2019t really lend itself to that kind of question in these fast-paced novels. Readers join the action to ride along with Hammer during a car chase, not to hear a soliloquy on labor economics. <\/p>\n
Me, I\u2019m probably more of a soliloquy guy, but at least I don\u2019t have to wonder what I was missing all those years ago when I couldn\u2019t get my hands on a Mike Hammer novel. So that\u2019s one mystery that has been solved.<\/p>\n
While I\u2019m solving mysteries, I will further practice my detective skills by making a bold accusation: <\/p>\n
Someone in this room is going to have a cheeseburger for lunch.<\/p>\n
Oh, and fries, too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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