Fatherhood, Spenser style: Early Autumn

Since the death of Robert B. Parker in January 2010, I've been re-reading his Spenser novels. The earliest ones, written in the 1970s and 80s, staked out his moral as well as physical territory, revolving around ideas of traditional masculinity in conflict with the modern world. And in 1981's Early Autumn, Spenser demonstrates how his code is built and applied in the life of a clueless teenage boy. It's a book of its time in the particulars of setting, plot and society, but it touches on universal ideas that may be more applicable than ever.

Paul Giacomin is a chess piece between his divorced parents. Private eye Spenser is hired by his mother to retrieve him from his father, but it's not from maternal affection, merely the latest skirmish in their ongoing, selfish power struggle. The fifteen-year-old has literally, as they say in the South, had no raising:

"The kid's never been taught how to act," I said. "He doesn't know anything. He's got no pride. He's got nothing he's good at."
(p. 98 of the Dell paperback reissue).

To protect Paul, Spenser hides him in an isolated cabin. Over the course of several weeks he teaches Paul carpentry, weight lifting, boxing and most crucially, self-reliance:

"...that's why, kid, before you go back, you are going to have to get autonomous."

"Huh?"

"Autonomous. Dependent on yourself. Not influenced unduly by things outside yourself. You're not old enough. It's too early to ask a kid like you to be autonomous. But you got no choice. Your parents are no help to you. If anything, they hurt. You can't depend on them. They got you to where you are. They won't get better. You have to."
(p. 123 of the Dell paperback reissue).

The extended middle section demonstrates just how Paul gets autonomous. In a lot of ways it's idyllic: Paul, who would be called a slacker if Parker was writing now, responds to Spenser's tough love and blooms (or whatever the male equivalent is) under it. The construction of the cabin, which prefigured Life as a House by two decades, becomes a metaphor for the construction of Paul's self-esteem. And in one of the book's more clever twists, Paul's nascent autonomy leads him to his dream career: ballet. Which does not involve coming out as gay, which there's no indication he is. And which Spenser, the most "he" of he-men, fully supports.

The book's weakness is the same as the recent "Young Spenser" novel Chasing the Bear, which I reviewed here: there's no real challenge to Spenser's ability to do what he says he'll do. He knows how to handle every difficulty he encounters, which is both a bit of a cheat dramatically, and also part of the thematic point. It would be hard to demonstrate self-reliance if the circumstances didn't allow it, and without that demonstration, Early Autumn would be merely The Celestine Prophecy for wayward youth.

And Paul puts up little resistance. He's apathetic and aimless, but not really rebellious. In re-reading the book, I was struck by two contradictory thoughts. First was how much Paul seemed to resemble the kids I see in the mall, limp-bodied and pale, unengaged in the world except through a screen. Apparently, if Parker was writing about them in 1981, they've been around a while. Second was the desire to see Spenser confront a real rebel, someone determined not to be "saved." Yet that story would've been a cliche'.

As proof of Spenser's success, Paul Giacomin becomes a recurring minor character in the later novels, especially Pastime, where we first learn about Spenser's own childhood. But Early Autumn remains a unique book in the series, and not just for the elaborate carpentry skills Spenser never again displays. It's the first and only time this poster boy for autonomy steps deliberately into the role of parent. He's good at it, of course; then again, he has the luxury of choosing his child, something real parents can't do.

Or real children, for that matter. As someone who was essentially abandoned by the elder male figures in my childhood, I wonder how I would've responded to such a strong masculine presence dedicated to my self-improvement. Truthfully, I think I would've resisted far harder than Paul Giacomin. And I wonder what contemporary teen boys, in a world of pedophile priests and other sexual predators, would make of a grown man who takes a boy alone into the woods for weeks at a time. Would Spenser even think of such an idea today?

Finding A Bomb Built in Hell

I've just finished reading the bookends of one of my favorite series, the "Burke" novels by Andrew Vachss. After 18 books in 23 years, he completed it with the release of Another Life in 2008. Meanwhile, his website has the free PDF of his first, unpublished novel, a sort of prelude to the Burke series titled, A Bomb Built in Hell.

To call Bomb "disturbing" is an understatement. Written in 1973, it deals with Wesley, a supporting character in the Burke series, one who's so scary even mentioning his name terrifies people. He's an amoral hit man who finally decides to start killing the people he feels most deserve it. But his judgment, needless to say, is a bit twisted.

What skews it, as in all Vachss' novels, is his tormented childhood at the hands of the government. Abandoned at age four, he's raised by the state and becomes a petty teen criminal. In the first few pages he refers to reform institutions as "upstate sodomy schools," and thinks no more of going to jail than a normal person would going to Wal-Mart. He's desensitized, an empty vessel waiting to be filled.

His prison mentor Carmine does just that, teaching him the prison ropes and preparing him for life outside as a hit man. When Wesley is released, he sets about avenging Carmine on the mobsters who let him rot in prison. But when that's accomplished, he decides to seek a more personal revenge, not against individuals but against an entire class of people. I won't give it away here, but what Vachss wrote about in 1973 came to pass in an almost identical event in 1999.

There are a lot of parallels with the later Burke series, the first of which (Flood) did not appear in print for another thirteen years. Where Wesley has Carmine, Burke has the Prof; Wesley's driver and mechanic "Pet" Petraglia parallels with The Mole, Burke's mechanical and electronic expert. Wesley even has a dog who guards his home, just as Burke has Pansy the mastiff.

In the author's notes on his website, Vachss says publishers repeatedly told him, "the book was also 'too' hard-boiled, 'too' extreme, 'too' spare and violent. I heard endlessly about how an anti-hero was acceptable, but Wesley was just 'too' much."

And maybe, dare I say it, they were right about that last bit. Burke narrates his own stories; while the other characters see only his carefully-chosen front, we are privy to his thoughts, feelings and motives. Bomb is written in third person, so that the reader sees Wesley the same way the other characters do. There's very little sympathy for him, ultimately, especially as he closes in on his greatest hit at the climax. In fact, if Bomb were written and published today, the outcry would probably be massive; Vachss might even disappear at the hands of Homeland Security for advocating (and describing in detail how to accomplish) such extreme acts.

But despite being a period piece in a sense, "Bomb" still resonates with the thing that makes all Vachss' books so powerful: the sense that there's reality in the details, no matter how outlandish the characters or plot might seem. Vachss' has spent his life in the trenches, and if he says this is how something should be done, I wouldn't doubt him.

Andrew Vachss is on the short list of heroes I never want to actually meet, along with people like Bruce Springsteen. If I caught any of them on a bad day, and they were rude or cross with me, then I would lose great swaths of my life tied inexorably to their work. I need Vachss to stay on his pedestal, with his eyepatch and dog, glaring from his one eye. Part of it is because I suspect he'd have nothing but contempt for someone like me, who's never really been exposed to the brutality of life and whose ideas of good and evil would likely strike him as impossibly naive; I'm also pretty sure he could kill me with only his thumbs.



But do I love his work. The thing that draws me to it is, in fact, the same thing that attracts me to David Lynch's films. Lynch mixes the cruelest, most sadistic brutality with the tenderest, almost unbearably sweet love stories. I suspect that Lynch goes to the former extreme so that he can indulge the latter with a clear artistic conscience. I don't know if Vachss' motives are similar, but the effect is identical. The time spent touring humanity's cesspools is redeemed by moments like the frank but touching love scenes in Blue Belle.

As a novelist, I write stories and try to imbue them with elements of real life. Vachss, it seems, takes real life and uses it to tell stories. I don't believe one is neccesarily any better than the other, but the weight of real life is hard to argue with. And when that real life is as grim, gritty and traumatic as A Bomb Built in Hell, it's also hard to ignore.

5 cool things about Dracula

As someone whose vampire novel will be published in the spring (Blood Groove, from Tor Books, will be released March 31, 2009), I'm fully aware that the gold standard, the top of the heap, the absolute pinnacle of vampire literature remains Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula. Without it, the vampire as a popular figure would have a very different image, or might not exist at all, remaining a marginilized, personality-lacking boogeyman like the ghoul or the zombie.

Stoker's novel has never been accurately translated to the screen (although the 1977 BBC production with Louis Jourdan comes closest), so to this day actually reading the novel reveals a far different story than one might expect. Here are five of my favorite little-known trivia facts about Dracula, the novel:

1) Lucy Westenra's three suitors -- Dr. Seward, Quincey Morris and Arthur Holmwood -- are friends when the book begins, and remain friends even after Lucy has chosen one of them (Arthur). There is literally no tension in the trio; the two losers are genuinely happy for their friend who won her hand. This kind of subtlety is so unusual it's been almost completely ignored in film versions (the exception being the ghastly Coppola film).

2) Dracula first appears as an old man and then grows younger as he acquires new blood. The Coppola film makes an attempt at this (Gary Oldman's bizarre blowdried-ass hairdo is at least snowy white)...



...and Jess Franco's typically crude 1970 film greys Christopher Lee's hair at the beginning.



But for the most part Dracula is depicted as unchanging, an idea that has become ingrained in the current eternally-young vampires of Twilight. Yet Stoker meant to show that Dracula had exhausted not just the blood, but the very will to live of the peasant community around his castle, and that's why he relocates to London.

3) Dracula has three "wives" at his castle, but he does not bring them to London. No reason is given for this. When the vampire hunters chase Dracula back to his castle, the wives are still there, and Van Helsing dispatches them.



The best explanation I've seen for this was in a play version produced in Nashville, TN six or seven years ago. Using only staging and vocal inflection, the production made it clear that one big reason Dracula was leaving was to get away from these nagging, needy, unpleasant women he'd unwisely granted eternal life. It was an unexpectedly funny display, and the highlight of an otherwise weak production.

4) The word nosferatu is not genuine. Stoker cribbed it from another book, an under-researched travelogue called The Land Beyond the Forest by Emily Gerard. Before that, it appears in no known language, let alone Romanian.

5) Dracula is killed, not by the scientist/physician/vampire slayer Van Helsing, but by an American cowboy (Quincey Morris) and an English law clerk (Jonathan Harker).