Sat 26 Oct 2013
Reviewed by Josef Hoffmann RITA ELIZABETH RIPPETOE – Booze and the Private Eye: Alcohol in the Hard-Boiled Novel.
Posted by Steve under Reference works / Biographies , Reviews[3] Comments
RITA ELIZABETH RIPPETOE – Booze and the Private Eye: Alcohol in the Hard-Boiled Novel. McFarland & Co., softcover, 2004.
“The hard-bitten PI with a bottle of bourbon in his desk drawer – it’s an image as old as the genre of hard-boiled detective fiction itself.†Thus begins the blurb for Rippetoe’s book.
The frequent and often excessive consumption of alcohol by detectives in hard-boiled crime fiction is a notable phenomenon. What significance does this have in the novels? In her introductory chapter, Rippetoe emphasises that the permissive attitude towards alcohol was by no means a matter of course in the history of the USA, as demonstrated in particular by the Prohibition era, which plays an important role in crime literature.
Whenever detectives or other persons drink alcohol during this period, they flout the legal order just as it pleases them. Drinking behaviour, including that which is permitted, makes a statement, especially in the case of male investigators, about how controlled and tough they are if they can absorb alcohol without malfunctioning.
The circumstances and consequences of drinking behaviour indicate whether the detective is acting responsibly and has moral integrity. His particular and individually differentiated moral code becomes clear as a result. Furthermore, society’s changing attitude to alcohol consumption is also illustrated in crime novels, which reveals something of the social mores of the time.
Rippetoe addresses these aspects of the detective novels of Hammett, Chandler, Spillane, Robert B. Parker and Lawrence Block, devoting one chapter to each author. Hammett is accused of abandoning his realistic representation of the effects of alcohol consumption in the Op novels in favour of a reality-denying attitude to Nick and Nora Charles’ boozing in his last novel. Even the criminal acts of doing business with alcohol are palliated in the book. Rippetoe attributes this change to Hammett’s alcoholism.
A characteristic of Chandler’s Philip Marlowe is the fact that it is described repeatedly which alcoholic drinks he consumes where and when. His precisely controlled social behaviour serves to present him as a hero, who preserves his self-respect by means of his moral codes.
There are three types of situation in which alcohol consumption fulfils a specific function and which are described in detail: hospitality, manipulation of the drinker and self-medication. Rippetoe explains the keen eye for the social state of drinking with the help of Chandler’s life story, including his career as a drinker.
Mickey Spillane’s detective Mike Hammer differs from Philip Marlowe in two respects as far as alcohol consumption is concerned. First, Hammer usually doesn’t drink anything stronger than beer. In the later novels he prefers Miller Lite, which Spillane was contracted to advertise. Hammer thus demonstrates his connection with the majority of his readers, blue collar workers.
Second, Hammer usually remains stone-cold sober when required by his job as a detective. He adapts his drinking behaviour to the professional moral code. The fact that he can hold his liquor when necessary is due to his status as a male superhero. Yet, like Chandler, Spillane also tends to trivialise the damage caused by alcoholism in some protagonists. However, the cause for this cannot be found in Spillane’s biography.
Robert B. Parker’s detective Spenser has more in common with Mike Hammer than most readers and critics realise. This relates to acts of violence as much as to drinking behaviour. Spenser also tends to drink beer. He drinks Heineken, Amstel or Rolling Rock. At meals he drinks the appropriate wine. At times he drinks bourbon, in later novels Irish whiskey. But he always makes sure that he does not drink alcohol to excess. He owes that to his professional ethos.
Rippetoe considers the effects of excessive alcohol consumption and alcoholism to be presented most realistically in the Matthew Scudder series by Lawrence Block, who himself had a drinking problem, which he has since overcome. The occasional investigator Scudder is an alcoholic, who over the course of the series undergoes a development from a self-endangering, uncontrolled drunk to a responsible, sober member of Alcoholics Anonymous. He has an ethical code that he follows tenaciously. The AA takes over the function of self-medication in Scudder’s life.
The penultimate chapter is dedicated to the drinking behaviour of the hardened female detectives in the works of Marcia Muller, Sue Grafton and Karen Kijewski. Because society likes to judge the alcohol consumption of women differently to that of men, the question arises as to how successful the transformation from the male to the female private detective has been in terms of alcohol consumption.
The detectives Sharon McCone, Kinsey Milhone and Kat Colorado drink alcohol, generally in moderate quantities and, in line with the drinking customs of the 1980s and 1990s, often white wine. Each of the protagonists consumes alcohol at least occasionally for the purpose of self-medication, in order to be able to deal with the stress of the case.
Each has personal dealings with someone who regularly drinks to excess. Kijewski shows most clearly the negative aspects of alcohol consumption, which is not surprising from a former bartender, who also furnishes her detective with this professional background.
The final chapter contains a summary of the conclusions of the study. It is inexplicable to me why the novels of Sara Paretsky have not been treated in any detail, as V. I. Warshawski sometimes drinks too much alcohol. Moreover, surely the particularly bibulous investigators in the stories by Jonathan Latimer and Craig Rice should have received at least a mention, as is the case with the detectives of James Lee Burke and James Crumley, for example, in the final chapter.
What is problematic about Rippetoe’s approach is that she only addresses critical-realistic presentations of alcohol consumption, thus excluding any humorous treatment in the manner of a screwball comedy. In this respect, her morality curtails literary freedom.
“All writers are drunks, you know. Would-be, borderline, confirmed, sodden, reformed; one stage or another. All drunks, every damned one of us,†says pulp veteran Russell Dancer in Bill Pronzini’s detective novel Hoodwink. Alcohol abuse by crime writers is such a regrettable affliction. Some of the best were dependent on alcohol, at least during certain phases of their lives: Edgar Allan Poe, Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, Cornell Woolrich, Jim Thompson, Georges Simenon, Patricia Highsmith, Ted Lewis, James Ellroy and so on.
Somehow, alcohol, at the right dose, appears to have an inspirational effect on the work of crime writers. And it relaxes the body and mind, which are exhausted from the act of writing, relatively quickly and easily. On the other hand the addiction has cast some authors such as Gil Brewer, Craig Rice and James Crumley into social squalor. Lawrence Block is of the opinion (according to Rippetoe) that alcohol abuse among writers leads to inhibited development and prevents them from breaking new ground.
Rippetoe is an “independent scholar†of genre fiction, who has specialised in detective fiction. She lives in Orangevale, California. Her study is informative and worthy, albeit at times somewhat heavy going due to its academic style. But the topic has by no means been addressed comprehensively. Further examinations would be desirable.
October 26th, 2013 at 6:01 pm
I’ve noticed booze and the private eye in many crime novels. I’ve read the 5 Jonathan Latimer Bill Crane novels at least three times and they are hilarious black comedies with the private eyes often drunk. I call them great drinking novels; meaning since I drink beer, I loved reading about Bill Crane while drinking a cold one. While the Rex Stout Nero Wolfe novels never really emphasized or showed drunken behavior, again, I liked the fact that Nero Wolfe was a connoisseur of beer.
Max Brand could drink a quart of liquor each day and still crank out a ton of western fiction. So could alot of other pulp writers. One thing about prohibition, it encouraged secret drinking among the population and all the major cities had scores of speakeasies. NYC had hundreds.
And it wasn’t just private eyes that drank. Many of the mainstream literary novelists were famous drinkers. Influential writers like Ernest Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and William Faulkner were great boozers and so were many of the writers of the time. One of the greatest novels of all time is UNDER THE VOLCANO by Malcolm Lowry, the story of a man’s descent into hell because of alcoholism.
Now we know the harmful effects of alcoholism but back then it was a way of life and not just among the crime writers. So it had a big effect on many writers, not just the hardboiled authors. This book reminds me of a film magazine that published an article on the use of the telephone in the movie. Many telephones were used in the movies. Just like there was a whole lot of drinking going on in many novels. To be hardboiled means to be a drinker also.
October 27th, 2013 at 8:25 am
There is definitely a sense that the American Private Eye novel is using alcohol to make a point about its heroes. If you look at the protagonists of British thrillers of the same era, they do drink all types of alcoholic beverage. However, the mention of it is almost unthinking and unconscious; it’s just what chaps do. There’s far less of a sense of it being something that defines their masculinity. If you don’t have prohibition, there’s no sense of being a rebel by drinking a lot.
Whilst some writers were big boozers, it would be interesting to see if some of those who wrote about alcohol were tea-totallers. I remember reading something by British thriller writer Dennis Wheatley, where he recalled looking over the first novel of a new thriller writer as a favour to his publisher. Wheatley had previously worked in the wine business, and realised very quickly that the author knew very little about the effects of drink. His favourite moment was when the hero rapidly drank a magnum of champagne as a prelude to setting off to rescue the heroine. As a magnum is two full bottles, Wheatley hoped that the hero stopped for a little lie down before continuing his adventures.
October 28th, 2013 at 2:06 am
The heroic drinking done by the private eye in the beginning reflected both how much he owed to the western (Hopalong Cassidy drank like a fish) and the milieu the tales took place in. The private eye was operating among gangsters,rum runners, crooked politicians, corrupt businessmen, the effete rich, and various cops and henchmen in speakeasies, mansions, and back rooms.
And the combination of Prohibition and then Depression drove an entire nation to drink. Keeping in mind that it hadn’t been safe to drink water or milk for most of the country’s beginnings, it is only natural that hard drinking was common, especially in the society private eyes operated in — the lowest low and the highest high, and both plastered, just with better quality booze.
By our standards today almost all of the Founding Father’s were drunks, and most of our heroes after them.
As for writers, once you do it you’ll understand why.
Then too, the genre came out of hard drinking Hemingway as much as anywhere, and manhood at the time was associated with drinking (and don’t kid yourself, it still is in most of the country).
I don’t disagree with any of the conclusions here, just put them in historical and social perspective.
And anyway, I don’t think Philip Marlowe could keep a bottle of milk in his desk drawer very long.