Wed 20 Jan 2010
News of Robert B. Parker’s death on Monday quickly made the rounds of the mystery-oriented blogs yesterday. Three that I’d be especially pleased to send you to, since they largely reflect my own feelings, are Bill Crider’s blog, The Rap Sheet and Dwight Brown’s blog.
There are two books that I consider the gems of my collection, and given the size of my collection, that’s saying a good deal. If there were a fire or other disaster here, these are the books I’d save first, after saving the really important things, that is.
One is A Is for Alibi (Holt Rinehart & Winston, 1982), by Sue Grafton, and the other is The Godwulf Manuscript (Houghton Mifflin, 1973), by Robert B. Parker.
Both are hardcover first editions in jacket, and both are in Very Fine condition. The reason that I consider them gems is not because they’re valuable, which I imagine they are, but that they’re both Key Books in the development of the Private Eye novel. (I’m not alone in believing this, which in turn is what makes them valuable.)
Of the two, Godwulf came first, of course, and it was like a breath of fresh air in the PI sub-genre, which by the early 1970s was all but dead. It’s also the least typical of the Spenser books. Parker was channeling Chandler at the time (not a bad thing to do) and hadn’t developed his own voice yet. Susan Silverman didn’t come along until God Save the Child (1975), Book #2, and Hawk made his first appearance in Promised Land (1976), the fourth in the series.
In the beginning, the opening lines of The Godwulf Manuscript:
The photo of Mr. Parker you see above comes from the back cover of the same book. If you think that he looks a lot like Spenser did then, I do too, and maybe even more than you. I doubt that Spenser has aged much in the 37 years (and 39 books) since, maybe 10 years, no more.
Look for his 39th adventure, Painted Ladies, later this year. I know I will.
[UPDATE] 01-22-10. Since posting this brief tribute to Robert B. Parker, I’ve been going through my files, trying to locate the reviews I wrote of his earlier books. I haven’t been entirely successful, but come to find out, I’d posted one on this blog last year, and I’d forgotten I had. This one’s a review of The Judas Goat. Check it out here.
January 20th, 2010 at 3:36 pm
Very cool. I have Grafton’s first two Kinsey Millhone novels in first-edition hardcover, but not Parker’s The Godwulf Manuscript. I agree: protect that book with your life!
Cheers,
Jeff
January 20th, 2010 at 6:11 pm
Like you Steve, when I first started reading Parker I thought here was a breath of fresh air in the PI genre. Unfortunately, after a few novels I changed my mind because of the unlikable and annoying Susan and Hawk characters. I always liked Spenser with his love of cooking, baseball, etc but the girlfriend Susan and grouchy Hawk I disliked intensely. So much so that I had to stop reading the series. But there is no denying Parker’s influence on the PI novel.
January 20th, 2010 at 7:07 pm
Through his books, Robert Parker has been a cherished part of my life for half of my life. Losing Spenser is hitting me surprisingly hard. Losing Robert Heinlein was tough too, but his talent withered as he aged. Parker’s “Now And Then” is, I think a very strong Spenser.
While I always hated Susan Silverman–if I wanted to read Mr. and Mrs. North, that’s what I’d be reading–I was just as amused and enchanted by Hawk. Hawk, grouchy ?
While Hawk is self-referentially foreboding, he has a roguish sense of humor*, enjoys life to the fullest and clearly loves Spenser and (*gulp*) Susan.
*In “The Judas Goat” visits a European porn theater downstairs from their stake-out. (I’m paraphrasing from memory)
Spenser says, “Learn anything?”
Hawk (grinning widely): “Sure. If I ever put the moves on a Shetland pony, I’m all set…”
January 20th, 2010 at 8:29 pm
Poor Susan is given an awfully hard time by mystery fans, but I have a theory (that I’m still working on, so at the moment maybe it’s only half-baked) that she, Hawk and Spenser are three distinct aspects of the same character, each bouncing ideas and philosophies and codes of behavior off the others. You can’t have one without the other two. It’s all the same package.
I also don’t think that Parker’s readers, those of the so-called general public, mind her as much as mystery fans seem to. There have been an awful lot of PIs that have come and gone since Spenser’s first case, and he’s lasted, and they haven’t.
— Steve