27 March 22
Last weekend my mother discovered erotic thrillers. Life is a constant surprise. First it was films where husbands die or are killed. Now steamy bonk-fest thrillers. Please understand my mother’s usual recommendations feature people in felt hats digging up old boats or forming poetry communes. I was brought up to the background sound of The Archers.
Last weekend I was reading “Before you knew my name” by Jacqueline Bublitz. This is in direct correlation to recommending “True Story: a novel”. There’s a current vogue for appending ‘a novel’ at the end of the title of: your novel. Obviously if your book is called True Story and it’s not, confusion will arise. Otherwise: why? Seems this is a 17th century affectation, when people wrote accounts of quests, so one had to be careful to ensure your audience didn’t think you were actually a pilgrim and it’s your diary about how far you got. Perhaps authors these days are told how it elevates their work into this canon of masterpieces, how it adds grandeur, My First Book: a novel does sound far more impressive than plain old My First Book. The reality it seems is way less fortuitous. Publishers are expecting your title to be remaindered and laid to rest amongst piles of Teach Yourself Watercolours, 101 Easy Curries and Great Naval Battles: a History. Where your opus could be mistaken for a self-help guide. Apparently.
True Story examines who gets to tell the story of the abused, questioning the orthodox focus on the dashing prince, not the call girl. A story old as time. Kiss a frog, get frog slime on your lips. Works with princes too. I have been struggling with the dead girl in the woods trope for a while now. La Jefa is an adherent to the “high brow people enjoy low brow media to quieten their roiling minds” theory. It’s a good theory. I usually alternate between works that can be termed contemporary fiction and my guilty pleasure - lying psychos in a love triangle. Sometimes you finish a film or book and it leaves a silence. It is not possible to simply return to the banal or casual. True Story was such a read. My lying psychos and space detectives seemed shallow. Digging around and browsing led to “Before you knew my name” which seemed capable of standing up to the silence, looked like it possessed gravitas. It subverts the standard device of a dead, murdered girl being found somewhere as the entrance to an enthralling read featuring a clever psycho and even cleverer but damaged detective who tracks them down - and instead asks ‘who is this dead, murdered corpse’.
That this is a subversion of the norm speaks volumes. That’s when my mother rang with a film recommendation. “I’ve just watched Deep Water and it’s terribly good darling”. Google. I should have been prepared. Already “Blood Orange” has been praised (as an audio book). Last time I checked (spoiler coming up, skip to next para) auto erotic asphyxiation was not big in the Bloomsbury Group, nor did Sylvia Plath do much rhyming about anal in the hallway, and the felt makers were not giving blowjobs in urine flooded train toilets.
Whether the film is any good or not will merely be a bonus as Googling led to the joyous phrase “A BenAna movie is being released into a Bennifer world.”1 It appears that the star Ben Affleck once bonked costar Ana de Armas but it’s no longer thrilling. And now with the film being released it’s all a bit awkward. Of more import is the discovery that it’s a dramatisation of a Patricia Highsmith novel.
So I am now reading “Deep Water” by Patricia Highsmith instead.
The Ben Affleck character is (so far) a more benign Tom Ripley. It’s Patricia Highsmith so pretty much a given someone will be murdered by the end. Tom Ripley being her eponymous antihero. As a child my heroes were The Milk Tray Man, Captain Black from Captain Scarlet (swarthy motherfucker that he is. I bet the angels Harmony, Destiny, Symphony, and Melody were all over him post episode), and The Master from Dr Who. I still hold a secret penchant for black polo necks. Growing into a young man I was much taken with Tom Ripley. I had wanted to become a gigolo in the south of a France after digesting too much Roxy Music and Midnight Cowboy, but my mother, after pointing out I’d need to fuck very old ladies, finally dissuaded me with the information that I’d have to wear a tie. I became a t-shirt printer.
I still have a fondness for Mr Ripley. There have been many attempts to film him. All failed*. In a beautifully joining-the-dots sort of way Ben Affleck’s bestie Matt Damon played Ripley. In a weird Italian travelogue version which resembled something made by Conde Nast. My mother loves it. In the books his character is a reptile. I’m sure Highsmith modelled him on an Englishman. He is aloof, erudite, calculating and callous. It is a feat of her writing that we like him. A true antihero. We don’t love to hate him. We root for him as he kills the latest inconvenient man.
Here lies a crucial element. Ripley kills men. Not because he is sexist. Because he kills, amorally, those who threaten him.
Matt Damon is in the origin story “The Talented Mr Ripley”. The film fails to demonstrate how the arbitrary line of birthright separating the rich from the poor is an underlying causation of his character. White, male, good looking, charming: but still poor - he seems too likeable, and everything is too beautiful, it’s Matt Damon after all. Ripley is sang-froid. We don’t see where his resentment of the entitled comes from.
Picture Alain Delon. Even if you can’t, you know him. In your mind’s eye, that suave assassin in the french white trenchcoat and trilby. The cool cat killer whose role in Le Samouraï inspired lone wolf ninjas from Jarmusch’s Ghostdog to Winding Refn’s Drive, and John Woo’s The Killer? That’s him.
Well he played Ripley too. Nailed it. In the now forgotten Plein Soleil. * It’s in French and from the 60s so only recognised as an actual movie by film anoraks (not to be confused with film trenchcoats, their more dangerous cousin).
For my favourite novel “Ripley’s Game” John Malkovich played him, and while he has the right personality, he’s too ugly. But the tone of voice is perfect. Not as frankly quite bonkers as Denis Hopper portrayed him in Wim Wenders far off the beaten track version “The American Friend”. Liberties are taken, although it’s perhaps the best adaptation as it’s its own peculiar beast.
I no longer want to be Ripley. Identifying with murderers is incongruous with my values. Contrary to our nature is this innate enjoyment of watching drug dealers and hit men avoid justice. It’s puzzling how in entertainment we allow what we refute in real life.
One of the greatest character arcs in recent years was Breaking Bad, as our sympathies were slowly twisted from the conformist chemist teacher to the punk waster Jesse Pinkman. The hit man drug dealer is a familiar character we cheer on onscreen, admire and root for, while in real life these people are brutish, selfish and would bring toxicity into the lives of those they touch.
Highsmith’s skill is in maintaining both the repulsion and admiration in a single character.
In crime fiction my personal favourite is the innocent abroad, a doctor or lawyer who must prove himself not guilty against a criminal conspiracy and pursuing law enforcement. Harlan Coben does this extremely well. No dead girls. The vast majority of crime entertainment does, however, start with a dead girl. Just that. Dead girl at the beginning, then reduced to a dogeared photograph shown around in the ruthless cat and mouse chase between cunning killer and savant detective.
It’s time to change the trope. Wayne Couzens sounds like an unlikely plot from a Scandinoir. It’s not. It happens. In fiction we continue to present the girl as simply a naked dead object of desire. Disposable.2
Back when I was taking naked photographs I worked with a model called Nettie Harris. The only professional model I worked with. She shot with Ryan McGinley.3 Spot the major fanboy.
A little while later I was chatting with a couple who were modelling for me, enthusing about season one of True Detective. “You know Nettie was the body?” they asked. I was amazed. I had spent days with her in the hut as an alive naked body, and yet failed to recognise her on the screen. I could really not want for a better metaphor.
Netflix did a great adaption of Behind Her Eyes (by Sarah Pinborough) otherwise I would have been tempted to pick the book as a recommendation. They also developed another series based on the character in “You” by Caroline Kepnes. Like Deep Water I’m reading the novel first before indulging in watching. I owe it to Highsmith. No matter how good a screenplay there’s always subtleties missed.
I struggled reading You which is about a psychopath who kills girls when they reject his love. We are allowed inside his mind. What are we meant to take away from this. A totally objectionable character. Why are we being asked to see his side. It’s written by a woman which makes its positioning as entertainment fuzzy.
During the development of my book swapping app Bookpo.st4 I joined a buddy read. Our selection was Sweetpea by C.J. Skuse. About a female psycho killer. Again a female author. Lengths are gone to explain her background, her reasons, but she’s still a vile character killing others because of temper. It’s written as a comedy. I really shouldn’t have emailed the author before reading, thinking to myself ‘great app tie-in’, only to discover I loathed it and couldn’t bring myself to read the follow-ups as the buddy read continued. Bit awks. None of the group had issues, I raised my dilemma, asking what they thought. “I really like it” came the replies. The curse of overthinking. La Jefe hated it too.
Yes, I can hear the voice at the back. But it’s only fiction. Chill out dude.
Except it’s not, is it? For most young women it’s a distinct possibility. When The Killing was first screened it garnered praise and attention for portraying the grief and damage left behind when someone is murdered. It appears Scandinoir has reverted to crime's formless dead girl motif. I realise it’s problematic, I devoured all seasons of Trapped with its dead prostitutes being a vector for the damaged detective. The Bridge is one of my favourite ever pieces of long-form writing . It remains that our entertainment is a mirror of our society, a sea change is needed?
Afterparty by Daryl Gregory is a slice of hard-boiled neo-noir pharma-punk. It’s also a nuanced contemplation of faith, religion, purpose and redemption. Actually it’s a nuanced contemplation of faith, religion, purpose and redemption while also a slice of hard-boiled neo-noir pharma-punk.
It’s not a new book, or his newest. He’s published two since. Both about family, redemption, and psychic powers (or singing chimaeras). Both great. And both rather silly.
What singles Afterparty out is it’s a crime novel, it’s hard boiled, it’s pharma noir, but the protagonist is driven by love. Not revenge. Or justice.
Love. How rare is that in crime fiction.
“Afterparty” by Daryl Gregory
https://darylgregory.com/books/afterparty/
Buy Afterparty
“Before you knew my name” by Jacqueline Bublitz
https://www.allenandunwin.com/browse/books/fiction/crime-mystery/Before-You-Knew-My-Name-Jacqueline-Bublitz-9781760878856
Buy here
Further reading and viewing
“Ripley’s Game” written by Patricia Highsmith
https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/103/1033319/ripley-s-game/9781784876784.html
Buy here
“Deep Water” written by Patricia Highsmith
https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393324556
Buy here
“Blood Orange” by Harriet Tyce
https://www.harriettyceauthor.com/blood-orange
Buy here
“Behind Her Eyes” by Sarah Pinborough
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250184917/behindhereyes
Buy here
“Plein Soleil” directed by René Clément
“Le Samouraï” directed by Jean-Pierre Melville
“The Bridge” created by Hans Rosenfeldt
“Ghost Dog: the Way of the Samurai” directed by Jim Jarmusch
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0165798/
“The Killer” directed by John Woo
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097202/
“The Killing” created by Søren Sveistrup
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0826760/
“Trapped” created by Baltasar Kormákur
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3561180/
“The American Friend” directed by Wim Wenders
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075675/
Notice how this is article about the killer being caught, and not life ending for Sarah Everard being the start of a groundswell
https://news.sky.com/story/sarah-everard-murder-how-killer-policeman-wayne-couzens-was-caught-and-the-lengths-he-went-to-cover-up-his-crime-12419714