Let's Read Grimhaven!

I've had a copy of Charles Willeford's unpublished novel Grimhaven for a while now, but I just got around to reading it recently. It is, without a doubt, one of the biggest Fuck You's that anyone has ever committed to print. It's easy to see why it never made it into proper circulation, and that is a shame. Aside from The Burnt Orange Heresy, it's probably Willeford's most harrowing work, and it has what can only be described as the most twisted happy endings in the history of literature.

Grimhaven isn't really a crime novel in the traditional sense. It bears no similarity to Miami Blues or any of the other subsequent Hoke Mosely novels where broken down old Hoke continues to be an unorthodox, false teeth wearing hero with a badge. It has more in similar with Camus' The Stranger than it does with any contemporary crime novels. That's really not a surprise, as Willeford is nothing if not the rarest of creatures: An American existentialist. Manifest Destiny, American Exceptionalism, the smiling, reassuring God everyone is so sure has some sort of grand plan, despite the fact that there is no evidence for this ridiculous assertion.

Grimhaven finds Hoke living a simple life. He has retired from the police force, works at his father's hardware store and spends his spare time swimming and working on chess problems. He is content until his ex-wife sends his two teenage daughters to live with him while she lives it up with a black baseball player in LA. The story is really about the lengths a man will go to get back what he has lost, and Hoke is willing to go a long, long way. He doesn't want his wife back. He doesn't want his job back. He just wants to go on living as he was, alone and with time to spend working on his chess puzzles without being bothered. The way he sets about doing this is harrowing and, well, grim, but it's also brilliant. I'm reluctant to say anymore because I don't want to give away the ending to a book that many people haven't read, but let's just say the ending made me laugh even though there's nothing funny about it. Hoke, the perpetual loser, turns out to be the winner after all, even though he's the only one who will ever know.

Wednesday Paperback Cover

"A roaring saga of the male animal on the prowl"

The Burnt Orange Heresy: Neil LaBute Edition

This news is certainly intriguing. LaBute's In the Company of Men, is a very good and very ugly film, and it gives me hope that he will be faithful to Willeford's unique vision. Of course, if he screws it up, I will never forgive him.

Who says money can't buy happiness?

Instead of staying inside and finishing my taxes I went out today to get some sun and do a little shopping. While browsing at A Capella Books, I came across a copy of The Machine in Ward Eleven by Charles Willeford. Since I had just finished Made in Miami earlier in the week Willeford was very much on my mind, and I couldn't resist.

It's a near fine first edition. Aside from one slight imperfection on the spine there's no evidence the book has ever been opened. Unusual for a paperback original. It is a thing of beauty.

I'm not really the kind of person much inclined to impulse buying. Most of the time when I go out I know exactly what I need, and that's what I buy. Sometimes, however, you've gotta give in. Now, I just have to find a beat up copy that I won't be afraid to read.

Review of Made in Miami

Made in Miami by Charles Willeford (Point Blank, 2008) is not a lost masterpiece on the order of The Black Mass of Brother Springer or Cockfighter. It is, however, a valuable contribution to the body of Willeford’s in-print work and shows that even when Willeford was not mining his signature themes of obsession and maintaining artistic integrity in the face of an indifferent world as deeply as he could, he still managed to keep them in mind and in print.

In an article that first appeared in First, the Book Collector’s Magazine, and is currently reprinted on his Web site, Don Herron writes that someone at Beacon, Willeford’s publisher at the time, suggested he imitate prolific author Orrie Hitt. Hitt wrote hundreds of novels and exactly none of them are in print today. The man doesn’t even rate a Wikipedia entry, which is a sure sign of being completely forgotten.

Hitt's influence is present in this novel, though, which is unfortunate. Originally published under the title, Lust is a Woman, Made in Miami, is probably as close to an actual sleaze novel as anything Willeford ever published. Willeford spent his early career writing for publishers who catered to men’s prurient interests, but his books were never about sex. He managed to put into print books that were more likely to get blood flowing to the brain than they were to points south.

Made is largely about sex, though. It’s a simple boy meets girl, boy loses girl to pimp, boy loses it when girl starts turning tricks story, but even when Willeford is off, he’s on. While the book does not mine any of Willeford’s signature themes very deeply, Willeford was also unable to suppress his literary instincts entirely and there are still flashes of brilliance, as when Ralph Tone, the protagonist, an art student and hotel elevator operator, laments that he will “never be the artist [he] wanted to be, following [his] own ideas, wrong or right.” At that point it’s almost as if the author is talking to himself, wondering what he’s doing trying to write like Hitt. It is fortunate that Willeford did not that suggestion too much to heart.

The Rap Sheet's List of Overlooked Crime Novels

It's been a busy week for me. I've made the four hour trip to Atlanta twice, and consequently I haven't really been keeping up with everything. One thing I have been following, however, is The Rap Sheet's ongoing first anniversary celebration, and the huge list of overlooked books. J. Kingston Pierce has posted a wrap up and a comprehensive list of the books people picked. I was gratified to see that Charles Willeford, whose Black Mass of Brother Springer I picked, also got mentioned by Shane Maloney and Susan Kandel.
You can tell from the sheer volume of responses that were posted that Mr. Pierce asked the right question. If you like books you've got a list of them you can't believe more people haven't read. My submission was done quickly. I didn't take a lot of time to think about it. Since then I've thought of three other books that I could've listed, none of which were mentioned by anyone else. Oh well, there's always next year.

Wednesday Paperback Cover

Here it is. As promised, the first weekly paperback cover. I chose Willeford because he's one of my favorite authors, and because I find it amusing that he was originally published by Beacon, which published sleaze novels. It just goes to show, you can't judge a book by it's cover, or it's publisher.

Nothing exists...

If anything exists it is incomprehensible. If anything is comprehensible it is incommunicable. That quote from Gorgias precedes, and serves to divide, Charles Willeford's The Burnt Orange Heresy, which I reread this weekend. I reread it to put things in perspective.
Some days you wake up and it seems like all the things you want for yourself, everything you've been working for is out of your reach, and only getting farther and farther away. I've been feeling like that a lot recently, so I went to the library and picked up Willeford's book. The story serves to remind you what kind of person you can become if you want something too much. Even though I knew what was coming, I still laughed when Figueras finally got into Debierue's studio and found out what the great genius had spent his life doing. Hell, I'm smirking thinking about it now. I think it's one of my all time favorite moments in fiction.
Someday, I will commission a bronze statue of Debierue, and at the base will be a plaque with Gorgias' conclusions about existence.
"Who is Debierue?" People will ask. "No. One." I will tell them.
"What is that quote supposed to mean?" They will continue. "Nothing." I will say, and shrug.

Happy Birthday Charles Willeford

Since I had been thinking about Charles Willeford earlier in the day, I looked him up on Wikipedia tonight, and it turns out today would have been his 88th birthday. The Wikipedia article is here. There are also some excerpts from his work here. An exceprt from the previously mentioned Black Mass of Brother Springer is here.
For further reading on Willeford, check out the No Exit Press website for an essay on Black Mass and other works, by William Robert Bittner.
Bittner sees Black Mass, as a comedy, which is a fair interpretation, but he also calls it Willeford's "gentlest of novels," which I do not think it is. On the contrary, it is one of his most cynical, which is saying something. There is comedy, but it is pitch black and ugly, nothing gentle about it.

Oxford American Article

Barry Hannah has an article in the latest issue of the Oxford American about crime noir. He tips the hat to Jim Thompson and Charles Willeford, but the essay never really goes anywhere. It starts off with Hannah complaining about real estate development in Oxford, Mississippi, and then goes on to Faulkner, Celine, Bukowski and Camus. (Not in that order.)
I wish he had had some kind of thesis, or expanded on some of the comments he made, particularly about Willeford, whose novels, "carry authentic wit down to psychological strangeness such as [Hannah has] never quite read, even in Kafka."
There's a lot to be said about Willeford, who wrote some damn strange novels, including The Shark Infested Custard, Cockfighter and The Black Mass of Brother Springer. Black Mass, in particular, must be read to be believed. I think it's Willeford's great philosphical novel. It may be the single most cynical book I've ever read. The protagonist, a failed novelist, leaves his wife in Ohio, gets ordained into a dying church by an unbelieving priest, takes over a black chuch in Jacksonville, Florida, organizes and leads a successful bus boycott, stands up to the Klan, beds a parishoners wife, steals all the money sent in to support the boycott, and runs off with the aformentioned wife to New York, where he abandons her. He learns nothing. It makes not crying at your mother's funeral and shooting an Arab on the beach seem completely reasonable.