The Criminal Type

    On my recent trip to the UK for the Harrogate/Let's Drink Heavily Festival I read Lemons Never Lie, a Hard Case Crime reprint by Donald Westlake writing as Richard Stark.  This is not a Parker novel.  Instead it features Alan Grofield, a robbery expert who pulls heists to finance his theater in Indiana.  Grofield is not above committing acts of violence, especially when he or his loved ones have been wronged, but violence does not come quite as easily to him as it does to Parker.  As expected from a book by Mr. Westlake, the prose is clean, the dialogue laced with dry humor, the action comes hard and fast, and there are glimpses into the other side of life that are logical but insightful (if your'e going to steal plates off a car, steal only one; the owner will probabaly not report the theft to the police, but will instead get a new plate from the MVA).  It is also the only crime novel you will read, most likely, that features a hopped-up AMC Javelin as its getaway car.

    MIdway into the book there is a conversation between Grofield, the theater manager, and one of his coworkers, Tebelman, a criminal who is also a talented commerical artist:

   There was a little silence then, until Tebelman said, "You know, there's a school of thought that says the artist and the criminal are variants on the same basic personality type.  Did you know that?"

   Grofield was sorry now the conversation had gotten started at all.  "No, I didn't," he said.

   "That art and cirme are both anti-social acts," Tebelman said.  "There's a whole theory about it.  The artist and criminal both divorce themselves from society by their life patterns, they both tend to be loners, they both tend to have brief periods of intense activity and then long periods of rest.  There's a lot more."

  "Interesting," Grofield said.

  Depending on the work habits of the typical novelist, it is not unusual for a writer to be locked in the house for months at a time.  Authors work, for the most part, alone, without the daily give-and-take and human contact of the office life that most experience.  Novel writing is to some degree a socially retarding experience.  So is it, then, an anti-social profession?

Comments

[Laura]

It's clearly socially retarding. I know people think I'm outgoing, but most people see me when I've chosen to be in the public sphere. I just came back from six days with my family and I was reminded that I am used to spending large parts of my day in silence and isolation. Especially the mornings. There.was.so.much.talking.

At one point, my sister, after observing me on the computer, said: "You're just like you were in college, when you would come home from school and spend your vacations in your room with the door closed, pounding furiously on that old IBM Selectric."

I have no memory of this, but it rings pretty true.

(And in my defense, I have a book due Sept. 1. Just because I'm at the beach doesn't mean I can stop working right now.)

[Charles Ardai]

Not only is it antisocial for the writer, it breeds further antisocial behavior since reading is also a fundamentally solitary activity. Yes, sure, you can discuss books with friends and family when you're done reading them -- but while you're actually doing the reading, you're not interacting with anyone, and the more you read the less time in the day there is for interaction. So if you were inclined to a cynical view, you could see authors as *carriers* of antisocial behavior.

But that's if you're being cynical. If you're not, you see writing as the most pro-social activity possible because in return for a relatively short period of necessary isolation from humanity the writer gets to achieve something ordinary mortals do not, which is the ability to communicate with a potentially infinite number of other people both simultaneously and indefinitely. Who other than an author can talk to people a hundred years after his own death?

Ah, I miss college philosphy classes.

Glad you liked LEMONS...

[Ray]

Absolutely it's antisocial - why d'you think misanthropic shut-ins such as myself think it's an ideal career? I certainly don't do it for the money. And I'm quite happy to be a "carrier" of something that can't be treated with antibiotics...

[Dennis Murphy]

Yes it's antisocial - and, depending on the writer, sometimes criminal.

[Jim Winter]

It was either write or be a criminal.

And I suck at crime. So I make up stories about it.

Jury's still out on whether I can do that even.

[Ingrid (I.J.Parker)]

Unsocial, yes. Many writers are very shy and have to force themselves to appear publicly. They are happiest when they are writing. I think,for them there aren't really any "long periods of rest." Unlike actors, who live for contact with the audience, writers are nervous about fans.

I just read the "author's note" of a bestselling mystery writer. It contained any number of warnings to fans against contacting him.

Most writers have always been voracious readers and come by their unsocial lifestyle honestly. Antisocial behavior may develop later when the world has let them down.

I suppose it is easy to see disillusionment turn a shy man into a criminal. But that plot has already been done. Several times, by authors struggling with their demons.

[Duane Swierczynski]

I agree completely: there is that anti-social streak with writers. But it's also worth noting that a lot of successful writers I know have family--a spouse, kids, or both--that seems to balance out that streak. I know I wasn't really serious about my writing until I was married, and even more so when I had kids. Because even though I wrote when I was single, I had plenty of time to screw around. Now that I'm a dad, every spare minute counts.

[Ben Fulton]

In Arthur C. Clarke's _Childhood's End_, one of the characters asks the alien being what he thinks about art. The alien replies that he's not sure, but "I have heard it said that all artists are insane. On the other hand, I have also heard that all men are artists. If that is true, then we have an interesting syllogism..."

[Sara Gran]

Hey Mr Pelecanos, what a great joy to read your posts here. I think there's also a deeper link between writers and criminals, some wierd thing about not having a "real job" and not living a "normal life." The more I think about it the more I think there are other shared qualitites too: risk-taking, not getting deeply involved with what the neighbors think, secretiveness, aloneness, spy-like observation of people in a kind of sordid way. Actually, this is starting to freak me out.

[Graham]

Funny that someone mentioned that reading is also an antisocial activity. I also read LEMONS NEVER LIE recently, and in the paragraph immediately after the one quoted, Grofield is sitting there feeling a bit embarrassed by discussing art in front of a third member of the gang - the muscle - when the man pipes up and says, "You might not guess it, but I'm quite the reader."

I didn't realize how strong the "Stark" style was until I read this book. It reads just like a Parker book, only there's no Parker.

[patry]

Who, but inmates, residents of the asylum, and writers spend their days in a little room,
dressed in pajamas-like clothes, and frequently talking to themselves?

Ah, it's a great profession!