Critical Roundtable: THE TRIUMPH OF THE THRILLER

When I got an ARC of Washington Post critic Patrick Anderson's new book THE TRIUMPH OF THE THRILLER, I not only knew that I would read it and likely have plenty to say on the topic, but that several other of my mystery critic peers would do so as well. And so this week I'll be posting the results of a roundtable discussion I hosted earlier this month. Taking part were Jerome Weeks, former Dallas Morning News book critic (who wrote a review of Anderson's book for Newsday), the Boston Globe's Sunday mystery columnist Hallie Ephron, and Chicago Tribune mysteries & thrillers critic Dick Adler. (I also asked David Montgomery  of the Chicago Sun-Times, who couldn't participate because of time constraints, and Oline Cogdill of the Sun-Sentinel, whom I hope to hear back from soon.)

For those who have read the book, please feel free to chime in with your comments in the backblogs. Part one begins after the jump.

Sarah Weinman: To get things started, I'd like to offer up a few questions for discussion. First, did you feel that Anderson's definition of thrillers was consistent? For example, he holds up Dennis Lehane, Michael Connelly, George Pelecanos and Karin Slaughter as recent standouts in the genre, when it could be argued that none of them write thrillers per se (or write books that fall somewhere in between mysteries and thrillers.)

Second, what did you think of his treatment of the subject? Could he have developed some ideas more fully if the book had been, say, 400 pages long instead of not quite three hundred?

Third, was having a section devoted to authors whom Anderson disliked (such as James Patterson) helpful or harmful?

Jerome Weeks: I don't think Mr. Anderson ever  explicitly defines "the thriller," and I'm still not certain whether that was deliberate or simply sloppy. The closest he comes is in his introduction, "A New Beat," when he approvingly cites the list of all-time top thrillers that the International Thriller Writers, Inc. has posted on its website: "Their definition of a thriller, like my own, is inclusive, and reaches back to such classics as Wilkie Collins' The Woman in White" -- and what follows is a list of classics up through John Grisham's The Firm. But he adds this parenthetical observation: "Neither Hammett nor Chandler is listed, because they are viewed as having written private-eye or detective novels, not thrillers. (To further complicate matters, most of today's private-eye novels are considered thrillers simply because of their level of violence.)"

Needless to say, this leaves all sort of questions hanging, such as how much bloodshed is required for a private eye novel to ascend into the kingdom of thrillers. But this passage appears on p. 11 and the reader naturally assumes that there will be further refinements in defining the genre. They never show up. At first, I thought this was deliberate because (a) the thriller genre is so hugely various that any sort of rigorous definition is going to take some smart finagling to avoid complications and contradictions. And (b), the vagueness leaves him room to move, to include his favorites.

But in taxonomy, one surveys all the specimens first and then draws some conclusions. Mr. Anderson just dumps the specimens on us -- leaving me disappointed enough at the end to think that he reall  had no organizing principles in mind.

Hallie Ephron: First let me say I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book.  Here's a guy who does what I do - tries to find good crime fiction novels and let readers know about them.  I couldn't have said it better myself: "What's more, it makes me crazy when decent people surrender $25 for some piece of crap." (244)  Hear hear!

I'm a fan of most of the authors he relishes, but I couldn't help but wonder if he wasn't force-fitting their work into the "thriller" category in order to include them in the book. His choice of authors/novels points out just how much an individual reviewer's taste determines which books get reviewed. Is thriller writing really a guys-only game?

Which leads me to: "Thriller??" What exactly are we talking about?  At least he doesn't offer up the cliche that it's like pornography (you know it when you see it), but he's almost as wishy-washy. "Today, those blockbuster novelists have been replaced on the bestseller lists by the crime related fiction we loosely call thrillers, which include hard-core noir, in the Hammett-Chandler private-eye  tradition as well as a bigger, broader universe of books that includes spy thrillers, legal thrillers, political thrillers, military thrillers, medical thrillers, and even literary thrillers," (4)

Hmmm. Noir. Private eye. Spy thrillers, legal thrillers, political thrillers... Basically he's bundled wha  used to be called hardboiled with any other content area and tacked on the descriptor "thriller." In other words, a thriller is...a thriller. He gives us a bit more insight: "In the modern thriller, suspense has replaced sex as the engine that drives popular fiction."

YES! I'm with him. So, I'm waiting for a discussion of what this essential ingredient 'suspense' is and how these authors create it. As a writer and reviewer, I'm hoping he'll grapple with the distinction between thrillers and those other crime fiction novels that fail the thriller-test. Maybe he'll talk about how writers have broken away from writing from a single to point of view to multiple points o  view, from a single story line to multiple story lines, and how this serves suspense. To shorter scenes, cliffhanger endings.  About whether graphic violence is or is not an essential ingredient. But I found few of those kinds of insights.

On the negative treatment of James Patterson, Tom Clancy, Patricia Cornwell... and so on... The dirty secret is that it's more fun to write a negative review than a positive one.  We get to be sharp and funny, as literate as the best of the authors we admire ("Look, I can do it too!") while skewering someone's inflated ego.  It's a power trip and I personally try to avoid it--it sounds as if Anderson general prefers to avoid going negative as well.  But I agree with him on his assessments.  I, too, hate authors who "treat their readers like idiots...deal in cliches, stereotypes, cheap thrills and ridiculous plots."  It's no mystery why these books get published, but like Anderson, I have to wonder why they sell so many frickin' books.

Anyone interested in taking on his treatment of women crime fiction authors?

Comments

[Steve Clackson]

I posted on the Newsday article but it never appeared. What I addressed is the fact that as noted above, most of his selections for Thrillers aren't thrillers. He lists PI, Crime, Police Procedurals etc. as thrillers, the sub-genre Thriller had been defined but his take on it is muddled.

[David Harrison]

On the subject of definitions, to some extent I think "crime novel" and "thriller" are interchangeable terms. A thriller can also be a crime novel, while a crime novel can also be a thriller. If I had to sum up the way to distinguish a thriller in one word, it would be "urgency". There's a sense of urgency that, for me, HAS to be present in a thriller. Crime novels can quite acceptably amble their way to a conclusion, but thrillers should be a flat-out sprint to the finishing line.

[David J. Montgomery]

The only definition of a thriller that Anderson appears to use is "a crime novel I would like to review" (since he has positioned himself as a reviewer of thrillers).

(And I should point out that I have often admired Anderson's work. I think he can be an insightful critic at times.)

I realize this is likely an academic point to most readers. But mysteries and thrillers are different kinds of books -- written differently and with different goals and intentions -- and lumping them all together strikes me as fuzzy thinking.

That's why I use the term "crime novel" or "crime fiction" when I'm referring to the broad spectrum of the genre.

Calling Dashiell Hammett a thriller writer seems like a meaningless use of the word. There is nothing thrilling about The Maltese Falcon. However, it is quite clearly and understandably a mystery.

So why call apples oranges? Why have words like mystery and thriller if they don't mean anything distinct?

[Steve Clackson]

If I had to sum up the way to distinguish a thriller in one word, it would be "urgency".

Great point! I like that in one word you have illustrated what many can't cover in a lengthy article.

[Steve Clackson]

If I had to sum up the way to distinguish a thriller in one word, it would be "urgency".

Great point I like that in one word you have illustrated what many can't cover in a lengthy article.

[DanaKing]

I read Anderson's book, and was greatly disappointed. It's largely an excuse to recycle a lot of his old reviews, with thin filler material used to provide his amorphous and flexible definition of thriller. (I think David Montgomery nailed it with "The only definition of a thriller that Anderson appears to use is 'a crime novel I would like to review'." The book is full of pets and pet peeves. A few insights, but the wholly arbitrary standards Anderson establishes early and reinforces often weaken his arguments.