Nelson Algren - The New Black Mask Quarterly (№ 1)

“Robert B. Parker: An Interview,” and “Commentary on Promised Land” copyright © 1985 by Robert B. Parker. Excerpt from The Promised Land, copyright © 1976 by Robert B. Parker. Reprinted by permission of Dell Publishing Co., Inc./Seymour Lawrence. “The Ripoff,” copyright © 1985 by the Estate of Jim Thompson. “Backfire,” by Raymond Chandler, copyright © 1984 by Helga Greene. “A Case of Chivas Regal,” copyright © 1985 by George V. Higgins. “Remember Mrs. Fitz!” copyright © 1985 by George Sims. “Trouble in Paradise,” copyright © 1985 by Arthur Lyons. “Bloody July,” copyright © 1985 by Loren D. Estleman. “Say a Prayer for the Guy,” copyright © 1958 by Nelson Algren. “The Pulpcon Kill,” copyright © 1985 by William F. Nolan.

The New Black Mask Quarterly is an expression of homage to the original Black Mask pulp magazine which flourished in the twenties and thirties and provided an incubator for the hard-boiled school of writing. Whether — as literary historians have claimed — those writers really established the authentic voice of American prose, it is indisputable that American fiction would be very different without the progeny of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler. This extended family includes Ross Macdonald, John D. MacDonald, Mickey Spillane, Horace McCoy, James M. Cain, Robert B. Parker, and Elmore Leonard.

Black Mask died a lingering death in 1951. The crumbling copies are now collector’s items and have the look of literary artifacts. Yet the tradition remains vital. Under its most influential editor, Joseph T. Shaw (1926–1936), Black Mask achieved a wide reputation for strong fiction; in that respect we will endeavor to emulate our namesake. But The New Black Mask Quarterly will not be restricted to hard-boiled detective stories. Classifiers enjoy differentiating among the detective story, the mystery story, the crime story, the suspense story, and what the British designate the “thriller.” Our pages will be open to all of these categories, as well as spy fiction. Since British writers have always been masters of the mystery, their work will be sought — with the exception of what has been called the “murder-in-ye-olde-quaint-cottage-story,” against which the original Black Mask boys reacted.

We dispute authorities such as W. H. Auden, who have insisted that mystery and suspense stories are meant to be purely escapist. This generalization obtains if it is restricted to plot. We believe that good fiction is remembered for its characters. The “whodunit” label is respectable when the first syllable is accented.

We undertook this series at the invitation of William Jovanovich, who provided the editorial rationale. Although The New Black Mask Quarterly will reprint buried stories that extend the tradition of the hard-boiled movement, our brief is not to resurrect the founding fathers, but to publish the best fiction we can obtain from the present generation of mystery and thriller writers.

— The Editors

This is the first of a series of features to be presented in NBMQ on contemporary masters of mystery and suspense fiction. Robert B. Parker has been chosen as our first subject because he is the preeminent hard-boiled detective writer to emerge since the 1970s.

Parker has overcome the limitations of genre fiction. He has achieved recognition among book reviewers and literary critics as a significant voice in American fiction whose characters deal sensitively and realistically with complex moral issues. After earning a Ph.D. in literature Robert Parker worked as a university professor for fifteen years, writing in his spare time. The Godwolf Manuscript, the first novel featuring his series detective, Spenser, was published in 1973; six years and six novels later, Parker gave up teaching to write full time. The publication in 1985 of The Catskill Eagle will be Parker’s twelfth Spenser novel.

The following interview was conducted by phone on January 7, 1985. Parker was preparing for a reception held that evening by the Governor of Massachusetts to welcome the television crew who will be shooting a made-for-TV movie adapted from Promised Land.

NBMQ:You have been called the modern voice of the hard-boiled detective novel. Do you resent, as Hammett and Chandler did, being classified that way?

Parker:No. To say no is a little misleading. I don’t pay much attention to categories, one way or another. I think they are useful — and I mean this in no pejorative way — for everybody but writers. They are useful for critics, librarians, booksellers, and people who have to file and catalogue and organize. When I go to a bookstore to look for a novel by Stephen King, I want to look under fantasy or science fiction or whatever rather than have to go through the whole bookstore alphabetically. But when I write, I’m doing the same process that, say, William Faulkner did. The difference between us is not that I’m writing a hard-boiled novel; the difference is that Faulkner wrote better than I do, and wrote better than I ever will, probably. Because categories are of no real consequence to me, I don’t think in those terms. I neither resent nor not resent them.

NBMQ:One critic has suggested that you are better able to handle serious themes by incorporating them into a mystery novel.

Parker:I think he’s probably right. Whether that would be true of other writers I don’t know, but in my case the mystery form gives me the kind of structure in which I work. I would not be able to explain why that is so exactly, if I were pressed. But I have a sense that it probably is so. Rather than constricting me, the form allows me a kind of freedom. Was it Ross Macdonald who compared the novel to a sonnet in its structure? I don’t have a sense as I write a novel that I am required to do anything because I am writing hard-boiled detective fiction. I suppose that certain common sense decisions have been made — like not to kill Spenser in the middle of the second novel. But those are not artistic; those are common sense decisions.

NBMQ:Ross Macdonald has said the detective story is like a welder’s mask in that it enables the writer to deal with material that is too hot for other contexts.

Parker:I don’t think so, but it may be. He spoke very beautifully about detective fiction. But I’ve always found it a little hard to figure out what he meant by what he said. It’s one of those nice quotes that sounds good. He also said the detective was so thin that you could barely see him; that he was interested in other people. When I read Macdonald I am interested in Archer much more than the other characters. It always seemed to me that the novels were about him.

NBMQ:The term “hard-boiled” is abused so much today that it has almost lost its meaning. And yet, certainly there is a hard-boiled tradition at work. The influence of Hammett and Chandler is obvious.

Parker:Oh, hell. Hemingway was of the hard-boiled tradition. It doesn’t have to be about a detective to be hard-boiled. It’s in many ways the post-World War I tradition of American fiction. There is a kind of hardboiledness to The Great Gatsby.

NBMQ:What have you brought to this tradition to make it different from the way it was when Hemingway and Chandler and Hammett wrote?

Parker:Love. I write about love, and I don’t think any of them did. Much of what I write about is about love. The relationship between Spenser and Susan, the relationship between parents and children, the relationship between husbands and wives. I would guess that the good news is that not many people have been doing that. One estimable person said I do it better than anyone now writing. Another estimable person said that the plots between Susan and Spenser should be sub-plots, but they become major plots and that damages my work. So you can take either one you want. If I have changed the form, whatever that form quite is, I think it’s because of the degree to which I use it as a vehicle to write about love, which certainly not many hard-boiled private detective writers do. There’s not much American fiction about love.