A lot of people make it a point not to ask me a goddamn thing, let alone my taste in books. Nonetheless, here are a few somewhat ignored titles I think all of you should read and reread until the pages become as thin as tissue paper, your vision deteriorates, and the skin wears off of your fingertips:
Evelyn Waugh, Black Mischief
Not widely regarded by list-makers as one of his best, I think this may be Waugh's funniest, and perhaps even his most evil, book. Not reprinted in this country until recently under the pretext that it is racist (exclusively because some of the book's many fools are black), it is the story of a recurring Waugh character (whose name I can't presently recall--Basil something-or-other) who goes to colonial Africa (I believe the fictional country is supposed to be Abyssinia--now Ethiopia) to seek fortune and romance in the service of a ridiculous, Oxford-educated, African king. I'll spare you the plot summary, but let it suffice to say that if I'm ever given the opportunity to direct a big budget movie of epic scope and non-existent commercial appeal, that movie would unquestionably be an adaptation of Black Mischief. (I also highly recommend another widely ignored Waugh masterpiece, in this case a trilogy, The Sword of Honour Trilogy, a semi-autobiographical retelling of Waugh's experiences in World War II, in which he served despite being in, I believe, his 40s.)
Jim Thompson, Heed the Thunder
This book, as recommended in an interview with Neal Pollack I once read back when I still read interviews with Neal Pollack, started my appreciation of this noir master's work (he's most famous for books like The Grifters, The Getaway, and The Killer Inside Me). Heed the Thunder, however, is as different from his better-known works as chocolate is to multiple sclerosis. Semi- (or perhaps largely) autobiographical, it is a weird, brutal, and surprisingly touching tale of a young boy, practically deserted by his father and left to grow up among his mother and his very strange relatives in (as I recall it), a variety of strange places in turn-of-the-century Oklahoma (and Nebraska, too, I think. I should probably reread this one). This one would also make a great movie, but it would be a very difficult one to make (if memory serves). Also, there's a really good, really depressing biography of this fascinating writer and all-around drunken wreck of a human being, written, I believe, by a guy named Robert Polito, I think.
James M. Cain, Mildred Pierce
I'm currently rereading this outstanding fucking gem of a novel, written by the man who wrote The Postman Always Rings Twice and Double Indemnity. Like those two, it's taut and psychological; unlike those two, it's not a thriller. Rather, it is simply the best book with a female protagonist, as written by a male author (or, for that matter, a female author, seeing as dames tend to write soppy garbage, except for Flannery O'Connor*, who was so crazy that she used to make little outfits for her chickens), that I have ever read or likely ever will read. Again, I will not spoil your appetite by summarizing the plot or explaining why I like it, but it is easily the best book about fried chicken that you, or anyone like you, will ever read.
* I don't really mean that. At least, not 100%.
William Faulkner, The Unvanquished
I don't really remember this one all that well, but I do remember liking it a lot and finding it significantly easier to read than his other stuff. I really only included it because I can't think of anything else and I wanted to come off all smart and stuff. Oh wait, I thought of a good one...
Dashiell Hammett, Red Harvest
The Maltese Falcon and The Thin Man are great and all, but this, Hammett's first novel, is a masterpiece of violence and brutality. It also is less reliant on mystery-solving than his better-known books, which is something of a plus, seeing as few detective novels, no matter how great, resolve themselves in a truly satisfying way. Though, actually...
Ross MacDonald, The Galton Case
is probably the best of this undeservedly obscure author's many outstanding Lew Archer mysteries. I can't remember any of the specifics because I've read each of the many Ross MacDonald books still in print and they tend to blend together, but I remember this one being the most satisfying from start to finish. Really, all of them are pretty fucking great--MacDonald took the form that Hammett invented and Chandler successfully imitated, and really turned it into reasonable literature by writing with a poetic sensitivity his literary forbears lacked. Somehow, the Lew Archer books are hard-boiled, even though their hero is smart enough to make a point of avoiding getting his ass kicked (not that it doesn't happen), and especially despite the fact that the stories generally take place in and around a fictionalized version of what is perhaps the world's least hard-boiled town, Santa Barbara.
So there you go. You've got some books to buy. In fact, why not steal 'em? After all, all these authors are long-dead, and I, for one, don't feel any great compulsion to see their (presumably) no-account grandchildren get rich off of work they had nothing to do with. You know what? If any of you out there have the drive, why not find a way to extort these author's grandchildren, or burglarize their homes or something? I think you'd be making some very talented ghosts very happy if you did.
