A generation thing?

Most of the time, I do like what the Washington Post’s Patrick Anderson has to say. But unfortunately, there are times when I suspect he’s pressed for time and really needs to fill the allotted word count, so the review ends up less about the book in question instead ofa particular soapbox he wants  to step on.

Which is to say that his review yesterday of ALL THE FLOWERS ARE DYING starts out well enough — he didn’t like the book, and an opinion’s an opinion — but then he throws this ending paragraph into the mix:

American crime fiction was born in the 1920s, its roots deep in the pulp magazines of the era, with their emphasis on masculinity, sadism and violence. Mickey Spillane’s huge success in the 1950s embodied that hard-boiled tradition, and a writer like Block, starting out with paperback originals in the 1960s, also drew upon it. Today, Block does what he does as well as he’s ever done it, but I think that time is passing him by. (As it must do to us all.) Another generation has come along. Crime writers now are publishing novels that are simply more interesting, imaginative and sophisticated than those of decades past. I’ve often listed my favorites among them — Lehane, Pelecanos and Connelly are prominent on the list — and, with all respect to Block and his body of work, they’re where the action is now.

Good golly, Miss Molly, where to even start with this. Perhaps it might behoove Anderson to check out what Hard Case Crime is doing, where old and new pulp mesh together in startlingly good harmony. Let me throw some of my favorite "new" older writers into the mix — Charles Willeford, Vin Packer, Dorothy B. Hughes, James McKimmey — who packed in social commentary, human frailty, and kickass writing into 50-60,000 word books. Or Donald Westlake, who could write a new edition of the phone book and it would either be hilarious (as himself) or incredibly dark (as Richard Stark.) Or my favorite writer of all, Ross Thomas, who consistently wrote "interesting, imaginative and sophisticated" books that are a bloody master class in how to write a good crime novel.

Anderson mentions a few writers of this so-called "new generation" but one he doesn’t — though he’s on record about how much he loves his work (for good reason — is Michael Gruber. Born in 1940, which makes him a mere 2 years older than Block. "Another generation," indeed.

And, with all due respect to Anderson, that "other generation" that’s come along? They’re the established guard now, and have been for several years. Maybe it’s time for him — and for others — to spend less time disparaging older writers and look a little further down the decade line. To young writers, published and unpublished, who take their influences from a vast array of different sources, old, new, crime fiction and otherwise.

Because a good chunk of the action and excitement is with them. And with others whom we don’t even know about yet. If it’s a generation thing, then thank god the torch is still being passed and that people still care about crime fiction. At any age.