Reviewing THE WAY HOME by George Pelecanos
In the Los Angeles Times, I use George Pelecanos’s new novel as a means of writing a mini-essay about how his concerns and writing style has changed over time. Here’s how it opens:
There comes a point in a writer's career when reviewers start to look
not just at the book on the "New Releases" table in the bookstore, but
at the body of work as a whole. This sort of analysis usually happens
when the number of potential books is dwarfed by the author's previous
output; upon recent death, when literary-leaning obituarists struggle
to mine some instant legacy; or years if not decades later, when those
in the throes of rediscovery commit their ecstatic cries to page and
pixel.
not just at the book on the "New Releases" table in the bookstore, but
at the body of work as a whole. This sort of analysis usually happens
when the number of potential books is dwarfed by the author's previous
output; upon recent death, when literary-leaning obituarists struggle
to mine some instant legacy; or years if not decades later, when those
in the throes of rediscovery commit their ecstatic cries to page and
pixel.
For crime writers, such summary judgments focus either
on specific characters — Chandler's Marlowe, Christie's Marple and
Poirot, Highsmith's Ripley — or indelible one-offs, like Eric Ambler's
"A Coffin for Dimitrios" and Dorothy B. Hughes' "In a Lonely Place."
Characters inspire loyalty, passion and debate among readers; one-offs
spur reexamination, depending on the time period of discovery.
George
Pelecanos, however, is a different breed, because his work is less
about specific characters and more about discrete periods…
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One caveat: I took one art class each in high school and college, both in Canada, so maybe the terminology's different up there. And for a different take on the book, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/10/AR2009051002117.html">see Kevin Allman's review in today's Washington Post</a>.
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