A Rough Edges Rerun Review: Queenpin - Megan Abbott

QUEENPIN, Megan Abbott’s third novel, is the story of a young woman (whose real name we never learn, unless I just missed it somehow), who’s working as a bookkeeper in a sleazy, mob-connected strip joint when she becomes the protégé of an older woman who has spent twenty years working for organized crime as a courier and money launderer. Our narrator takes to the work with a minimum of fuss or mental anguish and becomes good at it, but then, wouldn’t you know it, she meets the wrong guy – a handsome gambler who always seems to be just one bet away from the big score – and Things Go to Hell.

When you just read the bare bones of that plot, it’s easy to say that QUEENPIN is something of a gimmick book: taking a standard, Gold Medal-type noir plot and inverting it so that the protagonist is female instead of male. Funny thing is, when you actually read the book you don’t really get that sense at all because Abbott is so good at creating characters and dragging you along with them as things get worse and worse. The setting of this one isn’t quite as well defined as it is in her other two novels; maybe it’s set in the Fifties, like DIE A LITTLE and THE SONG IS YOU, or maybe it’s the early Sixties, but either way it’s emphatically Not Now. The world of race tracks and night clubs through which the narrator moves is vividly rendered, and the dialogue that could have sounded like a parody of that era comes across as real and natural.

What it comes down to is that Megan Abbott is just a fine writer. Short, fast, and mean, like good noir fiction is supposed to be, QUEENPIN is her best book yet, and it’s easily one of the best novels I’ve read this year. And as usual with her books, it has a great cover by Richie Fahey.

(This post originally appeared in a somewhat different form on December 28, 2007. In it I mention Megan Abbott's first two novels. Her fourth novel was BURY ME DEEP, inspired by the infamous Winnie Ruth Judd trunk murders, and I really liked it, as well. As far as I know, those are her only historical crime novels, and I give all of them high recommendations. They're all still in print and well worth your time. And QUEENPIN is one of my favorite books of the past twenty years.)

In Sunlight or In Shadow: Stories Inspired by the Paintings of Edward Hopper - Lawrence Block, ed.

I have to admit that before I read this anthology edited by Lawrence Block, I wasn’t that familiar with the work of Edward Hopper, other than the painting “Nighthawks”. I came away quite impressed with Hopper’s work showcased here, as well as many of the stories inspired by those paintings.

Seventeen authors contributed stories for this volume. As they’re listed on the cover: Stephen King, Joyce Carol Oates, Robert Olen Butler, Michael Connelly, Megan Abbott, Craig Ferguson, Nicholas Christopher, Jill D. Block, Joe R. Lansdale, Justin Scott, Kris Nelscott, Warren Moore, Jonathan Santlofer, Jeffery Deaver, Lee Child, Gail Levin, and Lawrence Block. Naturally, I enjoyed some stories more than others. My favorites are Megan Abbott’s period yarn “Girlie Show”, Michael Connelly’s “Nighthawks” (a Harry Bosch story), Craig Ferguson’s oddball “Taking Care of Business” (inspired by the painting “South Truro Church”), Jonathan Santlofer’s tricky “Night Windows”, Lawrence Block’s “Autumn at the Automat”, which reminded me of some of his early crime digest stories, and my pick for the best story in the book, Joe R. Lansdale’s “The Projectionist” (inspired by the painting “New York Movie”).

A few words about those last two: I’m old enough to remember automats, although there weren’t many still around by the time I was a kid. I recall buying sandwiches and pieces of pie in them, however, so I felt a personal connection with Block’s story. There’s even more of a personal connection with Lansdale’s story, because I spent a great deal of time between 1970 and 1975 in the Worth, Palace, and Hollywood Theaters in downtown Fort Worth, and by then they were the sort of shabby movie palaces in which Joe’s yarn is set. This one really kicked up a lot of nostalgia in my mind.

All in all, IN SUNLIGHT OR IN SHADOW is an excellent anthology whether you’re familiar with Edward Hopper’s work or not. If you are, you’ll probably find it a veritable feast. If you aren’t (like me), it’s a very entertaining education. Either way, it gets a high recommendation from me.

Punisher Max: Untold Tales - Jason Starr, Megan Abbott, et al.

I remember buying the issue of THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN in which The Punisher made his first appearance. Even then I knew, hey, this guy's an Executioner rip-off. And all these years later, it's still sort of true, but I don't care. Frank Castle has become an interesting character in his own right, and I enjoy reading about him.

Until now, though, I hadn't read any Punisher stories from Marvel's Max line. These are their more adult comics, which means, of course, that the violence is more graphic and there's more cussin'. I picked up PUNISHER MAX: UNTOLD TALES not only out of curiosity but also because two of the five stand-alone stories in this trade paperback collection were written by people I know, Jason Starr and Megan Abbott.

Starr's story, "Jimmy's Collision", leads off the volume. That's the name of the business run by the story's protagonist, who has a gambling problem and an even bigger problem when his bookie offers him a way out that involves murder. As in his novels, Starr skillfully ratchets up the tension as Jimmy makes bad decision after bad decision that eventually wind up involving The Punisher in his life, which is hardly ever a good thing.

Megan Abbott, with her history of writing domestic noir, may seem like an odd choice at first to write a Punisher yarn, but her story, "The Ribbon" is excellent, a morality play about a doomed summer romance and a fateful encounter at a bus stop. Like "Jimmy's Collision", it's a story about how decisions come back to haunt us, sometimes with tragic results. And as you'd expect from Abbott, the writing is both terse and graceful.

The other stories include "Where the Devil Don't Stay" by Jason Latour, in which The Punisher encounters a family of murderous Tennessee hillbillies; "Manhunt" by Nathan Edmondson, a more traditional tale about The Punisher taking on a ring of gangsters that deals in sex slaves (there's a fairly nice twist in this one); and "A Little About Revenge" by Skottie Young, an offbeat story in which not a shot is fired, making it a real rarity for a Punisher tale.

I haven't said anything about the art. Each story has a different artist, none of whom I'd ever heard of. Some of the art I liked fairly well, some I didn't care for. That's pretty much par for the course in modern comics.

Of the five stories, the best two are by Jason Starr and Megan Abbott. No surprise there. But the other stories are good, too, and the entire volume is well worth reading. I don't really need anything else on my plate, but I may have to find some more of these Punisher Max collections.

Bury Me Deep - Megan Abbott

Over the past few years, Megan Abbott has become not just one of my favorite new writers, but one of my favorite writers, period. Her new novel, BURY ME DEEP, is out now, and it continues a string of very potent successes. It’s one of the best novels of the year.

Inspired by the true-crime case of Winnie Ruth Judd, the infamous “Trunk Murderess”, BURY ME DEEP tells the story of Marion Seeley, who finds herself alone in Phoenix in 1930. Her husband, a doctor who has a morphine addiction, has lost his license to practice in the States, so he has to go to Mexico to be the camp doctor at a remote mine. Marion has a job as a typist at a medical clinic, and she becomes friends with one of the nurses there, whose roommate is a young woman suffering from tuberculosis. Marion spends a lot of time at the house these two friends of hers share, and she’s soon drawn into their life of wild parties. In the process, she meets Gentleman Joe Lanigan, a successful local businessman who has an ill, invalid wife, and when Marion falls in love with Lanigan despite her resolve not to, all the elements are there for a noirish yarn that pulls Marion into a harrowing spiral of crime.

Although I had heard of Winnie Ruth Judd, I didn’t know the details of the case that made her notorious, so I didn’t really know what was going to happen in this novel. And as Abbott explains in an interesting, informative author’s note at the end of the book, her story diverges from the facts of the Winnie Ruth Judd case in several important aspects, anyway. One thing I really like about Abbott’s work is that each of her four novels have been written in a distinctive voice, but there are subtle differences in that voice from book to book. In BURY ME DEEP, although it’s written in third person, the point of view is entirely Marion’s, and so the style is a languid, dreamy, romantic one for most of the book, like something from one of the love pulps of the era, but underlying it is the desperation that Marion feels at being left alone in a strange town that results in her eagerness for something or someone to latch on to. The reader gets so deep into Marion’s thoughts that it’s almost like first-person narration, and after a while you have to start wondering just how reliable that narration is. Marion’s desperation eventually turns to horror, fear, and anger, and those emotions come across in the writing so vividly that the ending of the book is very satisfying.

If I had to choose, I’d say that the terse, hardboiled prose of Abbott’s previous novel, the Edgar-winning QUEENPIN, resonates with me as a reader slightly stronger than the more deliberately-paced style of BURY ME DEEP. However, I’d sure hate to have to live on the difference. Like the rest of her books, this one drew me in and really had me flipping the pages to find out what was going to happen. Also like the rest of her books, BURY ME DEEP has a great cover, the sort that really pulls you in as well. If you like beautifully written historical noir, you can’t go wrong with BURY ME DEEP, or any of Abbott’s other novels, for that matter. Very highly recommended.