the Scott Stein

It is an awful, amateurish, bad book. The characters are cardboard. The dialogue is false and pointless. The fight scenes are unbelievable. The plot, such as it is (and it isn't much), moves very slowly, and we are given far too many details about every irrelevant action — when the phone rings, when Mike Hammer picks up the phone, when he shaves, and how he cooks his breakfast. The pacing is slow. The author is determined to tell us every last thought of his narrator and every last detail of his day-to-day activities. Maybe some of this can be chalked up to the book being published in 1947 and the audience at the time having different expectations or more patience, but some of it is just bad writing and a self-absorbed narrator (and maybe author).

The narrator, Mike Hammer, has the mentality of a 15-year-old. An immature 15-year-old who talks in cliches and has to constantly brag about how tough he is. His self-aggrandizing narration reminds me of a rap song. If Spillane were starting out today, maybe he would be a rapper, so he could tell us how badass he is, how many hos he's banged, how he'll bust a cap in our ass if we disrespect him. Hammer trashes people's rights — not just the criminals (or those he suspects of being criminals), but innocent bystanders, whom he frequently threatens with physical violence.

Mike Hammer's high opinion of himself is on display on almost every page: how brilliant he is, tough he is, famous he is. Hammer is far from brilliant. When I was a kid, I liked reading Encyclopedia Brown stories. The fun was in seeing how, after the young detective has discovered the guilty party and uncovered the facts of the case, all the pieces fit together. I would look back at the story and, knowing how it ended, see how logical and perceptive Encyclopedia Brown was. That's part of the pleasure of reading Sherlock Holmes and all detective stories.

At the end of I, The Jury, Hammer discovers who the murderer is. And it makes no sense. There's no realization on the part of the reader. No "a-ha!" moment. It's completely arbitrary. Hammer just concocts an explanation that bears little connection to the events and details that came before. He simply somehow knows who the murderer is. What a sham. Maybe there's a detail or two in the book that point to the murderer. There's something about a character having a firm grip, that in retrospect indicates that that character was stronger than people might think, hint-hint, and could pull a trigger. Maybe there are other details like this. I was so bored by the posing of the narrator and the amateurish writing, I must have missed them. Even as Hammer was confronting the murderer and explaining the case at the end, the "a-ha!" moment, I didn't care to pay much attention. It all seemed artificial.

Max Allan Collins, in the collection's introduction, writes:

I started reading Mickey's Mike Hammer novels when I was thirteen — and that's the age I revert to whenever I read a Spillane novel. I had already read Hammett and Chandler, and Spillane seemed to me their peer. I still feel that way today, and it still gets me into trouble. For over four decades now, I have found myself in the unlikely position of being perhaps the chief defender of one of the most popular writers of all time.

This says a great deal about the power of nostalgia. Talk to a child of the 1970s about Star Wars and you'll know what I mean, though you probably have examples from your own life and times. We tend to overestimate the quality of whatever we loved as children. I understand why Collins has an emotional attachment to Mike Hammer. Many books, songs, movies, and TV shows allow me to revert back to my childhood, remind me of my youth, and I have feelings associated with these works sometimes far out of proportion to the quality of the works themselves. Recapturing our past is practically a national obsession and the nostaligia market has never been bigger.

Nevertheless, Spillane is no Hammett. I haven't yet read Chandler and hardly consider myself even close to being an expert in the genre, but Hammett can really write. I read Hammett when I was an adult, not a 13-year-old. In The Maltese Falcon, Sam Spade is a tough guy who possesses a keen mind and quick fists that he is willing to use. He does not seem like a child. Mike Hammer does. Unlike I, The Jury, Hammett's novels (at least the two I've read, The Maltese Falcon and The Thin Man) are coherent and actually make sense at the end. The detectives are witty and say clever things. They are page-turners in the best sense. I wanted to find out what happened next because I was sucked into the stories and believed the characters. I can't say the same for I, The Jury.

Let me give just one example of how amateurish and careless I, The Jury is. On page 48, Mike Hammer is sitting down and a man sneaks from behind and places a knife to his neck. Then there is a big fight and of course Hammer beats up the knife-guy and another guy, too. But before the ass-kicking, while the knife is still at Hammer's throat and he has not been able to move, he narrates the following:

The knife went under my chin very slowly. It was held loosely enough, but the slim fingers that held it were ready to tighten up the second I moved. Along the blade were the marks of a whetstone, so I knew it had been sharpened recently. The forefinger was laid on the top of the four-inch blade in proper cutting position. Here was a lug that knew what it was all about.

Try this experiment (if you can do so safely): Put a knife to your throat (or use a spoon). Can you see it? No? I didn't think so. Can you see or feel the fingers holding the knife? Probably not. Maybe you can feel the thumb, or a finger. Enough to determine whether or not the fingers are slim? No? That could be because you're not a great detective. Even were we to grant that Hammer is the greatest private detective there is and is such a badass that he can somehow tell that the knife is being held by a man with slim fingers, how would he know about the marks of a whetstone? He couldn't.

Spillane wants so much for Hammer to be tough and cool, he does this sort of thing (not always this obvious), in a variety of ways, throughout the novel. Most of it feels fake. I am used to seeing this in student writing in undergraduate fiction workshops. But, whatever one might think about the merits of popular genre works, professional writers and their editors are supposed to do better. And I believe that most of them do.

I won't try to figure out here why these books sold so many copies and were so popular. Something to do with the time and place, the cultural moment, whatever. I don't begrudge Spillane his millions of books sold or his fans their enjoyment. To each his own and all. And maybe Spillane became a better writer as his career progressed and he wrote some good books. I've only read I, The Jury, and it's the only one I can judge. It isn't good.

I had some publishing success in 2007:

First, and by far biggest, my second novel Mean Martin Manning was published in February. Click on the book's title for ordering information and links to reviews. Thanks to my editor Olga at ENC Press.

I also published two essays in Liberty: "Losing My Religion Over 'Handy Manny'" and "The Failed Playwright of Virginia Tech." And Liberty selected Mean Martin Manning as a summer book pick. I am grateful to have worked with such a diligent and enthusiastic editor as Stephen Cox.

Plus, I published my first book review in the Philadelphia Inquirer, of The Age of Abundance. Thanks to Frank Wilson for letting me review for him. Reading his blog Books, Inq. was like visiting with a friend every day. Thanks as well for all the links.

Mean Martin Manning led to all sorts of fun developments.

We had a blast at a publishing party at Drexel University in March. Thanks to all who came.

My novel was reviewed in the Philadelphia City Paper, which connected me to Ed Pettit (the writer who reviewed it), who then interviewed me. I'm glad to have met him.

The blogs I created to promote my novel were the subject of a story in the Philadelphia Inquirer (story no longer online) and got some attention from literary and libertarian blogs. Thanks to all the bloggers who wrote about the blogs and the book. Off the top of my head, that includes Wulf at Atlas Blogged and Brad at The Unrepentant Individual, who were especially enthusiastic.

I was also interviewed about my novel in Reason magazine by Jacob Sullum. My brief flirtation with libertarian fame. Thanks to Jacob as well for linking to a couple of my blog posts from Reason's blog, Hit and Run.

Since I'm thanking people, lots of friends, colleagues, readers, and students have said nice things about Mean Martin Manning and been supportive, so thanks to you all.

In November, I spoke to a local book club. Its 11 members—if I'm right, all Jewish women between the ages of 50 and 70 (not exactly the demographic my publisher thought the book would most appeal to)—loved Mean Martin Manning and we had an excellent two-hour conversation about the novel and writing. I really enjoyed it. I'd like to visit more book clubs, so if you're in one in the Philly area...

On the teaching front:

I became acting director of the Certificate Program in Writing and Publishing at Drexel University. Otherwise, it was a typical year. I had some very good students who were a pleasure to have in class, as well as some mediocre students and, unfortunately but not surprisingly, some bad ones who desperately resisted learning and work. Like I said, a typical year. I taught mostly freshman writing but also writing fiction and writing humor and comedy. I read and graded a lot of freshman papers and some student fiction and humor writing. All in all, as the year ends and I have a few days more before the new term starts up, I'm thankful that I have a pretty good job and some friendly colleagues. One highlight this year was the second-annual Week of Writing (WoW), which I run.

On the personal side:

I read some books this year. Not as many as I wanted to read, but then I never do.

We went to one very cool concert—Brian Vander Ark's Lawn Chairs and Living Rooms Tour '07. We're lucky enough to have friends as cool as Robin and Ron, who hosted the concert in their backyard. Lots of fun. So when's the next backyard concert, guys? I wasn't a fan of Brian's, only knew that one song that was popular (The Freshman) years ago and didn't particularly like it at the time, for some reason. But he put on a fantastic show and I've been won over—his live rendition of Thunder Road kicked ass, and I now enjoy listening to a bunch of his own songs. Seems like a nice guy, too.

I'm sure we also did plenty of other fun stuff in 2007, of one kind or another, with family and friends. Like everyone else does.

Oh, and I shouldn't forget that we got our first high definition LCD television this year. Watching football or tropical fish on it is proof enough for me that it's a great time to be alive. Also, last week I bowled a 220 on Christmas day in Queens. That felt good.

What else? It's been a year since my deviated septum surgery (December 2006). Thanks to it and especially to four or so years of allergy shots, my 2007 was antibiotic-free, a first in several years for me. So, hooray for medical technology and modern science.

My son turned five and is learning to read and write. He's also learning to swim. He played soccer this year—very entertaining to watch, since part of the time, instead of paying attention to where the ball was, it looked like he was pretending that he was wearing a cape and flying around the field in search of super-villains. His world revolves around superheroes—coloring, action figures, cartoons. He's just like me. I continue to be amazed at fatherhood. I recommend it highly.

We went to Disney World this past summer. It was my first visit since 1976. We stayed in the Wilderness Lodge and had a great time.

Lastly, January 3rd, a few days from now, will be ten years to the day that I met my wife, Andee. She wasn't my wife at the time. She was just a cute girl at Lansky's Lounge in lower Manhattan. I was younger then. But I'm happier now.

Happy New Year.