Robert B. Parker

Ed here:

A discussion on various logs of late on the relative worth of Robert B. Parker at this stage in his long and industrious career.

The consensus judgment seems to be that he wrote brilliantly early on, that in fact he rescued the entire private eye genre from malaise and cliche, and that he brought tens of thousands of new readers to the form.

I agree with all of that.

Where I have trouble is the funeral pyre so many of his critics seem to be building. Doesn't take the care he used to; isn't as inventive as he once was; writes the same book many times over.

Now I'll agree that these things are occasionally true of his last decade or so at the writing machine. But it's certainly not true in general.

Is Spenser tired and parodic? I think so, yes, in many of the books. Am I sick of Susan Silverman? Oh, my God, I wish she'd take a job at the Lifetime channel and never have time to talk let alone see Spenser again. Still, every once in a while, every three books, say, there's a return to form. Maybe not great Spenser but solid and fun Spenser.

But what I really don't understand are the harsh judgments on his Jesse Stone series.

I'm just now finishing STONE COLD and I have to say it's one of the most entertaining books I've read in the past twelve months. The dialogue is prime Parker, character drives the story far more than the plot, and even though Stone's machismo gets tiresome, he comes off as a decent, complicated, beleivable middle-aged man who is a) an alcholic and b) in love with Susan Silverman's twin sister.

Now as an alcoholic myself, I can testify that Parker's take on the malady is both moving and clinically true.

The ex-wife is as problemmatic--this is my take only, not a universally held opinion--as Susan but at least not as full of cant and pomposity. But it does make you wonder if the Parker hero, in whatever guise, isn't a masochist in his romantic relationships. Parker sure does convey real pain here; there's one scene where he begins to confront his ex-wife's date that made me writhe. I'm a jealous type myself. You're right there with Jesse and sure wish you weren't.

The A plot has to do with a pair of trendy serial killers, man and wife. They do it for fun. What's notable here, and I assume Parker was aware of this, is that the marriage of the serial killers is a far more loving and supportive one than any marriage a Parker hero has ever been in.

The B plot has to do with a bunch of snotty high school bullies. The kids work fine but the magic scenes are when their prominent parents come to the station and wail on Jesse as only privileged people can. Jesse shows a whole lot of restraint.

So please don't tell me it's over for Parker because it isn't. Nobody--not even Balzac or Dostoyevsky or Dickens, all of whom wrote a whole lot of books themselves--can possibly trot out a winner every time. Impossible. And writing quickly seems to be Parker's natural pace.

As a book, a piece of writing, an amusement with the sting of truth every few pages, this novel warrants an A and is a whole lot better than many of the sudsy and pretentious novels that critics are genufelcting in front of these days.