Note: I apologize for the lack of content lately, but I’ve been too busy to read, much less write. In lieu of my own contributions, I’m hoping to host some guest posts. This piece about a key Donald Westlake influence was penned by our old friend Nick Jones, and originally appeared at his blog, Existential Ennui.
Peter Rabe is the uncrowned king of the pulpy paperback novel. From the mid-1950s until the early ’70s he wrote a string of crime novels, the vast majority of them for Gold Medal, almost all of them published straight to softcover. Much like Donald “Richard Stark” Westlake, upon whom Rabe was a major influence, Rabe’s stories deal with the dark underbelly of America and yet are surprisingly lithe and loose, nimble even. These aren’t plodding detective novels or methodical whodunnits: his antiheroes are usually gangsters and lowlifes—criminals, often up against fellow criminals.
Rabe’s writing is a cut above that of his fellow hacks. His prose style is slippery and agile, his intent sometimes opaque; the direction of his stories is rarely obvious. What motivates his characters isn’t always readily apparent either, and that makes them unpredictable and therefore compelling. Horrible things are done to them and by them, but these events are often alluded to rather than described in detail: violent moments sketched out in a single line; assaults or rapes skirted round or left dangling, and all the more effective and shocking for it, with not a hint of titillation.
Like his contemporaries John D. MacDonald and Jim Thompson—and indeed much like the initial twelve Parker novels Westlake wrote under the Richard Stark pseudonym—the paperback was Rabe’s natural home. But it also sidelined him unfairly. MacDonald, Westlake, and Thompson were all bestowed with that ultimate arbiter of publishing respectability in their lifetimes, publication in hardback. Only a handful of times in Thompson’s case, mostly at the beginning of his career, but that’s still more than Rabe. Peter Rabe only made it into hardback three times in his lifetime (and only once after he died in 1990, thus far anyway). The first time was in 1955, when Vanguard in the US and Frederick Muller in the UK published his little-remarked-upon non-fiction title From Here to Maternity, a humorous look at the birth of his first son, complete with line drawings by the author. The last time was in 1967, when Herbert Jenkins in the UK issued a hardback of his earlier Gold Medal paperback My Lovely Executioner.
And published in between those two, in 1960, came this:
Anatomy of a Killer was published by Abelard-Schuman simultaneously in the US, the UK, and Canada in 1960, with a dustjacket designed by former BBC television graphic designer John Sewell. According to George Tuttle’s interview with Peter Rabe, the story was, like The Cut of the Whip, rejected by Gold Medal, Rabe’s usual publisher, so Abelard-Schuman, who was a British publisher, picked it up instead. The plot concerns Sam Jordan, a professional killer who, as the dustjacket flap blurb has it…
…[had] honed his nerves down to a fine, taut edge and turned himself into a ruthless precision machine for killing—a cold-blooded automaton who dealt out controlled violence. He had this trick on a job of splitting himself in two—head over here, guts over there in a box—and that way everything went off smoothly and efficiently. That way there were no feelings, because Jordan couldn’t afford them.
“A ruthless precision machine… a cold-blooded automaton… no feelings…” Now who does that remind you of? Could it be, oh irony of ironies, that the only novel of Rabe’s to be published straight to hardback in his lifetime was the one that influenced Westlake’s Parker stories the most? I’ve written about the similarities between Rabe’s work and Westlake’s before, and how Rabe’s writing–and in particular his Daniel Port novels–impacted on Westlake enormously. But it’s possible that Anatomy of a Killer exerted the biggest influence of all. It was published just a couple of years before Parker debuted in The Hunter, and Westlake himself said of the novel, “Anatomy of a Killer is as cold and clean as a knife… a terrific book.” But the strongest evidence, I think, comes from the opening scene in the book, which begins exactly like a Parker novel, even down to starting with a “when”:
When he was done in the room he stepped away quickly because the other man was falling his way. He moved fast and well and when he was out in the corridor he pulled the door shut behind him. Sam Jordan’s speed had nothing to do with haste but came from perfection.
The door went so far and then held back with a slight give. It did not close. On the floor, between the door and the frame, was the arm.
He relaxed immediately but his motion was interrupted because he had to turn towards the end of the hall. The old woman had not stepped all the way out of her room. She was stretching her neck past the door jamb and looking at him. “Did you hear a noise just now?”
“Yes.” He walked toward her, which was natural, because the stair well was that way. “on the street,” he said. “One of those hotrods.”
“Did you just come from Mister Vendo’s room?”
“Yes.”
“Was he in? I mean, I wonder if he heard it.”
“Yes. He’s in, and he heard it.”
Jordan walked by the old woman and started down the stairs. She shook her head and said, “That racket. They’re just like wild animals, the way they’re driving,” and went back into her room.
He turned when her door shut and walked back down the hallway. This was necessary and therefore automatic. He did not feel like a wild animal. He did his job with all the job habits smooth. When he was back at the door he looked down at the arm, but then did nothing else. He stood there with his hand on the door knob and did nothing.
The terse dialogue, the short, blunt, sentences: that’s a Parker by any other name.
Stark House Press brought Anatomy of a Killer back into print in 2008 as a double-novel with A Shroud for Jesso, so if you want to make your own Parker comparisons, you don’t have to go to the trouble of getting an expensive (anything from fifty to over a hundred dollars) first edition hardback to do so. Although personally, I’m of the view that it’s always nice to own a piece of publishing history.
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The only Rabe I’ve read is The Spy Who Was Three Foot Tall. This novel was closer to Donald Westlake’s comedic novels than to the Starks. It wasn’t brillant but it was fairly amusing. I found it in the free book section my library has in it’s basement garage and it looked like it was going to fall apart when I touched it.
Yeah, I doubt you’d find many similarities between Stark and Rabe in that one! The Spy Who Was Three Foot Tall is part of a loose series I believe, but they’re not typical of Rabe’s style. I’d definitely give Anatomy or one of the Daniel Port novels a go if I were you.
Damn, I missed this post! Just caught it now.
Nick, as a new reader of Rabe’s work, allow me to say you hit a bullseye on this one. You perfectly captured my own thoughts about Rabe’s writing. Rabe’s type of crime fiction is my favorite. His world is largely populated by criminals and corrupt men, and usually it’s a situation of a criminal against an even more evil criminal. Which I find to be fairly representative of the world I live in.
What someone should do is give this subgenre of crime fiction a name. Perhaps Criminal Procedural? I don’t know, someone can probably do better than that. Stark fits quite nicely into this subgenre, as do W.R. Burnett and Lionel White, authors of High Sierra and The Killing AKA Clean Break repectively, as does Dan Marlowe, Horace McCoy, David Goodis, Jim Thompson, Etc. This is the stuff I am collecting now. Gone are the piles of insipid and trite PI novels I’d collected since High School. Well, I kept a few;-) lol The closest thing to a traditional PI on my bookshelf now is Travis McGee, and in a way, he’s a criminal at times too.
This subgenre definitely has a tie-in with Existentialism, and in Goodis’ case, Nihilism. Two philosophical schools of thought I was fascinated with for a time, and to an extent still am.
I know you have a fascination with Spy fiction as well, Nick, and I’m slowly dipping my big toe into that pool of writing (I’ve read some already of course, Bond, Quiller, a few others) but the main thing that makes me hesitate from engaging the genre completely is the fact the protagonist is usually acting on some sort of Patriotic, Nationalistic fervor, and less from a mercenary or selfish motivation, which I can accept and relate to far more. I wonder if there is any SPy-Fi about any mercenary spy freelancers, who operate mainly on greed, that you could point me to.
It just seems the older I get, the more gray I see the world and it’s inhabitants, and I like my fiction to represent my worldview.
One spy series springs immediately to mind, Dave: Jeremy Duns’s Paul Dark series, which is a fairly recent one. You can find lots about those on EE, and all three Paul Dark thrillers are – possibly have already – being published in an omnibus in the States, with a very lovely cover. Other than that, you could try Adam Hall’s Quiller series. Quiller works for the Brits, but he’s a very weird creation, and the books are highly stylized (they’re first-person, written in Quiller’s distinctive voice). Again, plenty about those on EE. And then there’s Desmond Cory’s Johnny Fedora series, especially the later ones from Undertow on. Very nicely written, again stylish spy thrillers – and again, you can read all about ’em on EE (the search box or their tags should take you to them).
D’oh! Just noticed you already mentioned Quiller! Sigh…
Dave, your reason for not taking on the world of spy novels is the same as mine. I’m a bit too jaded these days to embrace any super patriotic characters. I like my heroes flawed and at least a little dark. Much more realistic IMO. Like the difference between Batman and Superman!
I stumbled onto a fansite awhile back that is to spys what “The Thrilling Detective” site is to the world of private dicks…”Spy Guys and Gals” or http://www.spyguysandgals.com. It’s a nice site and will likely give you a basic introduction to many characters and authors you have not previously heard of.
Nick, I have often considered reading some of the Quiller stories and wonder what would be a good starting place. I saw the film version of “The Quiller Memorandum” years ago and liked it. Can you tell me if it is faithful to the book or at least to the character?
Thanks Nick, I will be checking out those authors/characters immediately. As you’ve noticed I’ve been spending more time over at your blog and leaving comments; there’s a tremendous wealth of great stuff over there and I feel I’ve only touched the edge of it–I love what I’ve seen so far, easily the most intelligent and resourceful blog of it’s kind.
Clue: it doesn’t surprise me we share the same reason for being hesitant to jump into Spy-Fi; we’re simpatico on so much stuff it’s scary;-) lol It really struck me when we both immediately thought of Sebastian Cabot as Meyer for Chuck Connors’ Trav (although I initially didn’t reveal Cabot as my choice as I thought you’d find it slightly ridiculous–after all, Mr. French from Family Affair?;-) lol
As the younger generation puts it; you may be my “brother from another mother”;-) lol
Re: The Quiller Memorandum; I loved Segal’s performance. He seems an oddball choice at first because he’d never really played a “tough guy” but his sense of style and cool won me over. The only thing that hurt his performance was his attempts at Martial Arts in the scene where he’s being interrogated by Max Von Sydow. It’s almost of the “HI-YAH!” campy style of “Karate” found in so many early 60s action films.
Quiller is supposed to be an incredibly lethal hand to hand combatant, so confident of his Martial Arts skills he doesn’t even carry a pistol, and Segal couldn’t quite pull that off.
Clue: Always best to start at the beginning – give The Quiller Memorandum (or to give it its original title, The Berlin Memorandum) a go. If you like that, rest assured there’s better to come.
Dave (and Clue): Ta for the kind words. If you’re interested in trying out some espionage fiction that ISN’T spy-fi, that’s more realistic, then I can recommend le Carre, if you haven’t read him (Tinker Tailor, Honorable Schoolboy and Smiley’s People all superb, and a cut above most fiction, let alone most spy fiction), Sarah Gainham (again, see EE for more on her), and especially Anthony Price, whose David Audley series of novels are brilliant – especially if you have an interest in history and / or archaeology (needless to say, there’s lots on Price on EE, including the only interview available online).
Clue, awesome sight you recommended! I’ve already found a few authors and characters I’d never heard of before that I want to learn more about. And it has profiles on all the characters Nick recommended, even with individual book synopsis’ (synopsi?–whatever). And I’ve only scratched the surface. Spyguysandgals.com is for Spy fiction what thrillingdetective.com is for PI fiction. Thanks for the heads up!:-)
Thanks Dave & Nick for the Quiller nuggets. I’ll have to give ’em a try. In addition to The Quiller Memorandum, I guess there was a 1975 Quiller TV series in the UK. Wonder how that was…Nick?
Glad you like the spy site. Like Thrilling Detective, I have read up on dozens of characters I had never heard of before. It’s quite a site. The guy who put that together has done a nice job.