Detective Fiction Part 1

 

I think it’s easy to assume that American detective fiction differentiates itself from other types of mysteries and crime stories by its aesthetic gloss, but it actually follows a completely different narrative.

In the classic (mostly British) detective story, a mystery throws the world into chaos. The detective solves this perplexing riddle using their intellect and restores order to the world. But that detective can be anybody smart, from Holmes to the Hardy Boys (or Miss Marple).

In sharp contrast, the American detective is someone who used to uphold the status quo, but quit when he discovered the hegemonic class is a murderous rape demon that debases people for fun and will destroy whoever opposes it.

This is not the story that American detective fiction tells, however. It’s the protagonist’s backstory. Chandler didn’t write any stories about Marlowe working for the DA, only him being a private eye afterward. The actual story is this character being reminded, once again, of exactly why he quit doing the dirty work and why you can’t just quit and walk away clean. This is an important distinction to make, because if that backstory was the actual story, it would be very much a white man’s story because that’s who runs the meatgrinders for the rich white people. This is America, after all.

But this formula also works when Walter Mosley writes his novels about Easy Rawlins, a Black detective in post-war LA. Rawlins fought in the war, which makes his status-quo-upholding past explicit, but the story would still work without that. Easy Rawlins doesn’t need the white American detective backstory to be an American hard-boiled detective. He’s Black. He already knows what kind of damage rich white folks (and the people who work for them) do to the world.

Where the classic detective removes a source of uncertainty (and usually a source of harm in the revealed criminal), the American detective is just trying to make it through another round of the shit that never stops. How they find out that power is corrupt isn’t the real story, so it can be changed. Being reminded (again) that power is corrupt is the story. Which means just about anyone can be the lead in the American detective story, as long as they begin that story knowing.

As much as I like Chandler, there’s still occasional moments of racism and homophobia in his books that go beyond him just writing about crooked people. And it’s too bad because, according to my opinions stated above, the form doesn’t need it.

This is definitely an rpg post, by the way. Don’t show it to people who only read books and don’t also play them.

Part 2 can be found in the next post.