Plastic Paddy

As Saint Patrick's Day is coming, I thought I would give you a quick reading suggestion that would be fitting for the day. It is not a novel, but a short story from The Martini Shot by George Pelecanos.The story is called, as you guessed it, Plastic Paddy. Grosso modo, it is about a small time criminal and overall loser who claims to have Irish blood and decides to totally embrace it: he changes his name from Tool to O'Toole, starts listening to Irish music, to go to Irish bars, he adopts the most superficial aspects of Irish culture, or what people think of Irish culture. In other words, he becomes a Plastic Paddy. I don't want to give anything away, but this is (among other things) a brilliant exploration about identity and how much of it is a construction. I recommend to read Plastic Paddy for this occasion because all lovers of Ireland, and I include myself in the lot, are to a degree Plastic Paddies. What makes O'Toole a pathetic, maybe even a tragic character, is that he is completely unconscious of it. So we can reflect on this (and in the meantime get a kick out of Pelecanos' writing). The other stories in the book are great too, but save this one for Saint Patrick's Day.

Criminal slang

A few days ago, I finished The Martini Shot by George Pelecanos. Which means I have now read all his books. I am literally up to date with my Pelecanos. This shows how much I love him as a crime writer. But anyway, it was about something I wanted to blog about: I learned a new crime slang term reading The Martini Shot. In the novella that gives its title to the book, there is the mention of the expression "Jamaican roll." And no, it is not, as one would naturally think, a joint. Well, yes it is, I mean I have heard/read about it used as a synonymous for spiff and if you google it that is what you will find. Nevertheless, a Jamaican roll is also, apparently, a roll of dollar bills where phony money has been mixed with real one. I don't know where Pelecanos fount it and maybe he made it up, but I loved the term, so thought I would mention it here.

The coral snake analogy

At the moment, I am reading The Martini Shot by George Pelecanos, my favourite crime writer. It is a collection of short stories, mostly crime related, and so far he proved that he controls this form just as much as he controls crime novels. Among the many things I love about his writing, is that he has a way with using old archetypes and bringing them into a contemporary, realistic setting and making them fresh and relevant. In one of his short stories, When You're Hungry, the protagonist, a private investigator looking for a wealth man who faked his death to enjoy life in the tropics, makes this analogy about the mistress of his target: "When I was a child I spotted a coral snake and thought it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. I started to follow it into the brush, when my mother slapped me very hard across the face." This is, in essence, what a femme fatale is. Someone beautiful, elegant, yet deadly and merciless, who exerts a fascination so intense than one overcomes the fear he or she may have towards the femme fatale. It is explained without even mentioning the term, by a simple analogy that works. I loved this analogy so much that I wanted to share it here. For more on femmes fatales, please read this entry on TV tropes. For more on coral snakes, please read Wikipedia. But truly, I think you have all you need to know with the analogy Pelecanos made.

Happy birthday George Pelecanos!

Today is the birthday of the great George Pelecanos, maybe the greatest crime fiction writer alive, certainly my favorite. I discovered him back in 2006, around this time of year, when my future wife had bought me Right as Rain among a few other crime novels by various authors in a bargain sale. To this day she refuses to tell me how much of a bargain it was (apparently it was ridiculously cheap). For me, it was the bargain that made me discover George Pelecanos, so I am still grateful towards her for this. Since then, I read all his books, except The Martini Shot, his collection of short stories. When I'll have read it, I will then know his full literary work. Then I guess I will have to wait for the next one, or re-read those I already read. Until then, I want to wish a happy birthday to the crime master. And if you have not read his books yet, you better get started. You won't regret it.