maplemood | Entries tagged with noir

Two more of Megan Abbot's old school, pulpy noirs! I was more excited for Queenpin, but as it turned out I liked The Song Is You better. Like Bury Me Deep, both of these books revolve around very brutal murders or attempted murders; The Song Is You is a mystery and Queenpin is more of a thriller.

Queenpin is also the shorter of the two books. If I hadn't had school and homework and other things to do I probably would have finished it in a couple of hours. On its own, the premise is basically crack to me--a poor but ambitious girl who cooks the books for her shady bosses gets caught up in more than she bargained for when she crosses paths with Gloria Denton, a courier for the mob--and even though you can see the less-than-happy ending coming from a mile away, it's still a lot of fun to watch Gloria mentor the girl and the girl eventually learn to double-cross her. The girl never gets a name (since she narrates the story and even from the beginning knows to play her cards close to her chest, it makes sense) and her backstory isn't developed in much detail either. That does work for the type of story this is, but it left me a little less emotionally involved than I wanted to be. The same goes for the setting. Lots of perfectly seedy descriptions of bars and racetracks and casinos, except without the name of a specific town or state I had a really hard time picturing something solid while I was reading. Which says more about me than the book--both Gloria and the girl hide themselves to the point that, even at the end, you don't know exactly who they are, and they probably don't, either. Since they're so distant, it makes sense that their story would be distant, too.

On the other hand, The Song Is You has a setting that feels incredibly solid, down to the last detail. It's also like Bury Me Deep in that it's based on another true crime case, the disappearance of Jean Spangler. Jean Spangler was an actress who worked in Hollywood during the 40s, and the narrator of The Song Is You is a publicist who knows more about Jean and her disappearance than he's letting on. I liked Queenpin, but I loved this book, I think because of the setting and the fact that the main character, Hop, is much more accessible and likable than the girl, despite the fact that morally he's not all that much better than her. Also, his name's Hop. The story's otherwise about as far from Stranger Things as you can get, and I think Jim Hopper would kind of hate this guy, but it was nice to be reminded of him on almost every page. The ending of this one was really great, too, morally all over the place and melancholy. Still a little more hopeful than Queenpin's ending, I think.

(Oh, and I forgot to mention--another similarity between these books and Bury Me Deep is that all three have female characters who get involved with charismatic, manipulative men and pay a steep price for it. When it comes to character tropes, Megan Abbot definitely has a type.)

"Where are my girls?"

I first came across the story of Winnie Ruth Judd, aka the Trunk Murderess, on an episode of My Favorite Murder (the Buzzfeed Unsolved Network also has a super-short video up that summarizes the case pretty well), and it's stuck with me ever since, probably because even though the case is technically "solved" so much about it--Winnie's motivations, whether she had an accomplice who helped dismember one of the bodies, whether she actually did it at all or took the fall for someone else--is still unknown, and almost all the theories that I've heard feel murky and unsatisfying. Not that, obviously, there's ever a really satisfying explanation for murder, especially a murder that ends with two women shot and stuffed into shipping trunks, but. This story in particular has always niggled at me.

Basically, it goes like this: Winnie Ruth Judd was working as a secretary at a clinic in Phoenix, Arizona in the 1930s; she lived apart from her husband, William C. Judd, who was apparently a morphine addict. She met an X-ray technician who also worked at the clinic, Agnes Anne LeRoi, and became good friends with both Agnes and Agnes's roommate, Hedvig Samuelson. They even moved in together, but after a few months Winnie moved out again, and sometime around the night of October 16th, 1931, she shot and killed both Agnes and Hedvig. Three days later Winnie showed up in Los Angeles with two trunks containing the bodies, and things began to fall apart for her once a baggage agent noticed liquid oozing from one of the trunks.

Bury Me Deep by Megan Abbot follows the basic outline of that story up until this point. In a lot of ways, it reads like an alternate-history version of the case where Winnie--except in this version she's called Marion, her friends are named Louise and Ginny, and the married lover who may or may not have been involved in the murders in real life is DEFINITELY involved here--had a little more time to make her escape, a husband who's still a morphine addict but willing to take the fall for her, and a chance to get revenge on her former lover, who in the book is portrayed as the puppet-master behind the murders and an all-around sociopath. He's charming enough that Marion never comes across as stupid for falling for him, just sheltered and repressed and pretty desperately lonely, and her relationship with Louise and Ginny is fascinating. None of them are perfect people, or even necessarily good people, but they become so dependent on each other so fast that the fallout feels inevitable and also like a punch in the gut. In real life, the theory is that the argument that ended with both Agnes and Hedvig being shot and Hedvig's body chopped into pieces had something to do with Winnie's lover, whom all three women knew. In the book, their argument starts with him, though it's also clear that it's about Louise's protective instinct and love for both Marion and Ginny, and Ginny's jealously and suspicion that Louise and Marion will eventually run off together and abandon her; Ginny, like Hedvig Samuelson, has tuberculosis and is in no position to live on her own or take care of herself. And of course, in the book, Marion's lover is in exactly the right position to know all these instincts and suspicions and to manipulate Marion and her friends through them.

I checked this one out because a.) it's one of four old-school-noir-style novels Megan Abbot wrote, and all four have fabulously pulpy covers, and b.) I loved her thriller, The End of Everything, which is set in the 80s and also features intense female friendships and predatory men. I wouldn't call either book a fun read, and if you're not a fan of very (very) descriptive writing styles they take some getting used to, but they're both fascinating and absolutely full of tension and foreboding in a way that's, again, very noir. Bury Me Deep is also great if you like true crime (and I do)--it captures a lot of the how-could-something-like-this-ever-happen horror of the case without feeling sleazy or exploitative, and Marion's a complex and sympathetic character, even in her worst moments.

Well, it might have taken me three evenings because I'm perpetually tired and have next to no time management skills (and because I was trying [and mostly failing] to write another fic, but eh--you win some, you lose some), but I did finish The Big Sleep and loved it just as much as I hoped/expected I would. Most of that comes down to the characters, since the plot is very...let's just say intricate, and watching it in half-an-hour-ish chunks over a couple of late nights didn't exactly help. And yes, it's about blackmail and murder and pornography (or at least very veiled references to pornography) and sleazy guys and questionable women, but it's also about Philip Marlowe and Vivian Rutledge--he's not quite sleazy, she's definitely questionable--falling in love while he solves a mystery she'd really rather he didn't solve. Which has to be about the most perfect set-up for any romance, ever. I'm just saying.

The funny thing is that, despite all the trouble they make for each other, Marlowe and Vivian's romance isn't what I'd call angsty or tortured; they connect almost from the get-go and it's clear even in their first scene together that they like each other, or at least find each other interesting. You don't get the idea that Vivian has all that many friends (she never mentions any friends, at least not that I remember), or many people in general to talk to, since her father is old and frail and would rather not know the specifics of what's going on, anyway, and her younger sister's just something else, in addition to having plenty of problems of her own. Obviously Vivian loves them, or at least cares enough that she doesn't want to see them dragged through the mud, but as far as scintillating conversation goes, Marlowe's the best she's got. And he really is the best--he's witty and he respects her, and he cares about what's going on because he wants to put a stop to it once and for all, not just sweep it under the rug, and even when she's doing her damnedest to push him away they have so much fun together. Every conversation between them was an absolute delight to watch; you enjoy watching them together because they enjoy being together, no matter the circumstances. The "no matter the circumstances" part really hits home in the last scene, but it's a running thread though the entire movie, and probably about 50% of what makes their chemistry so great--for me, anyway. The other 50% is either their banter or solely the way Marlowe calls Vivian "angel"; I haven't decided yet.

It's not that I don't love a good tortured and/or angsty romance--I live and breathe for them, honestly--but the hate-to-friendship-to-love trope (which, again, I'll never say no to) is so, so, SO common in romances that watching this movie made me think that I haven't seen all too many romances at all where both characters are pretty much immediately comfortable in each other's company. I don't think it always works, and I especially don't think it would have worked nearly as well with actors who didn't have Humphrey-Bogart-and-Lauren-Bacall-levels of chemistry, but when it does work? Hoo boy. It's really something special.

One more episode to go with Mob City, which is pretty middle-of-the-road as far as my emotional attachment to the characters goes, but also beautiful and fun and not quite as brutally violent as I was expecting--which doesn't mean it isn't brutally violent, but the trailers always gave me the impression that it's a lot bloodier than it actually turned out to be. And six episodes really doesn't feel like enough. The characters are just starting to come alive for me, and their backstories and motivations are starting to come into play in really interesting ways (at least for Joe and Jasmine, the two characters I ended up most interested in), and I know it's not all going to get wrapped up neatly in the last episode, but oh well. We got what we got.

I also checked out The Big Sleep from the library, since watching Mob City reminded me that I haven't watched a whole ton of classic noir at all. I watched the first half hour or so last night after getting home pretty late, and so far it's just about perfect; I would have watched the entire thing if I hadn't been completely exhausted, and I might try to finish it tonight if I can get some writing done first--otherwise, I absolutely will finish it tomorrow. I never feel like I have a whole lot to say when it comes to classic movies, since pretty much everything there is to say has already been said, but LAUREN BACALL AND HUMPHREY BOGART. They're both wonderful. And that's all I have to say.