730 The American Century: Literature since 1945some subtlety and complexity. The abuses that money and power may engender fuel
the plots of all the novels in which he appears; and MacDonald uses the narrative
spine of the mystery to examine serious social issues, notably pollution and the
destruction of the environment (Bright Orange for the Shroud (1965), The Turquoise
Lament (1973)). Of Ross Macdonald, Eudora Welty once wrote that he had produced
“the finest series of detective novels ever written by an American.” His main
protagonist, Lew Archer, first appeared in The Moving Target (1949). At first, Archer
was a relatively stereotypical version of the hardboiled hero. Even in this first book,
however, he reflected his creator’s conviction that nothing is clear-cut. “Evil isn’t so
simple,” Archer explains here. “Everybody has it in him, and whether it comes out in
his actions depends on a number of things. Environment, opportunity, economic
pressure, a piece of bad luck, a wrong friend.” Gradually, though, Archer evolved into
a prototypical figure of the Vietnam years and after. “Not the usual peeper,” as one of
the characters observes in The Far Side of the Dollar (1965), Archer becomes more
reflective and coolly perceptive. More interested in listening than detecting, in
understanding rather than meting out justice, in books like The Drowning Pool (1950),
The Galton Case (1959), and The Underground Man (1971), Archer discovers the
roots of present traumas in past betrayals. He exposes the schemes and self-deception
concealed below the comfortable surfaces and plastic moralities of the marketplace.
And he shows how the older generation have disturbed and disoriented the younger.
As a quiet moral center, rather than a focus of action, Archer reflects the view,
expressed in Sleeping Beauty (1973), that “every witness has his own way of creeping
up on truth.” Interrogation becomes less a matter of intimidation, more a chance for
the participant to unburden knowledge, to dig up a buried past and perhaps come to
terms with it. That past invariably has a social dimension, since what, on a deeper
level, these stories dig up involves the sins of the founding fathers being visited upon
the sons and daughters – the dreams of a nation turned irrevocably sour.
From the 1970s, novels written in the general generic field of crime and mystery
have largely been published first in hardback. The paperback original and mystery
magazine died out. And those short stories in the field that were still published
appeared mostly in nonspecialist magazines or crime anthologies. What has been
particularly remarkable about this period is the rapid growth in the use of the genre
to address serious issues. The drugs epidemic, urban violence, racism, homelessness,
AIDS, sexual abuse, the issue of abortion – these and many other problems endemic
in contemporary society have been confronted in mystery novels over the last
quarter of the twentieth century. At the same time, markedly more sophisticated
approaches to narration and characterization shown by many American mystery
novelists have further eroded the distinction between genre writing and literature.
That growth of sophistication is notable in the work of three contemporary masters,
Elmore Leonard (1925–), George V. Higgins (1939–1999), and James Ellroy (1948–).
Leonard began by writing westerns, notable among which are Hombre (1961) and
Valdez is Coming (1970). Then, after reading The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1972) by
George V. Higgins, he turned to the mystery genre and new ways of telling stories.
The work of Higgins portrays sleazy characters on both sides of the law, with aGGray_c05.indd 730ray_c 05 .indd 730 8 8/1/2011 7:31:42 PM/ 1 / 2011 7 : 31 : 42 PM