A (Black) Gat in the Hand: Going The Distance with the Czar of Noir
“You’re the second guy I’ve met within hours who seems to think a gat in the hand means a world by the tail.” – Phillip Marlowe in Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep
Eddie Muller is known as the Czar of Noir. He founded the Film Noir Foundation and he hosts Noir Alley, on Turner Classic Movies. He’s written a couple respected non-fiction books about Noir and cinema.
In 2002, Austin hosted the big mystery convention, Bouchercon. I was living there and stopped in for a day. I met Eddie, who hadn’t yet started appearing on TCM opposite Robert Osborne. He was there with his just published first novel, The Distance.
Eddie’s father was a popular, long-time sportswriter for the San Francisco Examiner for over 40 years. He was known as ‘Mr Boxer.’ Eddie would also go to work in the newspaper business himself.
That background is all relevant, because for the book, Eddie drew heavily on his dad’s career, and his own life around the newspaper industry. The Distance features Mister Boxing, Billy Nichols, a local sports reporter who is a legitimate celebrity, working for William Randolph Heart’s The Examiner. Set around the post-WW II San Francisco boxing scene, the workings of the newspaper and the reporter’s life add great depth to the book.
I generally minimize spoilers in my book posts. But my readers (all seven of you) generally have some familiarity with Hammett, or Chandler, or Robert E. Howard. This is a book folks probably haven’t read. And I don’t want to give away too much, because this is my favorite Noir of the past 25 years.
Last week, I wrote about the great Noir author, Jim Thompson. Thompson’s main character often isn’t somebody I am rooting for. At least, not wholeheartedly. ‘Hero’ and ‘good guy’ may not be applicable terms. I think I mentioned last week, they often get caught for their misdeeds.
