PHILIP MARLOWE remains one of American fiction’s most enduring creations, but while creator Raymond Chandler is long gone, his best-known character, the down-at-heel and ethically compromised Los Angeles private detective lives on in a series of novels by various writers, few of which approach the genius of the original.
But that may have changed now that acclaimed Dublin writer John Banville is on the case. Banville is a Man Booker Prize winner (for The Sea in 2005), and under the nom de plume of Benjamin Black, has authored the highly-acclaimed Quirke series of postwar mysteries set in Dublin. The Quirke novels are wonderful – psychologically intense, rich in period and personal detail.
In Black’s new book, The Black-Eyed Blonde, Philip Marlowe resurfaces so clearly, so visibly, that you can feel his alienation at the wealthy heiress’ mansion on the beach. You are dropped straight into old LA’s Barney’s Beanery, where Marlowe fishes for information about the blonde’s missing boyfriend. The story: a guy goes missing. The wealthy blonde girlfriend wants to find him. But of course that’s only the very first part of the tale. It’s in the complications, the nature of the character and the conflict that we realize that Benjamin Black’s great Dublin character, Quirke, is not unlike Raymond Chandler’s rumpled Los Angeles Marlowe. As one reviewer put it: “In Black’s most capable hands, our Marlowe lives and breathes as if Raymond Chandler himself willed him to life. Being a Dubliner, Black alludes to Dublin and to Ireland, lending authenticity to his re-creation. Philip Marlowe has finally met his dopelganger.”
John Banville will be reading excerpts from The Black-Eyed Blonde at the Sunset/Sundance Five Cinemas, 8000 Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood on Thursday, March 6th at 7.30pm as part of Writers Bloc a non-profit organization that for 18 years has sought to bring great writers to the readers of Los Angeles ‘to hear and see how they think,’ as the organization’s website puts it. For more information and tickets, visit www.writersblocpresents.com
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