Comedy Is Not Petty

Is Catch-22 a comedy? Slaughterhouse-Five? Little Big Man? Fargo? Fight Club?

These are some of favorite books and movies, and if they have one thing in common, it's this: They're funny, but they're not comedies. Or maybe it would be more accurate to say they're funny but they're not just comedies...though I don't like that because it sounds like I'm putting comedy down. "They transcend comedy." Bleah -- screw that %#!@! That'd mess with the whole point of this post. If I'm going to get to a point. No promises, folks!

So, this much we have established: I have a soft spot for funny stuff that's not comedy. Perhaps that explains why I write (I hope) funny books that aren't comedies. Which might come as a surprise to some of you who've chuckled your way through my novels. Did you know the "Holmes on the Range" books aren't comedies? Well, I don't think they are, anyway. To my mind, they're historical mysteries with a special toy surprise in every pack, just like Cracker Jack: They have a sense of humor! If you think they are comedies...I don't know, maybe that simply makes me full of %#!@. I mean, I write about cowboys in the American West in 1893, yet I don't think I'm writing Westerns, either. Am I nuts?

I wrestle with this, if you couldn't tell already. I'm wrestling with it right now. Are these books just light, frothy, lo-cal fun? Should I be writing them accordingly: with less darkness, less violence, less ambiguity, and more more MORE side-splitting laffs? I don't know.

Obviously (at least I hope it'll be obvious to those of you who've read The Black Dove and The Crack in the Lens), I've steered this series in a not-so-frothy direction. I was still trying to be funny -- when appropriate -- yet I was taking everything pretty darned seriously, too. And the thing that leaves me wondering is, as stated above, am I nuts?

I'm rambling here, I know, and that probably doesn't do me any favors in the "nuts/not nuts" debate. There's just a little too much pushmi-pullyu going on in my brain right now.

A push: Getting e-mails this week from two readers who've escaped from trying times through my mysteries. (One has been suffering great pain as the result of a medical condition. The other is in the military and was, until recently, stationed in Iraq.) My god, why would I want to bring more gloom into these people's lives? As John L. Sullivan put it, "There's a lot to be said for making people laugh."

A pull: Watching (thanks to my frenemy Google Alerts) the week-long dissection of On the Wrong Track (and several other historical mysteries) that recently concluded here. On the one hand, the discerning, erudite and well-read blogger in question allowed that my book was funny and engaging. On the other hand, it was "trivial," and he could only assume that every other entry in the series would simply be (as you saw if you followed the link) "the same dang thing over and over."

A push: Finding out that an old college friend recently killed herself, and that my best friend's father -- a quirky, funny man I've known nearly all my life -- died today of pancreatic cancer. To which my response is not to rage, rage against the dying of the light. No, I go back to Mr. Sullivan. We don't have long to laugh. What's wrong with doing it as much as we can, while we can? Hell, maybe that's just a different way of raging. And not a bad one, in my book.

As for my books, I'm still torn. I can tell you this much: The next "Holmes on the Range" novel is going to be the closest yet to a flat-out comedy. It's going to be a little goofier, and a lot less violent, and I won't be pounding away at a theme the way I was in The Crack in the Lens. And wouldn't you know it, so far it's been the most painful book to write...and I thought The Black Dove and The Crack in the Lens were gonna kill me.

Yes, there is indeed a lot to be said for making people laugh. One thing you could say: It helps us all get through this wacky Chamber of Horrors we call life. Another thing: It's really f-ing hard.

And I guess the last thing to say, for now: It sounds pretty good to me.

Steve Hockensmith
August 30, 2009

Talk Is Cheap. Very Cheap. Free, In Fact.

As my brother (and just about everyone else I've ever met) will tell you, I'm a talker. But serious as I take the fine art of lip-flapping, I can't claim to do it professional-like. I guess you'd say it's more an avocation for me -- or, as you moderners might put it, a "lifestyle."

Not so William Dufris. The man's a pro. So much so that I hear a goodly portion of my readers aren't really my readers at all: They're Bill's listeners. Meaning for them, a new Big Red/Old Red adventure isn't truly ready until Billy's read it out loud.

Mr. Dufris, you see, is the fellow who narrates all my books for Tantor Media. And I'm pleased to say he's taken his crack at The Crack in the Lens and done his usual top-rail job. This I know because the kind folks at Tantor just sent me a whole pile of "books on CD."

Now, as you might expect, I don't really need to listen to any of these all the way through, since I know how everything comes out in the end -- and believe me, having somehow survived that particular case the first time, I have no desire to live it through again. So I figure it's time for a giveaway.

Here's the deal: Be the first person to answer the question below correctly, and you'll receive your very own copy of the 8-CD CRACK IN THE LENS audio set. That's 10 hours of listening pleasure, absolutely free! (Well, I can't guarantee every single minute's going to be so all fired-up pleasurable. But it lasts 10 hours, anyway.)

Alrighty then. Ready? Wrap your noodle around this.

How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could NOT chuck wood?

And if you don't know anything about woodchucks, don't be intimidated. I'm betting you can make yourself a pretty decent guess....

Otto "Big Red" Amlingmeyer
August 23, 1893

Mother and Father Know Best

Y'know, I was talking to my mom and dad today, and they both said The Crack in the Lens is my best book so far. At first, I wasn't sure whether I should believe them -- like I said, they're my mom and dad, and what's more tomorrow is my birthday. Like they're going to break their baby boy's heart by saying, "In all honesty, son, we loved the first three books, but this one...? Meh."

But then I saw that good ol' Rich Prosch over at the Meridian Bridge blog agrees with my parents: I've topped myself. Thanks, Rich! Now I can take my mom and dad at their word on Crack. I suppose that means I should also believe them when they say I'm the nicest, funniest, handsomest man in the world. Woo-hoo!

Good ol' Marshal Zeringue doesn't weigh in on the "Best Book Yet...?" debate (nor does he endorse the nicest/funniest/handsomest thing), but he did give me the chance to gas on about The Joys of Crack on his Page 69 Test site. If you've never been there before, here's the set-up: Marshal asks writers how they think a reader would react if he or she randomly opened the author's newest book to page 69. Of course, I predict that any such reader tackling Crack would instantly conclude they're holding a classic, and what's more it must have been written by the nicest, funniest, handsomest man in the world.

And just because I'm anal and I think these kinds of "Look at me!" updates are best done in batches of three, here's a link to a Q&A I did for good ol' Shelf Awareness, an e-mail newsletter for in-the-know folks in the book trade. It went out to Shelf Awareness subscribers a while ago, but I'm only getting around to telling y'all about it now. Why? Well...even the nicest, funniest, handsomest man in the world screws up sometimes....

Steve Hockensmith
August 16, 2009

The Tracks in the Lens

I'm not usually big on collaboration. The closest thing I have to a writing partner is my mug of coffee (couldn't do a thing without that little son of a gun!), and that's the way I like it.

I did have a sorta-kinda collaborator on my newest book, though. The hitch: He's a dead guy. But I think he and I made a pretty good team.

Way, way back, when I first started working on The Crack in the Lens, I blogged once or twice about my (dead) buddy Bernard Herrmann. There were specific scenes in the novel I wanted to make Herrmannical or Herrmannish or Bernie Worthy or whatever you'd want to call it. "Creepy," in a nutshell. Gothic. Tinged with sadness and madness. The stuff ol' B.H. did best.

To get myself in the mood, I listened to a lot of Herrmann last year, especially when I was thinking about those key, creepy sequences in the book. And in a way, certain tracks -- bits from the scores for Vertigo and Psycho and Citizen Kane and others -- became the soundtrack for The Crack in the Lens.

And then just yesterday, because I'm both a geek and a glutton for punishment, I thought to myself, "Well, why not give everybody a listen?" Which is why I spent three hours last night messing around with HTML code. (FYI, I consider messing around with HTML for three seconds to be absolute torture.)

You'll find the result below -- a smattering of the tracks that helped inspire The Crack in the Lens. (Note: In some browsers, you'll need to right click on the music bar thingamajig to get the controls to pop up.) If you've read the book, this'll give you a little taste of what I was trying to do. (You can tell me if I succeeded.) And if you haven't yet read the book...what's the danged deal?!? It's been out for three weeks now!

Oh, and another important notice. I recognize that I don't own the copyright to any of this music. I'm presenting it here on a temporary basis in a format that can't be downloaded, with links to CDs of Bernard Herrmann's brilliant, brilliant work.

The Crack in the Lens: The Soundtrack -- Music by Bernard Herrmann

1. Overture (from Vertigo)

2. Gus and Gertie (from Vertigo)

3. Fudgin' Prisoners (from On Dangerous Ground)

4. Lottie (from Psycho)

5. Night Ride with Necktie (from On Dangerous Ground)

6. Where Gertie Died (from On Dangerous Ground)

7. Out by the Springs (from On Dangerous Ground)

8. Pursuit through the Streets (from On Dangerous Ground)

9. The Basement (from Citizen Kane)

10. Watching the Fire (from Citizen Kane)

11. Visiting Gertie/See It or Feel It?/End Credits (from The Ghost and Mrs. Muir)

Bernard Herrmann was one of the greatest film composers of the 20th century. His music can be purchased here, here, here, here, here and on many other wonderful CDs.

There. Hopefully now I won't be sued.

Steve Hockensmith
August 11, 2009

Welcome, New York Times Subscribers!

So you read about me in Marilyn Stasio's column in the New York Times Sunday Book Review and you decided to set aside your mug of free trade Guatemalan coffee, turn down NPR, and do a little Googling. Well, thank you! It's an honor to have you here! Allow me to make introductions.

I am the cute, clever and idiosyncratic Steve Hockensmith. (I know Ms. Stasio said my books were cute, clever and idiosyncratic, not me, but where do you think they got it from?) You can read a slightly out-of-date biography of me here. (Or maybe it won't be out of date. It depends on whether I have time to update it today. You can add "busy" to my list of descriptors. For the reason why, just check out the last line of my bio -- the one that mentions kids.)

I write the "Holmes on the Range" mystery series. It started in a short story you can find here and has continued through several more stories and four novels: this one, this other one, then this one, and now this. From time to time, I venture out into public to discuss my writing (and whatever else people want to chat about), and you'll find a schedule of my upcoming appearances here. I also have an e-mail newsletter you can sign up for (by going here) and occasionally drop in on book clubs discussing my novels (via an offer you can read about here). On top of all that, I'm quite the generous son of a buck: If you buy The Crack in the Lens in the next, oh, three days, I'll send you a paperback of one of the earlier books. (You can go here for more details. I'm extending the deal to accommodate all my new Times-reading admirers, like you. I hope.)

What else do you need to know about me? Well, my turn-ons include black humor, beer and kung pao chicken, my turn-offs are mean people, tramp stamps and Ethan Hawke, and my measurements are....

Then again, maybe you didn't need to know all that about me. So I think I'll just stop here.

Steve Hockensmith
August 1, 2009