Reading Reagan Arthur
<p> One of the more interesting voices from the NBCC assembly last week is that of Reagan Arthur, an editor at Little Brown. Her list of authors include many of Wellington Leg’s favorites: George Pelecanos, Elizabeth Crane, Kate Atkinson, Denise Mina, Joanna Scott, Ian Rankin, and Rachel Cusk. Not all crime fiction writers by any means, but stay tuned. Ms. Arthur made the comment that Kate Atkinson got reviewed for CASE HISTORIES because of her fame as a literary writer. It’s an intriguing thought, one that brings us close to the maddening question of what is literary, which is another way of asking what is an important novel, one that many people read, or one that elite readers find worthy?
<p> I don’t know Reagan Arthur, but since I enjoy so many of her authors I will take a stab at identifying the shared elements in Pelecanos and Elizabeth Crane’s work. These two writers by genre seem miles apart, their work would be marketed to different audiences. Am I comparing ALL THIS HEAVENLY GLORY to THE NIGHT GARDENER? Am I crazy?
<p> I’ll throw Kate Atkinson and Joanna Scott’s LIBERATION into the mix and say that all four of these writers use character and setting to dislocate and surprise the reader, to cross invisible borders with great consequence to the story. Crane and Atkinson can be very funny, but they’re not kidding around when it comes to the emotional terrain they work in. Pelecanos and Scott take very ordinary places and infuse them with a living memory that street corners and train cars evoke. Everyone has the experience of walking past a Buick and thinking of their old man in an unexpected association as powerful as the more obvious icons of collective experience. It’s not only the Statue of Liberty that knocks us on our backs, but a little bodega on a dead street that conjures powerful associations of personal experience. That’s what I think these writers have in common, the ability to shape perception into recognition, even if you’ve never been a DC cop, an eight year old girl, an English detective, or a grandmother on a train.