BookTalk: Double Indemnity

BookTalk: Double Indemnity
by Art Taylor

James M. Cain’s first two novels—The Postman Always Rings Twice and Double Indemnity—
earned both sharp notoriety and enduring acclaim for the author, a Baltimore native. Postman, first published in 1934, was a sensational bestseller, despite (or perhaps because of?) being banned in Boston, and the book famously inspired Albert Camus’ own first novel, The Stranger. Double Indemnity, serialized in 1936 and published as a novel in 1943, cemented the author’s reputation as one of the finest crime writers of his generation, a master alongside contemporaries Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler. Both books were adapted into now-classic film noirs, and a third novel, Mildred Pierce—was recently given fresh life as an award-winning HBO miniseries.

This spring, Double Indemnity gets its own update with the East Coast premiere of a new stage adaptation running May 30–June 24 at Bethesda’s Round House Theatre. In conjunction with that production, The Writer’s Center will host a BookTalk event on Sunday, June 10, at 12:30 P.M., focused on Cain’s novels, the various film adaptations, and the local production. As a preview of that talk, the program’s moderator, fiction writer and critic Art Taylor, posed some quick questions of each of the panelists. Check out their responses below, and come join us on Sunday, June 10, for more of the discussion!

Maureen Corrigan, Georgetown University professor and book critic for National Public Radio and The Washington Post

Taylor: How well do Cain’s books hold up against today’s crime or noir novels? Having taught Cain in the college classroom, how have students’ responses surprised you in any way?
Corrigan: Cain is still the crime noir master against whom all other writers must measure themselves. Fate, fall guys, femme fatales, and fast cars: Cain mixed them all up in a California cauldron steaming with sexuality and bad poetry. Yes, that’s right: “bad poetry.” The amazing thing about Cain is that he wasn’t a great literary stylist. Anyone who doubts this judgment should compare the ending of the novel Double Indemnity to Billy Wilder’s film version. Cain’s finale is infected by dopey symbols (“the moon,” that shark!) while Wilder’s ending is elegantly restrained by comparison. My students are sometimes surprised to find how wincingly bad Cain’s literary flourishes can be, but they revere Cain for the doomed mood of his stories and his ingenious “No Exit” plots. Cain’s novels are a product of The Great Depression. Given our ongoing Great Recession, Cain’s writing—particularly its focus on what desperate people will do for a buck—is more socially relevant than ever.


Megan Abbott, Edgar Award-winning author of six novels, including most recently The End of Everything.

Taylor: At a noir-themed evening sponsored by City Light Books a couple years ago, you commented that James M. Cain’s novels provided your first glimpse at adult love. What impact did Cain’s books have on you—both as a young reader coming of age and as a young writer entering the world of noir?
Abbott: I grew up loving the famous film adaptations of Cain, their brooding sense of desire run amok. It made adult desire seem so overwhelming and dangerous. But nothing prepared me for The Postman Always Rings Twice, which I first read in my early 20s. It felt like forbidden
terrain. The way it’s structured—as a confession—made it feel like Frank, the narrator, was whispering a secret in my ear, an almost unbearable intimacy. It made me think of the power of noir fiction to let us into not just the unconscious of the book but also our own unconscious. It fueled everything I wrote after that.


Con Lehane, Writer’s Center instructor and author of the Brian McNulty mystery novels, including most recently Death at the Old Hotel

Taylor: To what degree do you look to past masters of crime fiction as mentors of sorts in crafting your own novels?
Lehane: When I first began writing crime fiction, I was inspired by the California hard-boiled triumvirate—Hammett, Chandler, and Ross Macdonald. I didn’t directly model my writing on them; the influence was more subtle for me, possibly subconscious, but it was very much there. I didn’t come to the noir writers until after my first book was published—although I was well aware of some of the movies, particularly those made from Cain’s books. If I had come to them earlier, I wonder if I might have written a different book, because I do feel an affinity with noir writers—Cain, Jim Thompson, David Goodis, Derek Raymond, and others.


Blake Robison, Producing Artistic Director, Round House Theatre
Taylor: As part of its mission, Round House Theatre has mounted stage adaptations of many great works of literature—this season’s offerings already included Fahrenheit 451 and Pride & Prejudice. How does it change your approach when there’s already been a successful—even legendary—film adaptation of the book you’re adapting to the stage, as with the production of Double Indemnity ahead?
Robison: It’s an interesting question with a double answer. When describing the adaptation to the public, we do take the famous film into account, since it’s a reference point for many people. In our creative work, however, we steer clear. This adaptation looks to the source material for inspiration—namely, the novel by James M. Cain—so that is our primary inspiration. The play has to work as a play first and foremost. There will be variances from the novel. Some characters won’t make the cut, scenes might be moved to different locations, and so forth. We want audiences to experience the story in a heightened, theatrical context. ¶

BookTalk: Double Indemnity will take place on Sunday, June 10 at 12:30 P.M.
First published in serial form in 1936, James Cain’s Double Indemnity is the inspiration for Billy Wilder’s classic 1944 film of the same name. In this special panel presentation moderated by fiction writer and critic Art Taylor, mystery novelists Megan Abbott and Con Lehane join National Public Radio book reviewer Maureen Corrigan and Round House Theatre’s Producing Artistic Director Blake Robison to discuss why the book remains one of the defining classics of the hardboiled genre. Participants are encouraged to attend Round House’s production of the play May 30–June 24.
Tickets: TWC Members/Students/Round House Subscribers $10; Non-members $15

This article was originally published in the summer 2012 Workshop & Event Guide.

**

Art Taylor’s short fiction has appeared in several national magazines, including Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine and North American Review; online at Fiction Weekly, Prick of the Spindle, and SmokeLong Quarterly; and in various regional publications. His story “A Voice from the Past” was an honorable mention for the 2010 Best American Mystery Stories anthology. His story “Rearview Mirror” won the 2011 Derringer Award for Best Novelette. He regularly reviews mysteries and thrillers for The Washington Post and contributes frequently to Mystery Scene, among other publications. For more information, visit arttaylorwriter.com.

Photos by: Drew Reilly (Abbott); Kyle Semmel (Corrigan); Paddy Lehane (Lehane); Stan Barouh (Robison); Tara Laskowski (Taylor)

Upcoming Local Readings: Cheryl's Gone, Three Tents, and Takoma Park Third Thursday

Plenty of outstanding readings coming up in the DC area. Here's a sampling:

Thursday, May 12, 2011 - 8pm
Cheryl's Gone presents...

Art Taylor (fiction--and host of TWC's podcast)
Lauren Bender (poetry)
Jennifer DePalma (poetry)
& music from LunaSol (folk duo)


@ Big Bear Cafe
1st and R NW
Washington, DC

Cheryl's Gone is a monthly reading and performance series at Big Bear Cafe in Washington, DC. For complete details, visit www.cherylsgone.com.

Thursday, May 19, 7:30 p.m.
Takoma Park Third Thursday Series

Featuring workshop leaders Michele Wolf and Anne Becker, along with Michael Gavin

Takoma Park Community Center
7500 Maple Avenue
Takoma Park, Maryland
For more information: 301-589-3717


Wednesday, May 25, 7:00 P.M.
Tyrant Books and Big Lucks presents a Three Tents reading at The Big Hunt on Dupont Circle in DC.

Readers include Michael Kimball, Rae Bryant, TWC's own Caitlin Cushman, and Phillip Dean Walker.

Join us as we celebrate the release of Michael Kimball's "Us!".

Doors at 7
Drink/food specials all night!
For more info, including author bios, visit Big Lucks' Web site.
---

The Three Tents Reading Series is a bimonthly reading series hosted at The Big Hunt in Washington, DC. It was created to provide authors who’ve recently released novels, collections, or chapbooks with independent presses an opportunity to add a major metropolis with a rich literary tradition to their book tour. Three Tents also features upcoming local authors and graduate students, in hopes of bringing these communities closer together.

Ellroy Interview Podcast Redux

The podcast interview with WC member Art Taylor and James Ellroy appears to be up now at the Washington Post's Web site. I haven't tested it, but I am posting the link to Book World here.

Art Taylor Interviews Writer's Center Workshop Leader Nani Power

We'll have not one but two guests today, as Art Taylor, who drives a great blog over at Art and Literature, will be interviewing one of our instructors, Nani Power. This interview originally appeared over on his blog, but it's a great interview and it works well for our Wednesday instructor feature. Nani will be teaching the advanced fiction workshop this winter.

For those of you who're interested in translations, by the way, check out Art and Literature next Monday. Art will be interviewing yours truly on the craft of literary translation. Should be fun. Here is Art's interview with Nani:


Nani Power’s first novel, Crawling at Night, earned the kind of attention and honors that most debut novelists would surely envy: Named a New York Times Notable Book of The Year, it was also a finalist for both the Los Angeles Times Book Award and the British Orange Prize, and has ultimately been translated into seven languages. Her second novel, The Good Remains, was also a New York Times Notable Book of The Year as well as a finalist for The Virginia Library Award, and her third, The Sea of Tears, was praised by Publishers Weekly as “a fine yarn of the lost and lonely seeking intimacy and love.”


This fall saw Power shifting genres with the publication of Feed the Hungry: A Memoir With Recipes, a book which begins with her childhood in Virginia and follows her adventures — culinary, familial, romantic and more — around the world: to Mexico, Peru, Rio, and Japan, with Power both broadening her cultural horizons and delving deeper into an understanding of herself. By book’s end, Power is urging readers toward journeys similar to her own, not only “tasting” the world out there but also savoring our own histories: “Start remembering what you ate as a child,” she writes, “ask people what they ate. Their stories start to tumble out as quickly as the memories of food, because they are all intertwined, food and memory, love and taste, all piecemeal of this lovely, sensual world we live in.”

In the Washington Post review of Feed the Hungry, critic Carolyn See wrote: “In Feed the Hungry, Power gives us the story of her family, along with the misunderstandings, the tragedies, the resentments that dogged them for as long as she can remember. The metaphor for all this restless longing is… food: what it means to all of us, how we present it to each other, what we especially crave and value, how it becomes the ultimate symbol for who we are and what we want to be, as well as what we want, or love, to eat.”

Power recently took the time to answer some questions about the new book and her writing in general.

After three novels, what prompted you to write a memoir?

I actually came about this book as an attempt to write about food. I’ve always loved cookbooks. They seem to have a storytelling quality when I read them — jottings of good times, tastes, cultures. Then, I started thinking about my favorite family recipes and how they intertwined through the tales of my family. As that materialized, I realized I also wanted to try and understand the reasonings and flaws of my family. As I wrote, I understood more of their fragility and the ephemerality of our lives — and food personifies this. A moment of a taste, a sensation, and then, gone. Recipes attempt to capture those moments.

The book avoids strict linearity — a straightforward “this happened and then this happened” narrative. Individual chapters don’t necessarily proceed chronologically (Chapter 7 is Peru 2003, for example, while Chapter 8 is New York 1990), and even within chapters you often flashforward and flashback, mixing together stories from different parts of your life. Can you comment on your use of these time shifts?

I guess you have really clued in to what really interests me stylistically in writing. And I suppose I shouldn’t say style because that implies a superficial mechanics, perhaps. What I strive to do — what interests me — is exactly the shifting and transformative nature of memory. Memory, at least as I can percieve it, because it is so subjective, appears to be the essence of fiction, an inaccurate and impressionistic blanket surrounding our minds. What makes one memory take precedence over another? And how they are woven in our daily consciousness, jumping to the surface with various markers — smell, déjà vu, sounds, and of course, back again, food. Eat something you ate as a child and the sensation is forcibly retrospective.

I find that what happens in real life distinctly breaks many of the “rules” of writing craft that we are taught, and I’d like to find a way to create a more of a sensual expression of this experience called life for the reader — merging time and place, shifting point-of-view, even bringing in major themes or characters late in the story. Playing with these ideas interests me a lot.

One of the book’s richest and most persistent themes is about how various cultures meet and mesh or clash: different worldviews from generation to generation, different nationalities or ethnicities meeting and greeting, even that scene where you compare your house to your childhood friend Nono’s, with its “refrigerator crammed with soft drinks and Cheez Whiz.” Is this a theme you explicitly set out to explore, or a pattern that emerged in the writing?

Oh, this is something that fascinates me endlessly — the merging and intertwining of ancient cultures and American modernity. I love the suburbs actually — strange, isn’t it? I grew up in the country and the suburbs were frowned upon as artificial and plastic. And yes they are, in a delightful way. To me, the suburbs reappropriates life and repackages it in a rough yet poetic sense. Restaurants that are theme parks of various cultures. Small ethnic food stalls amidst strip malls with mainstream Dollar shops and grocers. Immigrants in Costco buying burlap bags of Basmati rice and giant frozen boxes of pigs in a blanket. It is in the suburbs that we see the meshing and evolution of new cultural terroir.

To a great degree, your experiences make you who you are. Is it your experiences that give you the best knowledge and perspective (of self, of world)? Or your writing about those experiences that offers the greater wisdom?

Writing offers a sense of completion. One can explore the family as a separate whole, and thus gain a compassionate new view of the workings. A writer must view a character in all their dimensions, and as you do this to your own family — I mean take the time to remove the reputation, the biases — and see the person as a human, you gain an immense sense of understanding. I think everyone should write a memoir in their life, even if it is never shown to anyone. The main word to remember in memoir, that I tell my students, is “witness.” To tell the truth as you knew it. Whether you wish to share it with the world is your choice. The benefit in the end is very personal.

About Art Taylor:

Art Taylor is a fiction writer, book critic, and assistant professor of English at George Mason University.

His short stories have been published in several national magazines (Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Lifeboat, and North American Review, for example) and in various regional journals/newspapers — among them Cities and Roads, The Lone Wolf Review, Wellspring, and the Raleigh (N.C.) News and Observer’s “Sunday Reader” section (the latter twice).

Since 2001, he has been a contributing editor to Metro Magazine in Raleigh, N.C., writing a monthly literary column. Since 2005, he has been a semi-regular reviewer for the Washington Post Book World, with a focus on mysteries and thrillers. Other literary essays/reviews have appeared in publications including The Armchair Detective, Mississippi Quarterly, Mystery Scene, North Carolina Literary Review, Spectator, The Independent, and The Oxford American.