Pulp Thrillers are Just Plain Twisted

Cesar Viteri@multimaniaco courtsey of Upslash

There are books that you just do not want to end. The characters are endearing — you wish, like Holden Caulfield, that you could meet the author and chat about the world as they see it. I felt that way when I read Jeanine Cummins’ American Dirt. Then there are books that you can’t wait to get to the ending, not because you savor the novel, but because the author has teased you so much that you just want to get it over with. Rather than have endearing protagonists, you find yourself enduring those characters. So give the author John Hart and his debut novel of 2006 The King of Lies credit — he does own hook, but his bait will I never take again. Not from him or his ilk. What do I mean by his ilk?

I read some of these novels at my own risk because these writers are so popular that I think there must be something redeeming in their work?

To explain, I love John Grisham. I respect what he stands for and what he fights against. His protagonists face difficult situations — usually ones that are plaguing society whether it is a political, social or judicial issue. Generally, that protagonist has right on his side and flies with one’s better angels. Mr. Hart, like the pulp fiction authors that I have managed to at least try to read (Michael Connelly, David Baldacci and Scott Turow), has mired himself in the thriller-murder-rape-and sex genre. The protagonist is often a sexual titillation-crazed, tormented man who broods his way through a mine field of plot twists {for twists’ sake!}. You just want to shake him from his (often drunken) stupor and tell him to just stop being a coward.

I read some of these novels at my own risk because these writers are so popular that I think there must be something redeeming in their work? And there is with Hart’s novel The King of Lies, if you can handle 300+ pages until one finally gets to one powerful “ah ha moment” — one that you know should have been articulated by a character so much sooner — but no! The reader has to wade through pages and pages of description of southern landscapes and foolish characters that stop just short of speaking their truth. Why? It is so unrealistic.

Ah, but that is the hook. To me it is pretentious and galling. I commend Mr. Hart for writing a “literate” narrative as The New York Times claims back in 2006 when the novel was written. And I understand that evil exists, diabolical evil, but for cryin’ out loud, these authors appeal to the worst instincts that tempt our soul. In my case, I just knew that I was in quicksand about 100 pages in, but Hart just had me fooled into believing that something truly noble would result in the protagonist’s action. It took the hero’s bottoming out (so many times) that in despair I finally said to myself, “Why is this man so dense? So unable to articulate the obvious? Why is the author toying with me? Why…because that is what pulp fiction is. It is disposable. It appeals to the darker part of our psyche.

I tell myself — well, that the last time I’ll read that author. I am reminded why Jane Harper, John Grisham, Kristen Hannah write literary fiction and not just pulp page-turners. Their work plays to Dr. King’s arc of justice; it may not be “a who-done-it,” rather it is about what was done and by whom. These authors create characters one can admire and, in so doing, the reader invests their time and their heart in meaningful, often misunderstood, complex issues.

In that same vein, American Dirt by Jeannie Cummins is a thriller that should create policy that will shake the conscience of Americans who have been hardened against terrorized migrants from “the Americas” south of my hometown of San Diego; conned by a fearful, racist Trump administration that ironically has created its own “American Carnage.” Now, if I could just sit and chat with Ms. Cummins….