The Private Patient by P. D. James

The Private Patient by P. D. James (Alfred A. Knopf Canada, 2008) 395pp.

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a mystery author in the possession of a very good story, is rarely in want of readers--especially if that writer is P. D. James.

Phyllis Dorothy James, born in Oxford in 1920, began writing fiction in the cold war era of the mid-1950s while raising a family and working at a London hospital in administration. Her first book, Cover Her Face, was published in 1962 by the venerable publishing house of Faber & Faber which at the time was perhaps more known for its distinguished list of poets and literary authors. It was an ideal marriage. P. D. James's detective, Adam Dalgliesh, wrote poetry, slim volumes to be published by Faber & Faber. James has remained with the firm for the past 46 years in what appears to be a happy marriage for all concerned.

Faber recently reported that over a specific Christmas holiday period, ebook sales of her latest mystery, The Private Patient, reached 750 copies ( 1,200 copies total when sales of her other titles were included) only challenged by Faber's ebook sales of the popular British QI books, The Book of General Ignorance and Advanced Banter at 800 copies. ( Canadians and American are perhaps less familiar with the popular British QI comedy quiz show created by John Lloyd and hosted by the wonderfully convivial and erudite Stephen Fry--who, by the way, has recently become the presiding genius in the land of Twitter--but P. D. James is certainly a household name across North America. ) Much has certainly changed in the publishing world since her initial cloth bound début: talking books on cassettes and cds, downloads to ipods and now the more recent and significantly important ebooks which, it seems, alters the very nature of publishing.

Her literary output of 20 books over 46 years is respectable and she has had a steady and loyal readership. Her latest book, The Private Patient, shows no sign of diminished power due to her age. Her prose is as finely crafted and acutely perceptive as ever, her formal diction and construction is detailed and sharp and she slips in echoes and quotes from one of her favourite authors, Jane Austen. In P. D. James's richly descriptive prose there is a delicate balance between the inner psychological life of the characters and the exterior world and setting in which they move. The settings of London and Dorset are evocative but do not dominate. As well, her stalwart detective, now Commander Adam Dalgliesh, does not dominate the book either, for his assistants, Detective Inspector Kate Miskin and Sergeant Francis Benton-Smith form a triadic balance of inquiry, and each are given stage presence.

Rhoda Gradwyn, a 47 year old investigative journalist, a private, rather enigmatic person, has decided to have plastic surgery to remove a facial scar she has had for 34 years. This scar has shaped her life. The natural reaction of adults was to look away from the scar, and so this enabled her to observe people, and she became an astute and perceptive student of human behavior. It also shaped her life's interest which was "in finding out what others kept hidden." [p.8] She has decided on an exclusive clinic at Cheverell Manor in Dorset--complete with a neolithic stone circle, the Cheverell Stones--owned and operated by a renowned plastic surgeon George Chandler-Powell, and it is here that she meets with her mysterious death. The dozen or so characters whose lives intersect with Rhoda Gradwyn and Cheverell Manor are all given their back stories with detailed yet succinct brushstrokes and each has us wondering if they could be responsible.

With Commander Dalgliesh's appearance, there is a very natural unfolding of information, and we come to learn of stories within stories, and occasional red herrings, but it all is gradually revealed in an organic way. In the last quarter of the novel, there is a concentration on letters and wills and this has a very Charles Dickens/Wilkie Collins feel, providing a resonance with the past.

When Commander Dalgliesh makes his appearance in the second section, he is in a very Jane Austen/Oscar Wilde position of being interviewed by his future father-in-law over the offer of marriage to his daughter Emma Lavenham, a character introduced in Death in Holy Orders. Marriage is a theme in the book--perhaps a nod to Austen. Although each marriage is different in nature--much like Austen again--they involve older couples which perhaps reflects modern society. Commander Dalgliesh, often referred to as AD, is also in for possible career changes as bureaucratic machinations may bring an end to the Special Investigative Squad he heads up. We are left wondering what may become of Commander Dalgliesh, and P. D. James provides us with a few rumours to think about. Dalgliesh muses that a job in the upper echelons of bureaucracy would not offer much inspiration for his poetry.

Will this be the last mystery novel by P. D. James? I hope not.

reading in the shade

To roar through a few good books in one day is not my forte, but I did manage a fairly quick pace with two books recently--unusual of me, I know--both good summer reads, each in their own way.

Odd Hours by Dean Koontz (Bantam Random House Canada)
I have certainly handled books by Dean Koontz while working in the library world; I have certainly gazed upon his books in the shops; certainly read the blurbs; and certainly contemplated the dustjacket photos of the author, who, over the years, has experienced a type of reverse tonsorial evolution--initially sporting a vigorous mustache and a shining prominent forehead with short hair in receding fashion, to the now clean-shaven look with a youthful head of hair--a rather impressive transformation, but perhaps fitting for an author who has also written under many other names.

Not being a thriller, suspense or horror aficionado--at least, that's my excuse--he is an author I never got around to reading. Until now that is. As is usual with me--generally the last to know of anything--I find myself starting in medias res so to speak. Odd Hours is the fourth and latest book in the series featuring the character Odd Thomas, a character who I sense has a loyal following. I can see why. He is a sympathetic, quirky, smart twenty year old short order cook looking for a simple life--simple due to the fact that he can see the lingering spirits of the dead which tends to complicate his life just a tad. Odd has been drawn to the small California coastal town of Magic Beach, and has found work as a live-in personal chef and assistant to an 88 year old former Hollywood actor with enough anxieties, fears and phobias that could very well require an index. There is an entertaining banter between Odd Thomas and Lawrence 'Hutch' Hutchison which I found I wanted more of, but Odd is having peculiar dreams involving a red tide, and one visit to the boardwalk leads to a multiple encounter that initiates the adrenalin rush of the plot propulsion and I quickly found myself pulled by the narrative undertow, my hands turning pages, my feet squirming with unease, my heart rate up. I have to admit I once again felt like a youngster reading The Most Dangerous Game.

Dean Koontz is an old pro and knows how to throw a sharp fresh sentence on the page. I very much enjoyed Odd Hours. I have the nervous pleasure now, of exploring the backcloth of Odd's life in the first three books in the series: Odd Thomas, Forever Odd, and Brother Odd, where I should discover his unusual life and good friends in Pico Mundo. Perhaps I shall pace myself. Reading his books before bed tends to shade into one's dreams. . . .

The Roar of the Butterflies by Reginald Hill (Doubleday Canada)

Here again I found myself reading an author whose work I have handled but never read, another old prolific pro who has also used the odd pen name or two. And once again, I find myself reading into a series from the most recent end, the fifth in the series featuring Joe Sixsmith, a sympathetically drawn, funny and lovable, former lathe operator now working as a private detective in the fictional town of Luton. Joe is surrounded by interesting characters in his life including his Aunt Mirabelle and of course his own cat. In this outing, it is one hot summer, perhaps the hottest yet in Luton, and Joe, in his shorts with the colourful parrots, has been requested to look into a possible irregularity which took place at the private posh Royal Hoo Golf Course. Anyone who is a golfer will enjoy this one. And anyone who is a duffer on the links like me and Joe, will enjoy it as well. Lots of humour and detection, and narry a drop of blood. My kind of summer reading.

The Roar of the Butterflies is a well written and perfectly paced work of humourous detective fiction. What I found fascinating is how, though it is set in England, the narrative voices of the characters have none of the "englishness" one might have expected, in fact the voices and the use of language reminded me of North American hard boiled, but in a light-hearted fashion--refreshing. I now find myself trying to schedule the earlier books into my reading list: Blood Sympathy (1993), Born Guilty (1995), Killing the Lawyers (1997), and Singing the Sadness (1999). I think a marathon weekend of Joe Sixsmith would do the trick.

The Silver Swan by Benjamin Black

The Silver Swan by Benjamin Black (Henry Holt, 2008)

Out of my blind spot, it was as if Quirke himself had emerged from the shadows and tapped me on the shoulder. The latest Benjamin Black novel, his second, was out. His first book, Christine Falls (my brief review here) had rendered me off-kilter as I absorbed the fact that John Banville, a novelist whose work I consistently followed and enjoyed, had assumed another name and produced a crime novel. A very good crime novel. A novel which had, unbeknownst to me, slipped into circulation and produced more than a ripple. A pleasant surprise.

In The Silver Swan, we are once again in 1950s Dublin; two years have passed since the Christine Falls affair, and Quirke, the somewhat melancholy consultant pathologist, is surrounded by the fallen, the wounded, and the ghosts of his past. There are hints that Quirke is coming to suspect that his actions have deeper roots than the desire for the truth, or justice; that there are unconscious motivations reaching back into his orphaned childhood. Quirke is a divided, conflicted individual who is possessed with a continuing unease with figures of institutional authority, religious or otherwise. His determined efforts in the Christine Falls case had dire effects upon those close to him and he is now doing a personal form of penance. Twice a week he visits his adoptive father, Judge Griffin, now paralysed upon a hospital bed and non-conversant. And once a week he dines with his daughter Phoebe in the attempt to start afresh and bring her back to him. His relationship with the Judge's son Dr. Malachy Griffin is governed more by a casual truce.

In this penance he is distanced further from the shared life of his fellow Dubliners by his half-year of teetotaling temperance. This abstinence of alcohol--although he does imbibe one glass of wine when dining with his daughter, which has a religious overtone in a way--has sharpened his olfactory glands; smells, odors and fragrances create a rich texture in his awareness which includes the "smell of the recently bereaved," a smell he detects in Billy Hunt, a long-forgotten college friend who has approached him to ask a favour. Billy Hunt's wife, Dierdre, was found washed ashore on Dalkey Island, a possible suicide, her clothes neatly folded on the seat of her car. Billy, possibly for religious reasons, doesn't want his wife's body to have a postmortem. The thought of it disturbs him greatly.

It is from this unusual request, and the discovery of a small puncture mark on Dierdre's arm, that Quirke, gradually, ineluctably, finds himself drawn into the search for answers. At first he begins to heed his better judgement warning him to avoid by all means looking into the drowning, but when he discovers his daughter Phoebe's slight connection with Dierdre Hunt and her dubious business partner, that "hollow man" Leslie White, Quirke inevitably follows it up. And so it is, during the sunny warm weather of the "dead center" of a Dublin summer, that Quirke finds himself tossing a pebble into the calm waters of his penance, and we, as readers, are well and truly off.

The author skillfully weaves the life story of Dierdre Hunt, from her impoverished childhood growing up in the Flats, to her interactions with the Anglo-Irish in the fashionable quarter. The backgrounds of other characters are also fleshed out with painterly effect, enough to make us feel they have a pulse. Even with nameless characters the author can create a picture: here, through Quirke's eyes we see a barman:

He was young, with a short-back-and-sides haircut and a pustular neck. He wore a white shirt and a black waistcoat. Quirke noted a frayed cuff, a greasy shine at the pockets of the trousers. This country. Someone had recently offered Quirke a job in Los Angeles. Los Angeles! But would he go? A man could lose himself in Los Angeles as easily as a cuff link. (228)

I read the novel fairly quickly the first time, carried along by the story and the desire to discover the answers, answers that kept me guessing till the very last pages by the clever use of indirection and misdirection. It is a better crime novel than Christine Falls and very well made. With the second reading I enjoyed finding all the clues and foreshadows, and the wonderful weaving of the backcloth which I gleaned too quickly the first time round. We are far from the foggy cold wintry wet Dublin, but still the author creates masterful touches which make even the longest days of the summer fraught with atmosphere. There are many examples that deal with the sun such as:

The day was hot already, with shafts of sunlight reflecting like brandished swords off the roofs of motorcars passing by outside in the smoky, petrol-blue air. (37)

or,

By four o'clock the daylight was already curling insidious fingers round the edges of the curtains in his bedroom. (35)

These descriptions tend to follow Quirke about--like death-- as they are his perceptions, his conceits:

The bricks of the houses he passed by seemed today a deeper shade of oxblood, and in the gardens lush, damp dahlias hung their scarlet heads as if exhausted after the effort of coming into such prodigious bloom. He turned in at the gate and rang the doorbell and waited, eyeing the violent flowers. He took off his hat and held it in his hands; the dark felt was finely jeweled with mist. (266)

There seems to be a suggestive parallel between Quirke's trajectory with that of his daughter's: Quirke involves himself with Kathryn White, while his daughter Phoebe becomes involved with Leslie White and we come to see how these damaged souls, damaged each in their own way, share troubled motivations. Quirke distrusts the "tentacles" of coincidence which have brought them into the same vortex,but the action takes place in the south east quarter of Dublin, and as one writer wrote, "coincidence traced back far enough, leads to inevitability." Phoebe lives on Harcourt Street, and works in the Maison des Chapeaux on Grafton Street; Dierdre Hunt's business the Silver Swan hair salon was just around the corner on Anne Street. Quirke lives on Upper Mount Street, and the mysterious Dr. Kreutz lives in a basement flat on Adelaide. Although other characters live in the suburbs, they spiral round each other, sometimes passing each other unbeknownst until the resolutions at the very end of this novel--one example reminded me of a scene from one of my favourite recent films, L'Homme du train.

I thoroughly enjoyed the novel, and now anticipate the next. Could it involve Dublin's Phoenix Park whose gates Quirke and Inspector Hackett--with his hat--had approached but never entered? Or could we see Quirke doing some consulting in Los Angeles? That might be interesting. However, Dublin is such a wonderful character in itself, it would be a shame to leave it. I have yet to visit Dublin. Yet to follow in my father's footsteps searching his Dundalk roots. One day perhaps. Until then, I shall have to wait for the next installment to enjoy the vicarious pleasure of walking the streets of another era.

To keep up to date with everything Black, there is an excellent website for Benjamin Black, which includes a short video of John Banville/Benjamin Black discussing his work and Dublin itself.

-map from the front free endpaper of Dublin: A Study in Environment by John Harvey(London: B. T. Batsford, 1949).

Dark Knowledge: Banville's Black Cloak

Christine Falls / Benjamin Black
There is little pretense, or is it little faith, or perhaps both, in the fact that the rear dustwrapper flap of the American edition of Christine Falls reveals quite plainly that Benjamin Black is John Banville. (I assume it is the same with the British edition pictured here, a cover which captures, unlike the American cover art, the atmosphere of the setting.) Was this the forthrightness of Banville himself not wanting to pull the wool over our eyes? Unlikely. The publishers? Most likely. They must have weighed the readership of a new crime series with the known factor of Banville followers, Ban's Fans so to speak, and after a little mathematical work realised there would be good sales all round with the combination.
Banville's choice of pseudonym is of interest for anything Banville creates is so. The surname "Black" is self-evidently appropriate for the "noir" crime novel. The given name, "Benjamin", translates as "son of the right hand." If Banville is left-handed then it would be seen as the work of the other. But if John Banville is right-handed then it is even more interesting for it would be the mirrored reflection of the author, a sinistral performance is delivered by his reflected self. His dark double. A rather Nabokovian conceit.

There have been some authors who, perhaps eyeing retirement in the south of France, have tried to forge a new identity and leave their long list of under appreciated, though critically acclaimed, literary novels behind like a wardrobe that is no longer working for them. I think of the Canadian novelist, Trevor Ferguson, whose alter-ego, John Farrow, has provided some interest in the battle against crime. But Banville is at the top of the heap and has done well financially, so unless he likes the horses too much, we can assume he has always found this genre appealing and is looking for a challenge. But though to write pseudonymously is possible, to write anonymously is difficult. We live in times of book signings, author tours, trade shows and book expos, and interviews across the gamut. What is an author to do? Perhaps he could sport a mustache, or don Simenon-like spectacles and smoke a pipe, and say, "Yes, people often say I look like John Banville the literary author." No, it won't do. One cannot lie. One must leave those to ones characters.

And lie they do. Falsehoods are the very supports holding their lives in place. Indeed, It seems that place and period are the very inspirations for the novel, a time when lies and religious sins were abundant. Dublin in the 1950s is a darkly etched cityscape. The ghosts of LeFanu and Wilde would find their old Merrion Street haunts to have frightfully changed. His main protagonist, Quirke, the pathologist who prefers his drapes drawn, and the dead to the living, wanders within a rather small circumference of south east central Dublin, but one gets a feel for the wet streets and rank odors, and one can almost smell the omniscient cigarette smoke. He paints his characters with quick flourishes of the brush, like an Augustus John with a two foot brush at arms length, and we wonder at the skilled use of colour. Minor characters come alive with a few deft strokes. I rather like Poole in chapter one, Quirke's neighbour who Black/Banville describes thus:

Poole stood sideways in the barely open doorway of his flat, neither in nor out, his accustomed stance, with an expression at once truculent and timid. He was an early riser, if indeed he ever slept. He wore a sleeveless pullover and a dicky-bow, twill trousers sharply creased, gray carpet slippers. He looked, Quirke always thought, like the father of a fighter pilot in one of those Battle of Britain films, or better still, the father of the fighter pilot's girlfriend.

Another character who seems to pass through doorways sideways is the young protestant admirer of Phoebe with an Irish given name, Conor Carrington:

Conor Carrington was, Quirke noted, the kind of person who enters sideways through a doorway, slipping rather than stepping in. He was tall and sinuous with a long, pale face and the hands, slender and pliant and white. . . . he had the look, Quirke thought, of a man arriving unwillingly at the wake of someone with whom he had been barely acquainted.

These descriptions carry much other information and colour the backcloth of the period; the protestant and catholic issues loom over the stage like blasted trees bereft of leaf pointing sharp fingered branches at each other.
I won't detail the plot. Only say that by the last quarter of the novel I felt I was reading a book by Benjamin Black. But that may have been the shift of place, a shift to Boston, and the fact that the finish line was in view, the dust having settled from the revelations so to speak.

Will life prevail? If, in the equation a lie takes the "f" out of life, then the "f" must represent truth, and the "f" will try to prevail. But there is always a cost. The book ends in the spring with the hope of renewal and change, warm soft breezes and the hint of justice. But one can only imagine the foggy autumn rounds, the slippery way along the tow path, the smokey pubs and clouds lowering over Merrion Street. A place where justice is thwarted by the powers in high places using sinister information and brute force. I already anticipate the next Benjamin Black crime novel, but I do hope Banville will return as well. Even if he is sporting a mustache.