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Ron Miller's DARK CORRIDORS VOL. 7, No. 22 |
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MICHAEL COLLINS' FINAL MYSTERY? THE SECRET LIFE of E. ROBERT PENDLETON |
 This is the cover of the English edition of Collins' new novel |
a 'publish or perish' world
of TheColumnists.com
In Michael Collins' new mystery, the police begin looking closely at the life of a local college professor when they discover his obscure, privately-published novel called "Scream" contains details about a notorious child murder that only the killer would know.
Since the professor--E. Robert Pendleton--is lying in a coma after a failed suicide attempt, it seems only natural that he should become the No. 1 suspect in the unsolved murder that may have haunted him for the better part of a decade.
But, then, this is a Michael Collins mystery, so it's never wise to jump to any conclusions when establishing the truth about something is of paramount concern. In his fiction, this gifted Irish writer, who now lives in America, loves to explore the ambiguities about truth and the way we define it in our troubled modern times.
The new book is called "The Secret Life of E. Robert Pendleton" in the United Kingdom, but when it's published in the U.S. on Sept. 5, it will be called "Death of A Writer" (Bloomsbury Press, $24.95). It may turn out to be the final Collins novel to fall into the mystery category.
Collins tells me he feels too confined by the "rules" of the mystery genre, which often require him to build up the "sleuth" aspects of his stories in order to satisfy what publishers believe are reader-ordained essentials. The book he's currently writing falls more easily into the area of "speculative" fiction than it does "mystery." Collins isn't comfortable with rules, which may be why his latest "mysteries"--such as "The Resurrectionists" and "Lost Souls"--have been hailed by so many reviewers as genre-busting contemporary literary novels rather than mysteries per se.
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bearing a new title, which will be sold starting Sept. 5 |
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Whatever you choose to call them, I see them as timely and fascinating novels that may have a mystery at their core, but are really more concerned with character development and the refreshing perspectives this "outsider" is bringing to so many of our American institutions.
In the new book, for instance, Collins sets his story in the academic world where the slogan "publish or perish" seems to govern the upward movement of professors. Collins knows this world because he has taught writing classes for much of the past decade, most recently at Western Washington University in Bellingham, WA. (He's no longer affiliated with the college.)
Many of his key characters come from this world. For instance, E. Robert Pendleton, like Collins, created a minor literary sensation at the beginning of his career with a collection of brilliant short stories, but he now has gone nearly 10 years without publishing anything significant and the glow surrounding him has faded. Some even would go so far as to say he's a "failed" writer.
In contrast, Collins gives us Allen Horowitz, a former colleague of Pendleton from their college days together. Horowitz belches best sellers. He's now considered the "king of the coffee table books." Horowitz gets more up-front money for a book these days than the entire faculty of some college English departments earn in a year.
When the department chairman at Bannockburn College asks Pendleton to use his old friendship with Horowitz to entice him into a speaking engagement there, that precipitates the chain of events that leads to Pendleton's suicide attempt and all the intrigue that comes afterward.
Central to all that goes on is Adi Wiltshire, a sexy and somewhat promiscuous graduate student who's in her seventh year of trying to earn a master's degree. She has decided to do her thesis on the works of Pendleton and discovers, to her surprise, that she'll inherit all his earthly possessions if he doesn't recover. It's Adi who finds, hidden in a box under a basement staircase, the privately published novel "Scream" that looms as a bombshell when people learn the secrets it contains.
Yet another key character is Ryder, the police detective assigned to determine if this little-read novel is really Pendleton's confession to one of the community's most heinous sex crimes. He, too, is burdened with suspicions that nag after him. His first wife mysteriously disappeared many years ago and some people, including even fellow police officers, have always assumed he murdered her, but got away with it.
Collins stirs all these ingredients with vigor--and his usual supply of dark humor. He has great fun producing red herrings for us and even more fun firing barbed arrows at the "publish or perish" rules for college professors, the ludicrous nature of some graduate studies, and the absurdities of the publishing world, especially when "Scream" is republished by a major house, becomes the nation's No. 1 best-seller and is hailed by many critics as an "existential masterpiece" all because it's linked to a sensational murder investigation.
Collins' also makes a spectacle out of
the Horowitz character, who may represent all the overblown American
best-seller "producers" whose names come readily to
mind.
Though the Pendleton character is almost nothing like Collins
himself, he does have Collins' irreverent sense of humor. Knowing,
for instance, that grad student Adi Wiltshire has an affinity
for "doing" Pulitzer Prize authors, Pendleton takes
special delight in telling her that Horowitz is on the short
list for the Pulitzer when she's picked to join the team meeting
Horowitz at the airport.
In order to fully enjoy Michael Collins, you need to tune yourself for his unique blend of dark, almost noir-ish plots, and his wicked style of serio-comic social criticism. If you can go there, you're in for a very special reading experience like nothing else you'll find in the mystery section of your local bookstore.
©2006 by Ron Miller.
The cover reproduction from the English edition is courtesy of
Orion Books (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London) and the book
cover from the U.S. edition is courtesy of Bloomsbury Press.
This column first posted June 26, 2006.
Ron
Miller is a former nationally syndicated television columnist
and the author of "Mystery! A Celebration," the official
companion book to PBS' "Mystery!" series. He currently
writes about television mysteries for MYSTERY SCENE magazine.
You can comment on this column online. Please address your message to either "The Editors" or Ron Miller. To send an email, click here and don't forget to mention Ron's name: talkback@thecolumnists.com
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