The Tyranny of Just Good Enough

Over at Contemporary Nomad, Olen Steinhauer has been busy. He’s in the process of finishing the fifth and final book in his superb Eastern Europe series, and beginning work on his new espionage trilogy. But he’s getting frustrated:

When I look over what I’ve written, I can see it’s not bad. It’s got some nice moments and overall, the writing’s just fine. It clicks along at a speedy pace, and probably makes for a fun read. So what’s the problem?

The problem is that, while it’s probably good enough to be published, it’s nothing special. In many ways, it’s been written before, and a reader won’t be finding anything all that fresh in it.

Read the whole item here.

In a weird cosmic coincidence, Steinhauer’s thoughtful post appeared the day after The New York Times ran Janet Maslin’s review of The Rabbit Factory, a debut mystery by Marshall Karp that has been generating some favorable buzz. However, Maslin (not the toughest critic to tame) wasn’t terribly impressed.

This mass-market novel has been snappily put together by its first-time author, Marshall Karp, but he did something other than merely write it. Mr. Karp has used his expertise to marketing, advertising, film and television to cherry-pick the highlights of contemporary lightweight crime fiction. To the extent that it implies individuality, self-expression and verbal ingenuity, “write” is not the word for this process.

It goes on from there. Maslin accuses Karp of embodying “a popular culture that does not put a premium on new ideas and never tires of surefire old ones.” To illustrate, she states that Karp is borrowing heavily from Robert B. Parker, Janet Evanovich, Dean Koontz, Stuart Woods, and Jasper Fforde.

For those who haven’t heard about The Rabbit Factory, it’s a police whodunit that begins with the murder of Eddie Elkins, who portrays a cartoon character named Rambunctious Rabbit at a Los Angeles theme park called Familyland. Yes, it’s clearly meant to be a stand-in for the behemoth in Anaheim, and the mystery involves finding out who is responsible for murders in the park. When I first heard about this book, it was promoted as a Westlake-like caper, and it had some appeal, though I haven’t yet read it. According to Maslin, though, the howlers come not from witty set pieces and convoluted action, but from stiff dialogue and eye-rolling contrivances (Detective Mike Lomax is still smitten with his dead wife and evidently is guided by her spirit). Jeremiah Healy, call your office.

I’m not doing justice to Maslin’s review. You should really read the whole thing here.

I really don’t know what to make of this. Unquestionably, a lot of sub-par writing gets published, and marketing sometimes triumphs over quality. But, I’m encouraged when an author like Steinhauer still manages to care about what he’s doing. As someone who subscribes to the notion that life is too short to read bad books, it gives me hope, as well as a sense of anticipation for what he eventually publishes.