Queenpin by Megan Abbott
My rating: 4/5 cats
grrrl-noir!
megan freaking abbott—i knew i wanted to read you for a reason! and before you ask—noooo this is most definitely not YA, despite my vow to only read YA until the paper is due. but greg borrowed this from the library, and i really wanted to read it, so i borrowed it from him and here we are. do not give this to a teenage girl. it would be disastrous.
this book is old school noir written with a contemporary sensibility: all the trappings are there in the lingo and the characters’ costumings, but this is some excellently violent shit right here. and i haven’t read a lot of noir, not classic stuff anyway, but my understanding was that it pulled its punches a little bit; that there was a lot more implied than explicitly stated; that it stayed a little classy. for example, i don’t think dashiell hammett ever used the word “cocksucker.” in a book, at least.
not so here. or at least the violence is explicit. the violence is, quite literally, wallowed in. the sex bits are more implicit; all the vocabulary of lust is evident, and the sex is consensually violent, but only hinted at. there are no bedroom scenes as such, not the “sex is violent” of that little ditty: showed me everybody naked and disfigured, nothing’s shocking, but there is definitely some roughness here, and it leaves its mark.
i really really enjoyed this book.
and that doesn’t make me a sicko, although basically i have just told you i enjoyed a rough-sex-and-killing book. but this is still a highly feminized noir. these dames are amazing characters, and although they are not soft and polite like good girls should be (wink), there is such an amazing portrayal of female strength and sensuality at work here.
gloria denton is a legend in the criminal underworld. getting on in her years (in terms of this kind of career, anyway—she is about forty), she spots our (i believe, unnamed) narrator and rescues her from a life of secretarial skills and pot roast dinners and makes her her protégée, introducing her to the criminal underbelly of easy money and unsavory characters, all the while teaching her how to be a tough impenetrable obelisk; to maintain her reputation and avoid just being an arm-candy moll. she teaches her real power, and how to play both sides of cool seduction and noli me tangere.
but kids today, or even then, just don’t listen.
our heroine was already on her way to becoming involved in the game, but she was only dabbling in it, in the employ of some pretty inexperienced players:
It was ledge-crawling for the slickest of operators, writing a numbers book. But for schmoes like Jerome and Arthur it was suicide. If I’d been around the rackets longer, I’d have told them to find another patsy. I was about to put myself on the chopping block but was too raw to know it. Too stupid to be scared.
but gloria sweeps in with her impeccably tailored sharkskin suits, sees her potential, and nurtures it, setting her up in a swanky apartment and teaching her the ins and outs of the game, all the while monitoring her for skill and loyalty.
but there is always a man.
a man who is totally the wrong man.
and our young grifter knows he is the wrong man, but cannot resist, and that is the best part of this book. she knows from the moment she lays eyes on him that he will be her downfall, but she cannot help herself, and it is her inner thoughts about this uncontrollable lust even while knowing how it will all play out* that makes for the most compelling psychological study i have read.
it is a truly accomplished piece of writing that transcends the genre. although i suppose greg would be a better judge of that, since he is more familiar with the genre overall. i am so going to read all her other noir novels, and have just bought her new, non-noir novel, and i strongly suggest checking her out, if you like good books.
*well, maybe not exactly how it will play out—yeesh!
