Okay, this fine writer gets it. Gets the whole Top Town vibe.
I’ll also mention that I’ve known him for 35 years, went to high school with him, and lived with him for two years in college. None of which, I think, makes him an unreliable reviewer. Just a long string of coincidences, that’s all.
Richard Loranger is a poet currently in Oakland, but his impact is felt nationwide. He’s traveled internationally for his poetry — if you ever see his name on a performance bill near you, you need to go. He is a mesmerizing performer and mind-bending writer, author of numerous books, including Poems for Teeth and He Orange Boo. (All his publications can be found here.) He knows words, and makes ideas bend into pretzels. So when he says “ultimately James Finn Garner doesn’t mess around,” you’d best believe him.
Thanks, Richard. As we used to say in high school, you’re the tits.
A couple of years ago, I wrote a review of an unusual and thoroughly enjoyable book by James Finn Garner, Honk Honk, My Darling. It heralded a new genre that was destined to be born from the rubble of the Twentieth Century: Clown Noir. Stirring (not shaking) a fine blend of mid-century crime tales and circus fiction, Garner created the world of Top Town, a ghetto for washed up circus folk who eek a living with their big top skills in the fine city of Spaulding. The story focuses on Rex Koko, a once-famed clown who’s just about hit bottom, and whose luck only gets worse when he unwittingly witnesses a series of very suspicious and acrobatic deaths. Rex is eventually forced to solve the crimes, using his many grouchy and theatrical talents, before they get pinned on him. This book tickled me from start to finish, both with its wild world and its skillful and highly amusing patois of noir and circus speak.
So why am I bringing this up again? Because to my ludicrous delight, Garner has recently published not one but TWO sequels – Double Indignity and The Wet Nose of Danger – and each is better than the last. I’m going to give you three reasons to dive into this trilogy, assuming you have enough sense of humor to handle it. And that’s not one reason for each book, but all three for each. I ain’t foolin’ around here.
Three. These books contain scenes that you won’t find anywhere else. Sure, you’ve read books with car chases, but with tiny clown car chases? Unlikely. How about a snake charmer with a thing for size 42 feet? Ever imagined the chaos of a clown bar, where all the clowns are real? Or a clowndown, a full-on one-on-one competition of circus skills – to the death? And these are just a glimpse of the cornucopia of strange, and strangely convincing, scenes that run consistently through these tales.
Two. Koko’s world gets bigger and more detailed with each new book. One of the things I really liked about Honk Honk My Darling was how vividly the world of Top Town was painted. But as each story grows, so does Garner’s vision of it; not just that of Top Town and its abundant (and colorful) inhabitants, but as well its environs, the broader scape of Spaulding, and eventually the America and globe in which it plays. The trilogy is set in the mid-1940’s U.S., amidst the real struggles and issues of the times, and in those struggles dwells the circus subculture in all its bedraggled realism. But it’s not just a lifestyle culture here, it’s a real, born and bred, oppressed minority culture trying to make due in a non-circus power structure. Both in it’s own hijinks, and in intercourse with the “townies” and the world at large, the circus culture becomes more hilarious and poignant with every page.
One. The mysteries and the stories themselves are really very good. Because ultimately James Finn Garner doesn’t mess around. Sure, he’s having a spree of things with this bizarre admixture of styles, and the tone ranges from amusing to hilarious (even the grim scenes, however alarming, somehow tickle), but he’s also dirt-familiar with the trappings and tropes of good old fashioned noir, and doesn’t miss a beat when it comes to those. The who-(or what-)dunnits are many, and twisted, and dark, and should satisfy the cravings of any craven mysteryphile. At least, as I say, those with a sense of humor – and who says mystery readers don’t have one, or can’t have one about their beloved genre? I’m sure at least four or five must. Wait, what’s that snarling crowd pounding at my door?
BANG!!
Forgot there was a countdown, didn’t you?
Oh! And one more reason: the totally fun language-mash I spoke of never gets old. Through scene after scene, the rube-plus-flatfoot vibe stays fresh and vibrant, and the recombinations just keep on coming. Here’s a little taste from The Wet Nose of Danger, in a vignette featuring a fete at a certain slinky senator’s estate.
The first guests started to arrive, drifting onto the lawn like autumn leaves, only infinitely better dressed. This crowd had more upper crust than pie on a trampoline…. You know that old saying, money will never make you happy? That’s a lot of elephant wash. These flatties were having the time of their lives.
And that’s just a whiff of cotton candy in a whole circusful of redolence. (Yeah, I ain’t as good at this as Garner.) If you like that taste, you’ll find a bigger serving of it in my original review of Honk Honk My Darling. And if you get tripped up by any of the language, don’t worry, there’s a glossary at the end of each book. By the time you finish the trilogy, you’ll be fluent in Clown Noir yourself.
Oh oh! And one more one more reason: these books give yet more proof of what idiots the publishing industry are. Despite the fact that James Finn Garner is a much-published author, with three NYTimes bestsellers to his credit, he couldn’t find a publishing house that would touch these tales. They just couldn’t figure out how to package them – yet they get acclaim after acclaim. So I say, throw a great big pie in that publishing house face, and buy, buy, buy these books. Buy hundreds of them! You can get them both as paperbacks and e-books on Garner’s site and, if you must, on Amazon. You’ll be gum-on-the-shoe glad you did.
Step aside, James Ellroy – the Clown is back in town.
