The quote struck me because I had
literally just finished Max Allan Collins' Bye Bye Baby, his thirteenth Nate Heller historical
true-crime novel, but the first to be published in nine years, and it
deals with the death of Monroe, in 1962. I've written before about
the Heller series, and what a crime it is, if you'll pardon the
expression, that they have basically avoided publication in Britain.
Perhaps British publishers thought that American crimes, like the
Lindbergh kidnapping, the Black Dahlia murder, or the assassinations
of Huey Long or Chicago's Mayor Cermak, wouldn't have any appeal to
their audience. But Heller has also investigated Amelia Earhart's
disappearance, the sighting of aliens at Roswell, and the murder of
Sir Harry Oakes, which involves the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. And
now Marilyn.
By the time the book opens, Heller is
highly successful, the PI to the stars, and he has a close
relationship with Monroe. She hires him to big her own house, and he
discovers that she is already being spied upon, by multiple snoops.
You should know the story by now—having been dumped by JFK and
begun an affair with brother Bobby, she was also embroiled in a feud
with Paramount over the filming of Something's Got To Give (remember
the poolside photos?). Her death was suspicious in many ways—not
least because the police were not called for hours afterwards, and
the amount of barbituates in her system was so huge it's hard to
imagine how she might've ingested them all.
Around this story Collins weaves a plot
which draws Heller back into the orbits of many people he's worked
for or encountered before—not just the Kennedys and their
hangers-on, but Sam Giancana and the mob, Frank Sinatra, and Jimmy
Hoffa. This is one of the strongest points about the Heller
series—Collins has patiently been building the connections which
amount to a dissection of at least part of the secret history of the
United States. It's odd that he should be travelling in much the same
circles as James Ellroy—I recall in an interview his explaining how
much he liked Ellroy while at the same time being unable to read his
books—but of course coming at the material from a very different
style.
Heller the character veers between two
points. He is a hard-boiled but soft-centered detective, which
occasionally makes him a very appealling character in a sentimental
sort of way. This is essential to Collins because the Heller books
are told in the first person, with a real sense of nostalgia about
them. As he himself has noted, they are not strictly speaking, period
pieces, like Stuart Kaminsky's Toby Peters or Andrew Bergman's Jack
LeVine, but to me they are often close in tone to Herman Wouk's Wind
Of War, with Heller sometimes playing a Pug Henry type character,
almost an observer, occasionally a catalyst for history.
What's interesting in Bye Bye Baby is
how much the success of the novel depends on the depth of the
characters—for example, his composite detective who's doing the
bugging of Monroe's house, and his Dorothy Killgallen et al composite
journalist are both key characters with whom Heller has to
interact—and neither gets the time to be totally convincing. On the
other hand, his historical figures are much more so—both Kennedys,
John Roselli, Giancana, Joe DiMaggio, Peter Lawford and even Sinatra
all fit the personalities we think we know, but have real and
sometimes surprising depth. The lesser-known figures around Marilyn
are likewise drawn well—though some of them, especially Dr Ralph
Greenson, were sort of parodies of themselves already. I was curious
to learn that James Hamilton, of the LAPD's Intelligence Division,
was briefly head of security for the NFL; I've met a couple of his
successors along the way.
The key, of course, is his Marilyn.
There is an element of voyeurism to Heller's own relationship with
her, as well as a couple of very touching moments. But where Collins
gets it best is when he shows her trying to control her own life,
particularly her business side, but being vulnerable because she can
never control her emotional life. That insight, and the way it's
expressed make the book work. And the 'solution' makes a certain
amount of sense—it may well be the only way to draw all the
anomalies of the case together.
For all the careful characterisation, there is also a moment of unintentional
humour, which comes from the unavoidable need to sometimes be
expository in the story-telling. Heller and some cops are talking to
Eunice Murray, Marilyn's housekeeper, and one of the shadier people
in the story, Heller notes that her story sounded prepared. 'Marilyn
was “motionless” and “looked peculiar”...who talks like
that?' he asks. When, later in the book, Heller discusses Marilyn's
non-vindictive nature with Flo Kilgore, and brings up her feud with
Joan Crawford. 'I remember that,' he says. 'But she expressed her
disappointment and hurt over the affront,saying how much she'd always
admired Crawford.' I made a quick note, asking 'who talks like THAT?'
But I also found it intriguing that,
when Heller does his summing up, for our benefit, of what happened to
the characters, his mentions that Roselli was found floating in an
oil drum in Biscayne Bay. He doesn't mention that he was found just
before he was scheduled to tesitify before the House Select Committee
on Assassinations. Maybe that's because he's saving that bit info for
the aftermath of his next Heller book, Target Lancer, due out in November,
which will mark the 29th anniverary of the first Heller
novel (pubished in 1983) and the 49th of the JFK
assassination. As I said, Heller has already dealt with many of the
key figures around the assassination—including (I've been working
my way through his short stories too) one Jake Rubinstein, a Chicago
hood Heller knew in his early days, who wound up owning a strip club
in Dallas where he was better known as Jack Ruby. I'm looking forward
to it already.
BYE BYE, BABY by Max Allan Collins
Forge Books (USA) $7.99 ISBN
9780765361462
3 comments :
I just heard your commentary on the presidential campaign on BBC World Service Newshour through National Public Radio here in the States. I appreciate your insight, as I'm sick of the pundits and the rhetoric presented in soundbites instead of detailed analysis of each candidates' positions. I had to look you up to find out if you've written any more about U.S. politics, but I only found this blog and your others on art, literature and cinema. I'd be interested in reading more on the state of politics in the U.S. from the viewpoint of an expat.
Thanks for that--I'd suggest getting in touch with NPR and/or BBC and make the same comment....it might help!
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