The Last Good Kiss by James Crumley (review)

Reviews 243 among the Caweltians, Jones chooses to act upon Cawelti’s suggestion that aesthetic, as well as purely cultural, considerations might be worth explor­ ing. “Changes in the character of the Western hero,” Jones tells us, “re­ sulted from the complex interplay of several aesthetic and socio-psychological dynamics which, in the last analysis, remain inextricably inter­ woven.” (p. 117) One hopes that scholars will follow Jones’ lead. If they do, we will soon have a deeper and more balanced appreciation for popu­ lar literature than the American Studies tradition has yet given us. One hopes, too, that Jones’ book will launch a movement to study, preserve, and make more accessible the dime novels that still exist. Paper­ back reprints of a few outstanding or representative examples of the genre, like Philip Durham’suseful — but lonely— editions of Seth Jones and Deadwood Dick on Deck (1966) would be most welcome. GARY TOPPING, Utah State Historical Society The Last Good Kiss. By James Crumley. (New York: Random House, 1978. 259 pages, $8.95.) Although nobody has investigated the genealogical niceties in detail, it is pretty generally agreed that westerns and thrillers have family in com­ mon. The relationship may not be conjugal or parental, but the two are at least kissing cousins. They are also both commonly assumed to wear the bar sinister of polite letters, to be the sort of kinfolk that are fine in their place, but that you wouldn’t want your daughter to marry. Some­ thing like this could (and doubtless will) be said of The Last Good Kiss which, if read unsympathetically, can easily be dismissed as yet another whodunit, genus private eye, species missing person. Ostensibly this novel asks the question of what has happened to the long-missing Betty Sue Flowers and of whether the narrator, private detective Sughrue, will find out. To the latter point the experienced reader will be apt to answer “Yes” even before he picks the novel up; to the former, the jaded reader will probably respond “Who cares?” These reactions, however understandable, will be unfortunate, for The Last Good Kiss, like most good westerns and thrillers, is an impressive example of the philosophical novel of adventure, a morganatic literary child whose roots are distinguished but whose dark and comely branches have been literarily disinherited. Crumley’s book, though tightly plotted and filled with its share of titillating adventures in the world of porno movies, lusty (and lustful) ladies, fast cars, and hard liquor, is finally much more than a clever exercise in suspense. The real question posed by the novel 244 Western American Literature is not whodunit, but why they done it, and why they are so anxious to find out what it was they done. Aiding Sughrue in his search are Trahearne, an alcoholic author, Trahearne’s past and present wives, Betty Sue’s mother, and a marvelous beer-drinking bulldog named Fireball Roberts, all of whom (with the possible exception of Fireball) have different reasons for discov­ ering what has happened to Betty Sue. The revelation is in the best tradi­ tion of the novel of suspense — perfectly appropriate within the logic of the story, yet applying a new dimension of meaning to the “why” of the adventures. Crumley’s is a first-rate story, written with delicacy and taste. It con­ cerns itself hardly at all with sex and violence for their own sakes, a point which is all the more remarkable in a novel depending for much of its plot upon the nuances of behavior within the porno film industry. The nar­ rator Sughrue, on one level just another “tough guy” detective, is from a more profound perspective an implausible Everyman: not one who, like Parson Weem’s doubtless exemplary but unbelievable Washington, cannot tell a lie, Sughrue descends from a line of heroes with an integrity remini­ scent of Beowulf’s— he has not sworn many oaths falsely. Finally, one should mention Fireball, the kind of dog that people who love dogs love. He too is an unpromising bastard: he owns no kinship with Old Dog Tray or Old Shep. His unacknowledged father is Lion, who brings down the great bear in Faulkner...