Pure Drivel (1998) - Steve Martin

This fall, the man who somehow brought us both The Jerk and Cheaper by the Dozen 2, will be publishing his memoir, Born Standing Up. Perhaps the story of Steve Martin's early years in stand-up comedy will better inform us of his latter film choices, three decades of both enlightened and dubious roles. Whatever theatrical missteps he may have taken along the way, Martin has clearly made up for in recent bouts of surprising literary ambition.

Culled from a series of essays first published in the New Yorker, Pure Drivel preceded Martin's first critically received writings, the novellas Shopgirl (2000) and The Pleasure of My Company (2003). Martin already had a dozen screenplay credits to his name, including The Jerk, as well as the decades-old, out-of-print essay collection, Cruel Shoes (1979). Pure Drivel, instead, showcased for the first time Martin's breadth of literary talents, from variations on the short story to creative non-fiction. The strongest of which sophisticatedly satirize popular culture and human nature, but Martin finds success just as well in absurdist, and joke-heavy pieces.

The sheer variety of the essays causes the book to stumble at times, but at an average of 3-5 pages the next is never far away, and the throwaway pieces are often bookended by much stronger works. "Mars Probe Finds Kittens," a string of half-funny kitten jokes, is followed up by the much stronger "Dear Amanda," a series of letters from Joey to Amanda, who recently broke up. Each letter reiterates Joey's threat/plea, "this will be the last letter I write you." The first is heartfelt, thanking her for their "wonderful experience," but as they continue Joey slowly undermines whatever dignity he had left by finding more excuses to continue to write, call, or stop by Amanda's apartment. The letters are filled with clever one-liners, such as the warning Joey offers Amanda about her new boyfriend, Francisco: "Latins. One woman is never enough." But aside from the jokes, the piece is also sad, and the letters are pathetic. In them Martin shows us the depths a broken heart can reach, even if many of us would never feel the need to return a single sake cup for the chance of an otherwise fruitless visit.

Martin's strongest literary devices, seen throughout the book in his best pieces and combined together in "Dear Amanda," are his inventive use of form and his portrayal of the hopeless hero. Pure Drivel opens with "A Public Apology," in which Martin assumes the identity of an imprisoned political figure and offers a blanket apology speech for both his mundane and quite illegal/inhumane transgressions. Martin's unique take on form can also be seen in "Taping My Friends," in which a man prods his closest friends to repeat embarrassing secrets they have already revealed so that he may tape them on a hidden recorder, a la Linda Tripp. Another example from "Side Effects," a rambling collection of a fake drug's side effects: "May cause stigmata in Mexicans."

These specific essays are genuinely funny, but alone they could probably do just as well in a set of Dave Barry gift books. The combination of these quick punches with the few short literary works, however, is an adept prelude to Martin's later quirky, eartfelt novellas. In the short piece "How I Joined Mensa," Martin takes the self-confident yet pathetically hopeless hero, and follows him as he tries to infiltrate the group of geniuses with IQs of 132 and above. Through an absurd set of circumstances, which informs the reader that he clearly doesn't belong in Mensa, Rod stumbles into one of their dinner parties. How does he know it's a Mensa party? Words like "'feldspar,' and 'eponym' filled the air." And then there is Lola, for whom he recites the poetry of Goethe, and then promptly forgets his own name. This is a slyly amusing short, and Martin effectively satirizes the intellectuals, and imposters alike. In the novella The Pleasure of My Company, Martin revisits a similar character, a social misfit with OCD, from a much more sympathetic point of view, but the "Mensa" short serves as an entertaining appetizer to that longer piece.

Pure Drivel is reminiscent of Woody Allen's collection of essays Getting Even. Both are hard to categorize, and deal with a plethora of neurotic and hopeless characters, so it's unfortunate then that both are labeled "Humor," and probably found alongside the Garfield Jumbo 3-Packs. There are intriguing ideas at work in both, and they just so happen to be funny and written by stand-up comics more famous for their film work than prose. Random House has done a nice job of recently releasing Woody Allen's Insanity Defense: The Complete Prose, selling it alongside their regular trade paperbacks. It'd be nice to see a similar collection for when Born Standing Up hits stores in November. It could be one big catchall for Martin's short pieces, Pure Drivel and Cruel Shoes, as well as his longer plays "The Underpants" and "Picasso at the Lapin Agile." There's more to Steve Martin than the actor in The Jerk and those Cheaper by the Dozen movies. Ultimately, though, the most rewarding gift he could give this holiday season would be another novella, or maybe even a full length novel this time around.

The Snake (1964) by Mickey Spillane

Written in 1964, The Snake was a return to pulp fiction for the prolific Mickey Spillane. Two years earlier he revived his signature series, starring Detective Mike Hammer, with The Girl Hunters, after nearly a decade of forgoing fiction for the glamours of working in Hollywood.

In this novel, Mike Hammer returns to work alongside some old pals in the NYPD, this time carrying a federal badge whose power he continually abuses. The story begins when an old flame, Velda, shows up in town after a seven year absence. From there, a young girl, her District Attorney-turned-Gubernatorial-candidate father, some hitmen, a dead skeleton with a shotgun, and a gang of 1950's muscle mobsters are thrown into a circular, yet convoluted plot involving a seemingly botched bank robbery.

Spillane's major faults as a writer are largely involved with such grandiose plot lines. He relies on one liners to often explain huge chunks of a character's back story, such as Velda's absence: "It took seven years," she says, "to learn a man's secret and escape Communist Europe with information that will keep us equal or better than they are." Spillane's oversimplification, and vision of a spy subplot, hinder the advancement of the story he is telling. Other times he gets so wrapped up in the scale of the world he has created, Spillane simply loses our suspension of disbelief, particularly with the extent of the mob's involvement in a seemingly petty affair, and Velda's thirty odd year chastity for Hammer.

At other times Spillane sounds as if he's already spent his most ingenious plot twists on his seven earlier Detective Hammer novels. Nearly all major plot turns are outrageously coincidental and improbable, the most egregious being the novel's necromantic finale. Despite as much, the quality of Spillane's storytelling is what makes The Snake so addictive, and delightful, including the skeleton in the last scene. It's by far one of the most predictable and yet shockingly hilarious endings to any mystery I've read.

Spillane writes a truly engaging and cinematic mystery, with only a few narrative speedbumps. His knack for details can bring to life the most preposterous of scenes. And sometimes he can be just downright poetic:

"One of the hookers spotted my two twenties on the bar and broke away from her tourist friend long enough to hit the cigarette machine behind me. Without looking around she said, 'Lonely?'

I didn't look around either. 'Sometimes.'"

Hammer's larger than life ego, and infallibility, doesn't carry the literary weight of Raymond Chandler's introspective Philip Marlowe (and far more amusing drunk) or nearly the cleverness of Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes (whose tale "The Adventure of the Speckled Band" is inversely echoed in The Snake), but instead, Hammer offers us pure entertainment.

Spillane often referred to his audience as "customers" rather than readers,and I think I've got at least another Mike Hammer purchase in me, even if it is just for an airplane.