Intruder in the Dust and Vintage Paperbacks: A Book Review

I love vintage falling apart paperback mysteries. The covers are so melodramatic and often tacky. The physical books do not stand the test of time, or the test of having their pages turned. Sometimes the pages fall from the binding before I can even finish reading the book the first time. 

I cannot resist. 

One of my favorites is William Faulkner’s Intruder in the Dust (1948). I have two 1962 Signet paperbacks -- the one with the author’s name in yellow across the top, a black and white illustration, the feet of a menacing crowd encircling two men, one kneeling. I also have two other editions of this unloved failed mystery. I even wrote about this book for my dissertation. Its mystery plot is so illogical and baffling; its treatment of race so troubled; its most annoying character so long-winded. 

On the front cover of my favorite 1962 editions, we read: ““The superb novel of murder and violence in a small southern town by one of America’s greatest writers.” And on the back, we are assured that this is the “explosive story of an arrogant old man who faced death rather than relinquish his identity… and a young boy who broke the law to save him” (ellipses in original). 

As you’re reading Intruder in the Dust, you’re probably wondering: Did I lose track of something that would make this all make sense? Critics relentlessly point this out, but: Isn’t that what people wonder when they read Light in August (1932) too? But Light in August is serious Faulkner, from his prime. Light in August may be more worth reading than Intruder in the Dust, but here’s the thing: I don’t actually care. 

People say Intruder in the Dust is terrible because the plot is terrible.

People, with ample justification, read Yoknapatawpha County’s Gavin Stevens, a lawyer, as Faulkner’s mouthpiece, which is awkward, because Gavin is wrong and in a way that aligns all too beautifully with Faulkner’s own argument in a piece published in Life magazine on March 5, 1956 as “A Letter to the North: William Faulkner, the South’s foremost writer, warns on integration—‘Stop now for a moment.’” 

And also: Just shut up Gavin Stevens. This guy really likes to talk, and it’s way too easy to get lost in his monologues. 

People say Intruder in the Dust is a pot boiler. They saw that cover and knew Faulkner needed money, and the book was popular. As Lawrence H. Schwartz puts it in Creating Faulkner’s Reputation: The Politics of Modern Literary Criticism, “In January 1948, Faulkner dropped work on the fable and began writing a short detective novel that he was sure he could complete. It was Intruder in the Dust. Faulkner finished the manuscript in April but wanted to delay in order to sell segments of the novel to magazines for additional income” (61). Yes, this bad mystery was written fast and it was written for money. It sold well and Faulkner got a $40,000 movie contract from MGM.

But here’s the thing: If you want to read a real Faulkner pot boiler, read Soldier’s Pay. 

I have a vintage copy, complete with a brooding man seated in the background and a beautiful woman with a pensive expression and a voluminous yet revealing pink garment in the foreground. 

I only have one copy of Soldier’s Pay.

Ambivalent Recommendation—Masie Dobbs: A book review

I put Jacqueline Winspear’s Masie Dobbs (published in 2003), the first novel in a series featuring psychologist and investigator Masie Dobbs, on my reading list on the strength of a recommendation card at my local bookstore. I am always on the lookout for a good mystery, especially a good mystery series. 

When I read a mystery, I want to relax, and there is nothing more relaxing than being able to just pick up another book in a series, knowing the world, knowing the perimeters, knowing what will be expected of me as I spend some time with a familiar character. So part of the appeal is that Winspear has published a long series. Seeing that someone has published 15 since 2003 however, also fills me with apprehension. Is the writing going to be annoyingly bad? Is the plotting going to be sloppy? Is this book going to be worth reading for me? 

So I started reading Winspear’s first book with some hope but also perfectly ready to set it aside never to be picked up again. What made me commit was the homage to PD James’ Cordelia Grey series. Less well-known than her series featuring detective Adam Dalgliesh, the Cordelia Grey series is a favorite of mine. When Winspeare introduces Maisie Dobbs as she enters her new office and has a discussion about the hanging of her new name plate, the reference to Grey is unmistakable. The parallel extends: Masie and Cordelia are both female investigators just setting off on her own, as the older men who trained them exit the scene. It was enough for me that Winspear clearly admires James, one of my personal favorite mystery writers— one so good that her characterization, scene-setting, and prose over-all transcends the genre to the point that I include her on my list of top writers. 

Winspear is not on that list. At times, as I read her first Masie Dobbs, I thought about stopping. I don’t read much historical fiction and don’t tend to enjoy it all that much, so the substantial elements of historical fiction didn’t work as well for me as they would for some readers.

The particular form that the sentimentality and over-wrought tendencies of historical fiction takes in the Masie Dobbs series may be deduced from the time period (between the wars) and the fact that Masie, as she often points out, was a nurse in France in WWI. This is a mystery set in the golden age of detective fiction, and that means tea and trains, class warfare—of a fictionally smooth variety—and of course the legacy of WWI. Interestingly, while it is the tendency towards historical fiction that almost caused me to put the book aside, the interest in a different time and place (particularly one so central to a certain kind of detective fiction) is what made me finish the book and put number two on my list as well.

Don’t Care for Agatha Christie? Read The Murder of Roger Ackroyd Anyway

In this brief and not entirely spoiler-free book review of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie (Does anyone care, at this point, about spoilers for a very famous and widely read book published in 1926?), I share my fraught relationship with the most famous mystery writer ever. And I tell you to read one of her best for a particularly engaging look at Poirot.

Christie is not my favorite Golden Age mystery writer. I first became obsessed with mysteries, as I remember it, when I was assigned to read “The Blue Carbuncle” by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart” around eighth grade. I then went to the local library and checked out mystery after mystery. That’s when I discovered Dorothy Sayers and read all of her mysteries. I moved on to Agatha Christie and quickly became frustrated by Christie’s heavy-handed manipulation. The inconsistent quality of her many novels caused me to take a long hiatus from Christie, which ended when, a few years ago, I happened upon someone’s list of her best mysteries. 

The fact is, I was looking for an excuse to explore the Christie cannon beyond Murder on the Orient Express and a few ill-remembered encounters with Miss Marple and Poirot. 

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd will be on almost every Christie fan’s list of favorites. As well it should be. The amusing narrator Hastings is replaced in this novel by Dr. Shepperd, physician and friend of the murder victim. Somehow in this book, Christie’s tendency towards manipulation and over-the-top plot twists delights rather than annoys.

Why? Dr. Shepperd is one of the great narrators. This isn’t Ishmael of Moby Dick, for good and for ill, but Dr. Shepperd’s perspective on Poirot is engaging enough to make the book worth the read. At one point, I found myself wishing for more mysteries narrated by Dr. Shepperd, a series, to match the series narrated by Hastings.

Getting to know Poirot through Dr. Shepperd’s eyes is not to be missed. His sister Caroline reminded me of the sisters in Barbara Pym’s Some Tame Gazelle. I’d read a book about her, though I’m not sure I’d like Dr. Shepperd to narrate it. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd features village life and a superb version of the alibi fun that is part of the genre. 

If you don’t want to worry about how many minutes it takes to walk from A to B, and A to C, and B to C and back, or if it annoys you to think about the ramifications of a table that was moved a few inches, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is not for you. 

If you object absolutely to Christie’s trademark plotting and manipulation, this is not for you.

But it is for everyone else.