Owls Don’t Blink by Erle Stanley Gardner
(writing as AA Fair)
published 1942
Of the books by ESG that I have read, (he wrote around 150, my sample is small in comparison) I most enjoy the Bertha Cool/Donald Lam books.
Bertha runs an investigation agency. This is how I have
described her in the past: ‘Bertha is
a splendid character – hard as nails, enormous, and prone to referring to
herself in the 3rd person’. Donald is her puny, ex-lawyer
operative, a very wily character indeed. They make a great pair. I have also
pointed out that Bertha ‘uses the endearment ‘lover’ to Donald all the time (he
is clearly not in this role with her) sounding like nothing so much as Northern
cake shop ladies of my youth.’ Bertha would like my food comparison – she is
very keen on eating and talking about it, and in this book everyone is obsessed
with the subject, and many fine New Orleans meals are described in detail.
I picked up this one after
reading a review over at Invisible Event (as with so many books – I might as well have
that sentence as a template ready to go), and I did enjoy it, but I feel Jim
probably made more sense of the plot than I did. The main action takes place in
New Orleans. There are two young women who may or may not be impersonating each
other: one has a divorce on her hands, the other business dealings. They share
a flat, but maybe not simultaneously. Someone works in a very shady nightclub,
everyone visits bars and eats those meals mentioned above. Someone is shot in
the apartment. After a while I gave up trying to distinguish between Roberta
and Edna - if you want more about the plot I suggest you read Jim’s post.
I just enjoyed the clothes
and the nightclubs and other details, which are excellent.
For example, there is some
emphasis on ‘pure coffee’ – but as opposed to what? I wondered about chicory,
well-known for eking out expensive coffee (this was wartime) but claimed as a
flavour improver. And as it turns out, chicory coffee was also known as New
Orleans coffee, so this is what Bertha wants to avoid.
There is an interesting semi-scam involving silk stockings
– Donald uses it to get someone’s address, but also plays a trick on Bertha. This
is from the letter he creates:
At the time of Pearl Harbor a
Japanese ship put into a Mexican port and we were able to obtain its cargo of
silk stockings…Simply place your name and address, the size, style, and color
of sheer silk stocking you prefer to wear on the enclosed blank, put it in the
enclosed, stamped, addressed envelope, drop it in the mail. You are not
obligated in any way.
Gardner is prolific, but he still paid a lot of attention
to plot in every book, he didn’t skimp. However he maybe could have edited a
bit more: in this book he uses ‘knuckles sounded/banged’ to mean ‘someone
knocked on the door’ – but he uses it seven times, which I feel is excessive.
I had to have several runs at this sentence to make sense
of it:
Once when I went out with a
fellow one of the girls in the office didn’t like she came to me and told me
that a man had given his life in order to protect my honor, that I shouldn’t
hold it cheaply.”
[An American humour writer called Dave Berry would come up
with the opposite: sentences that should be impossible to parse, but are very
clear. My favourite example from him is this: ‘She parks in whoever’s not there
that day’s space.’]
There is the Jack O’Lantern nightclub, but there is also
Jack O’Leary’s bar (I think they are separate establishments, but I’m
not sure).
But the description of the club shows his good points: it
is atmospheric and visual:
The Jack-O’-Lantern Nightclub was typical of dozens of other
little nightclubs that clustered through the French Quarter. There was a floor
show of sorts, half a dozen hostesses, and tables crowded into three rambling
rooms which had been merged together by a process of knocking out doors and
making full-length openings where windows had been. Out in front a dozen
publicity pictures of the various performers in the floor show were exhibited
in a large, glass-covered frame. It was early, and the place hadn’t as yet
begun to fill up. There were a few stragglers here and there. A sprinkling of
soldiers, some sailors, four or five older couples, evidently tourists,
determined to “see the sights” and starting early.
The hostesses in the club wear dramatic clothes: ‘I could
see the long curves of her body beneath the red gown which clung to her like
wet silk.’ Marilyn is “the girl in the cream-colored satin.” “Marvelous
figure,”
The floorshow includes this:
A girl with an Egyptian profile, a pair of shorts covered
with hieroglyphics, and a bra decorated in the same way came out, sat
cross-legged on the floor, and made angles with her hands and elbows.
(The picture shows something much more respectable: a ballet,
called Egypta, by the Denishawn company.)
The top photo of woman in evening dress is in fact Gypsy
Rose Lee, featured on the blog
before. And, she also featured in a post on another book Appointment
in New Orleans by Tod Claymore, with a similar setting.
Drawing of couple in evening dress also from NYPL.
There’s another Cool/Lam
book here, and a different ESG setup
here.
The author, weirdly, has featured more in the occasional esoteric Clothes in
Books series, Furniture Watch, because of the davenports – see either of those
two posts for more, and the Evelyn Waugh connection.
A year ago I posted on another classic New Orleans book – Dinner
at Antoine’s by Francis Parkinson Keyes – and there are a few others
on the blog (including one of my favourite blogpost
titles: “Why is that stripper crying? – lost in New Orleans”).
I like the nightclub/bar/shops settings, Moira. That can give you a good look at the times. And I think you're right about Gardner and his plotting. I'm by no means thoroughly familiar with this books, but what I have read shows careful attention to plot. Oh, and I love it that you mentioned Dave Barry; he's quite popular in our household.
ReplyDeletethanks Margot - I always think I will never get to the end of Erle Stanley Gardner, I don't feel any urgency to read them, but there'll always be another one when I need one!
DeleteGlad to hear you're a fan of Dave Barry - he's not really known in the UK, but I have fond memories of his work from when we lived in the US.
Was the Egyptian dance inspired by Wilson, Keppel and Betty, perhaps?
ReplyDeleteIt's a question of whether they were all inspired by Tutenkhamum in the 1920s, or if it was a line through the likes of WK & B. (and now that music will be in my head all day)
DeleteThe Denishawn ballet, where I found the picture, would be outraged and haughty at the idea of the vaudeville connection! I love looking at their pictures - all their publicity shots are in the NYPL collection, and they are mesmerising as well as really useful to me in my niche requirements.
The high cost of silk stockings is one of the things that most modern readers of these books probably don't realise. Do you remember that scene in one of Christie's novels (Cards on the Table, I think, but not 100% certain) where Poirot uses a heap of silk stockings to test a girl's honesty? He tells her that he is not quite sure how many pairs there are in the heap and then leaves the room. Of course she cannot resist the temptation and of course he knew exactly how many there were.
ReplyDeleteOh yes, very much so. I am developing my great theory of the Democratization of Legs - silk stockings were a class/money indicator, but when nylons came along everyone wore the same. I am collecting my evidence, exactly, from Agatha Christie books!
DeleteSomeone I should probably remember in my will sent me 30 Lam&Cool ebooks, including this one. I'll have to load up the tablet and settle down in front of the fire this evening.
ReplyDeleteI was deployed to Louisiana for a month in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, and was briefly (and spookily - ever been to a dead city?) in NO. An enterprising citizen had swum or paddled back into town in spite of the evacuation orders and set up a restaurant of sorts in his former place of business, with a military (surplus, one hopes) GP tent where his roof had been. Good food, and the place was full of US Marshals.
I don't know about the rest of the world, but American LEOs always know where the best places to eat are.
Oh gosh that was a chilling time. New Orleans always has that attraction/glamour/danger, and always seems on the verge of something bad happening, whether it's the high incidence of fictional murders or a major real-life weather event.
DeleteI can guess from context, but what is LEO?
Sorry. Law Enforcement Officer. We are BIG on acronyms in disaster response.
DeleteAh yes.
DeleteI once was in an open shopping mall in the US, and across the carpark we could see there was an unsuccessful attempt at armed robbery at the Post Office. A number of us settled in comfortably to watch this, and as more and more police arrived, eventully someone said, admiringly, 'I've only ever seen this many police officers in one place in a doughnut shop.' This sentence has naturally entered our family language and is used whenever possible.
I have only read a couple of the Perry Masons. These do sound fun and I must try one. Chrissie
ReplyDeleteI definitely like them better than his other series.... give it a go!
Delete