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A Long Goodbye |
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| 23/09/2008 |
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It was, as usual, our precious friend Roberto Santachiara who suggested to us that year – 1997 – that no one deserved the Chandler Prize more than James Crumley. And he was – obviously – right.
Therefore, thanks to Stefano Magagnoli and Mondadori’s friendly help, James Crumley landed in Courmayeur with his moustache, his piercing eyes and his deep laugh. A Texan, surrounded incongruously by Mont Blanc’s snow, though not at all unfamiliar with cold as he had lived in Montana for a long time (in legendary Missoula, where, in the 60’s, a writers’ community became a creative reference point for many US authors, a myth that Crumley enriched with his books and his university classes).
A gigantic man, of great depth and humanity, shaken by the lightning of an ancient rage now pacified by alcohol, an anger that once flowed only from his pen. Happy to receive a prize bearing the name of his personal god, Crumley used to spend his time in the bar of the Hotel Royal, a well known meeting place for noir connoisseurs. From morning to evening, anyone could enjoy his company as long as he was a lover of the genre. Jim gave us a big present that year, one of those presents worthy of the struggle to organize a festival despite a lack of funds, a present that made us feel – at least for once – that we had not been wasting our energies for nothing. This is why he will always stay in our hearts and in our eyes, now that he is gone, somewhere, across the great plains of the sky.
When I introduce my work I always explain that I feel like Raymond Chandler’s illegitimate son: without his books, mine would be totally different. We cover mostly the same territory: he ventures along the dark streets of Los Angeles, while I like exploring the highways winding through the Western mountains. But because of the events concerning the Vietnam War, my detectives are not so tied to a traditional morality like, for instance, Philip Marlowe seems to be. I saw my friends denounced like criminals in the 60’s and 70’s due to politics and mounds of pot, which, until the early 20’s, had just been a remedy for the asthmatic. The result is that my detectives feel more at home in the company of criminals than that of solid middle-class citizens; my vision of justice is therefore less clean, maybe less complex, more confused, closer to Robert Stone and Harry Crews than to the investigative thriller.
James Crumley (excerpt from the catalogue of 1997 Noir in festival)
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