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Robert B. Parker 2003 Interview

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(page 3 of 3)

Then how did you learn to speak street slang so well in Double Deuce?
"We used to standing around," Major said. "Stand around a lot. Stand around sell some sub."
"What kind of sub you sell?" Hawk said.
"Grain, grass, classic, Jock, motor, harp, what you need is what we got."
Hawk looked at me.
"Grass," he said. "Rock cocaine, regular powdered coke, heroin." He looked at Major. "What's motor? Speed?"
I made it up. I don't know those words, and if I did, by the time they appeared in the book, they'd be out of date, anyway. So I made them up.

How do you think your work will be viewed in 50 years?
Don't know, don't care. I think I'm pretty good, that I write pretty well. Bart Giamatti [ex-Yale president, ex-baseball commissioner] said I write better about love and sweat than anyone else. I think he was right.

You were an academic, yet you excoriate academics in The Godwulf Manuscript and Hush Money. Any possible connection?
Sure. You occasionally find a really great professor. But many of the academics I meet are the worst people in the world. They don't care about kids or writing or teaching, only about tenure and promotion. They're awful.

You've been awarded the Grand Master Award by Mystery Writers of America. But you're not really a mystery writer. What kind of writer are you?
I'm a novelist; I write novels. It's convenient for everybody but the writer to categorize writing: readers know what they like, bookstores know where to shelve them, reviewers can slot them. But it's irrelevant to me. Dostoyevsky also wrote crime novels. I'm trying to do what Faulkner or Fitzgerald tried to do. They just did it better. We're all trying to tell a compelling story.

What's next?
I have a long-term project, a novel about Jackie Robinson. It will take me four or five years. After Jackie is done, assuming I live to be 100, I'm going to write a novel about Ned Poins from Henry IV. He makes his appearance, then just disappears. I think, whatever happened to old Ned?

What do you think accounts for the success of the Spenser novels?
Don't know. But people like heroes. Spenser cannot be bought by sex or fear or money. He's serious but not anguished.

And does all the wisdom about living that fills your books also fill your life?
Yeah. I know what matters. And it's easy because only a few things matter. Joan, certainly. My sons are great successes and are connected to us and are reasonably happy. We have a nice dog, my car's running. I must be famous because there's a guy here interviewing me. What else could I ask for? And I get a lot of money for doing work that I rather enjoy. Not enough, but a lot.