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T H I S+W E E K > Crime takes a holiday
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crime takes a holiday____ - - - - - - - - - - page 2 BY DAVID CORN | standing at the station, I wondered if I was in Gijón under false pretenses, a fraud waiting to be discovered. Last year, I had a short story included in an anthology of mystery and crime fiction. The story, my first piece of published fiction, was nominated for an Edgar Allan Poe award. (Think of an Oscar for mystery writing.) But I am primarily a journalist who chases muck in Washington. My one book is a biography of a notorious CIA officer (true crime?), and it was of more interest to my "fellow" writers in Gijón than my short story. (Mystery writers, of course, are conspiracy theorists, and the CIA has a hallowed place in the hall of villainy of crime fiction authors.) True confession: I read few contemporary mystery writers. So, during the 10-day festival, I draw a blank when conversations turn to certain authors. A French journalist almost walked away from me once when I confessed I had not read any of the novels of James Crumley, one of those not widely known in America American authors deemed a genius by the French. The writers who had accepted invitations to the 10th Semana Negra were mostly well-known crime fiction novelists from Spanish-speaking countries, with a few from France and elsewhere. No (American) household names -- unless you are a true devotee of cloaks and letters. Perhaps the biggest star of the week was Bill Sienkiewicz, a prominent American comic book artist who was mobbed repeatedly at the fairgrounds by adoring and frighteningly earnest Spanish fans. The week's true hero was Paco Ignacio Taibo II, the most popular mystery writer in Mexico and a strong-selling author throughout the Spanish-speaking world. (Several of his hard-boiled novels have been translated into English, including "Life Itself," "Four Hands" and "Leonardo's Bicycle.") The festival is his creation -- scheme, perhaps. Forty-eight years old, he's a paunchy, mustachioed, frenetic, peripatetic, rough-talking fellow who appears capable of conducting half a dozen orchestras at once. One day during Semana Negra he submitted to 37 -- or so he maintained -- individual interviews with reporters around the world: discoursing on the Mexican elections (he is an advisor to Cuauhtemoc Cardenas, the leftist who during the festival was elected mayor of Mexico City), the discovery of Che Guevara's remains (Taibo wrote a biography of Che), and Semana Negra. While one of the cynical middle-age detectives of his novels might suspect that Taibo, who grew up in this area of Spain, devised the festival as an excuse for writers to party (subsidized, of course) in a lively resort town (the mayor of which is a longtime friend of his), he insists that larger and grander aims motivate him. At an opening-day reception at city hall, Taibo -- surrounded by portraits of stern-looking mayors of past centuries -- explained the "basic theme" of the event: "Festivity and culture are not in conflict. Culture cannot be anything but democratic ... This is a festival where books can be bought wherever you buy fast foods ... where writers are stopped in the middle of the streets." Where arts low and high, from fine writing to science fiction to comic books (that is, graphic novels) to photojournalism, are treated equally. But -- and Taibo does not say this outright -- where crime fiction is more equal than the others. The fairgrounds, located in a park across the street from the town's slender, half-moon shaped and often crowded beach, did bear out Taibo's bias and philosophy. We writers first arrived there on a red trolley that blasted the music of Queen from loudspeakers. Along the way, residents waved happily at us. Marking the entrance was a six-story rendition of the movie poster for "G Men," the James Cagney film. And the emblem of the week -- a black, cloaked shadowy figure -- was everywhere. Statues of Batman, Humphrey Bogart and Fu Manchu lined the entranceway. Bookselling booths, peddling noir, shock-schlock, literary classics and history books, were set up next to empanada stands and tables offering beefcake photos of Brad Pitt, baseball caps with the Chicago Bulls logo, Metallica T-shirts and mirrors bearing the likeness of Kurt Cobain. The festival ran on a schedule suitable for vampires, from 5 p.m. to sun-up. On a typical day, a visitor to Semana Negra could drop by a roundtable discussion on the European novel, view the works of a famous war photographer, listen to an Italian band playing Celtic rock and singing about Zapata, ride a large and very fast Ferris wheel and then top it off by eating a dough-cooked-in-oil treat -- the international symbol of street festivals. And then he or she could promenade home, along the beach, at 3:30 a.m., through a city wide awake with festival-goers, bar-hoppers, club-crawlers, cafe-squatters and strolling families. Not much work is accomplished in the city during Semana Negra. The Ferris wheel and the bad food at Semana Negra drew more pleasure-seekers than the high-minded (and, to be polite, highly discursive) gabbing in a tent set up on the midway. During the roundtables, authors fretted over such topics as "The Crisis in Spanish Comic Books" and "Defense of the Book." Italian publisher Marco Tropea solemnly reported that half of all books published in Italy do not sell a single copy. There was talk about the "new Latin American adventure novel." (I was not aware there had been an "old Latin American adventure novel.") The late-night -- or early-morning -- drinking sessions at the Don Manuel cafe, the central rendezvous spot for conference participants a block from the city's marina, provided literary talk that was more linear than many of the panels. Most nights we ended up there. During one pre-dawn, alcohol-soaked gathering, Ruth Cavin, a spirited 78-year-old editor at St. Martin's, entered into an informal sing-off with Pietro Cheli, a 300-plus pound Italian journalist. He belted out operatic-sounding Italian tunes; she fired back with Cole Porter and other American popular standards. When it was my turn to sing for supper, on a panel discussing the cultural impact of the end of the Cold War, I delivered a passable 10-minute précis on how popular American culture has replaced Cold War anxieties with concerns about alien invaders, weather disasters, super-viruses and born-again dinosaurs. I was followed by my Russian co-discussant, an ever-smirking magazine publisher who has made a bundle in the new Russia. Inexplicably, he droned on at length about petty corruption in his homeland. I never got his point. Grandmaster Taibo, who relished the slam-bam literary debates, is anything but pretentious. He also staged a ping-pong match between Jerome Charyn, an American crime novelist who lives the expat life in Paris (and who demanded that the organizers provide him paella twice a day before consenting to come), and Enrique Sanchez, a Spanish comic book artist. (The local press covered the event.) A go-cart race pitted writers against journalists. (The journalists won.) The festival mounted a "marathon" in solidarity with the Polisario Front, a democratic movement fighting for self-determination in Western Sahara. Closer to one mile than the regulation-length 26, it was a marathon only in Taibo's PR-conscious imagination. He had recruited several Spanish cycling champs to ride the course, and that brought television crews to the event. When the Polisario's representative to Spain finished the course -- he had run wearing his jacket, slacks and dress shoes -- the journalists were eager to interview him. Which is all Taibo wanted out of the event. Taibo had run -- or bobbed -- the first 50 yards, and then was spotted in a bar drinking Pepsi, an official sponsor of the festival. No doubt, most Gijón visitors during Semana Negra were more interested in the beach than in the intellectual face-offs and stunts. During a rare quiet moment that week, I was tapping away on my laptop at a cafe and met a group of women in their 20s who live in Gijón. They had been going to Semana Negra for years. But what, they asked, was it all about? They had no clue. I repeated Taibo's nostrum about marrying literary activity to more conventional fun and games. ("If authors are not capable of competing with a video game, he must be a shit author," Taibo had shouted at one panel.) The aim, I told them, was to celebrate crime fiction but also to celebrate the notion that culture need not be segregated into such distinct categories, that reading is as entertaining as -- and not that much different from -- a roller-coaster ride. They rolled their eyes. One giggled. "People do not read much in Spain," another said. If there is a global literary crisis under way, then Taibo, at least, is not giving up without a fight -- and a fiesta. No revolution without dancing, Emma Goldman said. No cultural campaign without go-carts, loud music and fried food, Taibo adds. He is a man who welcomes others: to read, to play, to crusade. And he so succeeded in injecting his anti-elite attitude into the conference that after a day or so -- and many rounds of drinks -- I could not help but feel like a full-fledged member of Taibo's brigade, despite my thin credentials. Perhaps only a few visitors to the Ferris wheel at Semana Negra get
Taibo's populist message. But then, Taibo's books (I hastily read
several before arriving in Spain) often do not end with complete triumphs.
The
crime may be solved or not (sometimes it unriddles
itself) and Taibo's
life-weary detectives return to their life-weary lives, if not entirely
successful -- for true justice is damn hard to win --
maybe a bit more noble.
So too for Taibo's Semana Negra, a noble endeavor and much more fun than a
trip to the annual Modern Language Association convention.
David Corn, Washington editor of the Nation magazine, is a frequent contributor to Salon. His short story "My Murder" appeared in "Unusual Suspects" (Vintage/Black Lizard). - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
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