Authors and Creators
 Robert B. Parker
(1932--2010)

Well, the guy has balls, anyway. It's one thing to be compared to Hammett, Chandler and Macdonald. It's another to step into Chandler's shoes, and finish the last Philip Marlowe novel, Poodle Springs, which Parker did in 1989.

Mind you, Parker has never played it safe. He wrote his dissertation for a Ph.D. in 1971 on Hammett, Chandler and Macdonald, and his private eye hero, Spenser, was more than merely an atempt to carry on those beloved private eye traditions; it was also a brave, unapologetic no-holds barred attempt to drag those traditions, kicking and screaming, into the modern age. Traditionalists and fedora fetishists were quick to denounce him, and he was certainly the victim of more than a few fellow writers' gripes (or even grapes), but Parker's Spenser, like it or not, has left the biggest mark on the genre in decades. Certainly none of his contemporaries, even those who are arguably better writers, have had as much influence on the genre in terms of popularity and impact.

As Robert Crais, the creator of California private eye Elvis Cole, put it upon learning of Parker's death, "There has always been a Big Three in American detective fiction--Chandler, Hammett, and Macdonald. Now there is a ìBig Four, and deservedly so. Robert B. Parker influenced a generation of writers. His contributions will continue to influence the coming generations. A tragic and terrible loss."

* * * * *

Robert Brown Parker was born in Springfield, Mass. on September 17, 1932, the only child of Carroll and Mary Pauline Parker. He and Joan Hall met as children, and again as freshmen at Colby College in Maine. Parker earned a B.A. in English in 1954, served as infantryman in Korea, and married Joan upon completing his service on August 26, 1956. In 1957 he earned an M.A. in English from B.U.

He worked a variety of jobs for the next five years: management trainee, technical writer, copy writer, ad exec. In 1962, with Joan's encouragement, he enrolled in B.U.'s Ph.D program hoping a professorship would give him more time to write. Between 1964-68 he taught at Mass State College--Lowell, Suffolk U., and Mass State College--Bridgewater. In 1968 he joined Northeastern U. as an Assistant Prof. of English. He completed his Ph.D in 1971, and continued teaching at Northeastern until 1978.

He's remained an avid weightlifter and runner despite being slowed by recent surgery. Though Spenser is a boxer and gourmet cook, Parker doesn't box, and is more modest about his cooking.

Joan has a M.Ed. in Early Childhood Education and Development from Tufts. Their sons David and Dan were born in 1959 and '63 respectively. David is a choreographer, Dan an actor.

Parker did use his experiences as raw material, but I wouldn't call his books autobiographical. Wish fulfillment, maybe, is how he put it.

* * * * *

Parker's first four novels, which introduced Spenser, were an explosive opening salvo in the P.I. that has still to be matched. Here was a P.I. who wasn't a California-bound loser and loner, who actually enjoyed his life, and was capable, it seemed, of having an actual relationship with a woman who wasn't a ditzy housewife or some psycho-killer nympho. He could be as cold and ruthless as Hammer, but as chivalric as Marlowe, and as plain spoken as The Continental Op. He jogs, keeps himself in shape, cooks gourmet meals, and pals around with a legbreaker for the mob, Hawk, who isn't bothered by Spenser's idealogical struggles, and will gladly kill (and does) without hesitation or compunction. Spenser's beholden to no one, fiercely independent, almost obsessed with autonomy, and yet extremely loyal to his friends.

If Parker had stopped there, he would still be worthy of mention. But he didn't stop there. He's continued to write Spenser novels, a novel or three a year, and each has made its way up the charts. It's spawned a moderately successful (but disappointing) TV series, Spenser For Hire, starring Robert Urich, and a string of TV movies starring Urich (again) and later Joe Mantegna.

The Raymond Chandler estate asked him to complete Chandler's last, unfinished Marlowe novel, Poodle Springs. Parker took up the challenge, and in 1989 delivered it, following it up the next year with Perchance To Dream, his attempt to write a sequel to Chandler's first Marlowe novel, The Big Sleep. If Parker's success had already alienated him in the affections of many of his peers, they must have seen this as the height of arrogance. Added to this was the fact that Parker's strong opening salvo was long over, and many of the subsequent books suffered by comparison. And yet here was Parker, plowing on, brazenly tampering with the Master's canon, storming the citadel while riding the master's horse!

In fact, it's Parker (and Spenser's) unapologetic confidence that seems to be the most recurring complaint. He seems to just rub many folks the wrong way. He refuses to romanticize writers (he's been known to ponder why plumbers never come down with plumber's block), and he seems impervious to criticism. He doesn't suffer fools gladly, yet he's more than generous in praising other writers' work, both young and old (his brief, but heart-felt tribute to Ross Macdonald is one of the best, and most fair, pieces about Macdonald I've ever read).

But Parker long ago seemed to give up writing for anybody but himself and his fans. No, the Spenser books aren't all classics, but even the weakest books (and a few are mighty weak) in the series are eminently readable. Parker is, if nothing else, a great storyteller, and his light, breezy style is deceptive -- there are real hard questions often being asked in his work. Sure, sometimes his ambitions seem a bit lofty, or even pretentious, but he's never been one to rest on his laurels. He continues to pump out the Spensers, and has also written some damn good non-series tales, including 1983's Wilderness, a Deliverance-type tale, All Our Yesterdays, a multi-generational saga of an Irish family, its secrets and sins, and the violence it seems doomed to, and even a western, 2001's Gunman's Rhapsody that imagined Wyatt Earp's later years.

And he kept on chugging away. At an age when most writers slowed down or stopped writing altogether, Parker kept going, pushing himself. Sure, he wrote a Spenser or two every year, but he never coasted -- in fact, the later Spensers don't have to apologize to anyone. They were solid and well-written and continued to push the envelope, continued to explore Parker's life-long literary themes of love, loyalty, friendship and honour with wit and heart.

And he kept on writing. In his later years he started two new crime series, one featuring Jesse Stone, a flawed, alcoholic California homicide detective who tries to start a new life for himself as the chief of police of a small town in Massachusetts (and became the basis for a popular series of TV movies starring Tom Selleck) and another series revolving around Sunny Randall, a female eye from Boston, which originated as a possible project for actress Helen Hunt.

He wrote an acclaimed standalone, Double Play (2004), that revolved around an ex-solder playing bodyguard to Jackie Robinson and published several YA novels, including Chasing the Bear (2009) which imagined Spenser's teenage years. And just in case anyone thought he was slacking off, he started a very popular Western series featuring town-taming guns-for-hire Hitch and Cole.

Late 2009 saw the publication of The Professional, the 39th Spenser novel. And then, in early 2010, Parker passed away and that great heart finally stopped beating.

He liked beer and he liked baseball, but when it was time to work, Parker sat down and got the job done. And in the act of doing that, he died -- as widely reported -- at his desk.

In the end, Parker was, like Spenser himself, a professional.

We'll miss him.

UNDER OATH

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Respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith. Thanks to Gerald So for plenty of the biographical info supplied here -- some of it taken from David Geherin's Sons of Sam Spade -- and for making sure I keep my nose clean.

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