So, I know those brilliant protagonist books/movies/TeeVees are popular and I can understand their appeal, (I just finished the first round of the BBC’s new Sherlock Holmes update – I enjoyed it – I like guys who’re smarter than me.) On the other hand, I completely understand the appeal of a complete moron in the lead - I’ve been an Inspector Clouseau devotee for more than twenty years – I definitely enjoy feeling smarter than everybody else. And they seem a little like two sides of the same coin, as far as writing goes – one is always ahead of the audience, the other always the last to figure it out (or never get that far). But a real pickle for an audience, and a problematic one for a writer, is the protagonist who’s less sharp than his public without being a complete imbecile.
Thing is, with those guys/gals influencing the plot, anything could happen. Depending on the character, they could jump any direction at nearly any moment. Some never suspect their true role in the story, while others are shrewd enough to understand they’re outfoxed or holding a losing hand – it then gets really interesting when they make up their mind how to play it. What’s more noir than playing a losing hand?
Take John Moon, the accomplished outdoorsman at the center of Matthew F. Jones’s A Single Shot. He’s put upon man of simple desires who wants nothing more than to reunite his family (his wife having recently left him and taken their infant son with her). He may not be much for holding down a job, but he’s a good provider - a hunter whose conscience doesn’t bother him about poaching deer out of season as he uses everything he kills – and he figures a good haul of meat could go a long ways toward making his runaway bride reconsider him. But the hunt that opens the book goes horribly awry when he accidentally shoots and kills a young woman, and discovers a duffel bag stuffed full of cash at her campsite…
At this point, a brilliant protagonist would find an elaborate way to hide the money and elude the people who’ll come looking for it (cause they’re always going to come), and an idiot would go buy a Cadillac and a round for the house, but a moderately-under-the-audience’s-intelligence character, one with a conscience as well as a pragmatic streak, a desperate one with clearly defined and reasonable goals who also has a lot to lose? You tell me what they’re going to do…
How about when the bad news gets much, much worse? Like A Simple Plan or No Country for Old Men, you can feel the awful creeping in from every direction, at the same time you completely understand that there’s no giving up and walking away now. John Moon may not be the brightest bulb, but he is competent. His mind may be breaking under the strain, but he’s wiley and no coward. What is he going to do?
Or how about those slightly less than brilliant characters who compensate with hard-headedness and thick skin? In the immortal words of Roger Alan Wade, “If you’re gonna be dumb, you gotta be tough.” Jimmy Veeder, the anchor of Johnny Shaw’s debut novel, Dove Season, falls into this category. When he gets word that his father is dying of cancer, he goes back to the Calexico/Mexicali home he left without a backward glance many years before. When his father gives him a last request, (to track down a Mexican prostitute and bring her to see him), Jimmy shrugs and doesn’t ask any questions.
Forget that the border is more dangerous than ever and that he may or may not be welcome back by any of his previous friends and contacts, and forget that the closest thing he’s got to a friend after all this time is a small time criminal with his own long list of enemies on both sides of the border and the law, a dying request is a dying request, right?
Jimmy has many chances to back out of this errand, (and I would have long before the first good beating was received), but then Jimmy’s not quite as smart as I am. By the time it’s too late to opt out of the errand, it’s become more than an item on an old man’s bucket list. Good thing, he’s tough. (Incidentally, the choice of tags for this book is perfect. Not: A Jimmy Veeder mystery or even a Jimmy Veeder thriller, but A Jimmy Veeder Fiasco. Yup, 'bout sums it up. Looking forward to the next installment.)
Keeping me guessing is a virtue. Thanks, guys, I appreciate it.
Jedidiah Ayres writes fiction and keeps the blog Hardboiled Wonderland.
