Gary Phillips at AiC&S
There were many reasons I looked forward to catching crime writer Gary Phillips’ appearance last Saturday at Adventures in Crime & Space. One, Phillips’ third and latest book, Bad Night Is Falling (Berkley $21.95 hard), is a really good detective novel. Also, being an African-American who writes hard-boiled novels about a black P.I. working the racially explosive mean streets of contemporary L.A., Phillips’ narrative voice naturally is harder and more cutting-edge than that of your typical white liberal crime writer (not that there’s anything wrong with that). I wanted to see what kind of presence and authority Phillips came off with in person. For another, Phillips had quite a buzz going for him before he arrived in Austin. Many writers I know are reading his books, and sure enough, many of them attended the reading. It seemed that at least half of the crowd at the bookstore was published authors – the other half was their spouses.
As Phillips read from his work, several other things immediately became obvious: One is that, unlike many authors who hit the road to promote their work (no names will be mentioned), Phillips in the flesh is his own best asset. The man is big and powerful-looking. Yes, he actually is an ex-football player, and can effortlessly give off the impression that he’s the kind of guy who doesn’t just write about guys you wouldn’t wanna mess with. He reads and speaks in a rolling, low voice – rolling and low in the way that thunder is rolling and low. He speaks in an easy, rhythmic cadence, the same rhythmic cadence that rumbles from the pages of his work – a dark, knowing voice, the voice of an intelligent but tough man of principles who’s seen enough to be saddened by life but who enjoys enough of the good things in life to keep going. To get up every morning and do what he can to set things straight in his world. To keep on living and laughing in that deep, rollicking laugh of his. To keep on restoring that vintage car of his (in the case of Ivan Monk, Phillips’ black private eye/donut shop owner protagonist, it’s a ’64 Ford Galaxie; Phillips himself is restoring a ’58 Fairlane).
After the reading, I introduced myself to Phillips and shook his hand – a hand, it seemed, as big as a baseball glove. A grip that was warm and friendly and animated, like the man himself. We talked about lots of things we have in common – including a preference for old cars, hard-boiled fiction, noir, roots in the Texas Hill Country and, believe it or not, a Lutheran upbringing – and I cracked a few jokes not just because I remembered any good ones but because the way this big man looks and sounds when he laughs says a lot about the way he writes: There’s a lot of deep history there, and it makes for damn good fiction. The presence and authority in his work must come from his heart as well as his mind. – Jesse Sublett
This article appears in August 21 • 1998 and August 21 • 1998 (Cover).