Khanh Ho–Creative Writing Professor, world traveler, all-around-nice-guy– is writing the first Vietnamese American Detective Fiction ever. Why? Because being the first is a power trip. In this installment, he humorously discusses the implications of gun control on the shape of the Mystery Novel. Like what you read? Share on Facebook or Twitter. Leave a comment. Or subscribe to this blog.
I have no official stance on gun control. But I’m kind of a half-assed liberal. I listen to NPR. I even feel guilty for not eating organic. When it gets unseasonably hot or rainy or cold, I’m quick on the trigger. “We’ve got to start doing something about global warming,” I’ll bark. I voted not once but twice for current reigning heavy weight president: Barack Obama.
I never gave it much thought: I am kind of pro-gun-control because of the world I live in—a world where I daily flirt with veganism and juicing and cleansing. I’m not so extreme that I’ll actually stand at a corner with a picket sign. But I have been known to drive by slowly and honk my horn—and if it’s safe, if I do not need to keep both hands on the wheel, I’ll raise my fist in solidarity…as if I were a Black Panther.
But today I suddenly began to think about what the hot topic of gun control means for me as a mystery novelist, not as a Kombucha-drinking-farmers-market-goer-who-has-on-occasion-worn-yoga-pants. And I suddenly saw a pretty ugly picture. Without guns, America’s preeminent place within the world’s imagination will suddenly grow flaccid. Who wants to see an action adventure movie without the rat-a-tat-tat of guns guns guns—massive guns of every make and model? Who wants to read a mystery novel without the murder and mayhem that is possible only through the deadly steel of a cold, hard pistol?
So here is my list of 10 Things that will Change in Detective Fiction…if we get rid of guns in America:
1) We will all turn Japanese—resorting to knives and swords, daggers and picks: sharp objects will reign.
2) Mixed Martial Arts will suddenly spike and writers will learn new terminology for grappling; UFC cross-over novels will become the NEW NOW.
3) Bombs: fictitious characters will start dying through bombs; it will be messy and extremely imprecise.
4) Genre Crossing: Classic Detective Fiction—the gun sort—will be crossed with Historical Drama…if we want a classic shoot ‘em up scene, it will have to be imagined as the not-so-distant past. The eighties will be a historical period.
5) In the world of fiction, the NRA will be proven right: only the bad guys will have access to guns.
6) Good guys will encounter guns in trash cans and under stoops—lucky finds!—but they will never be able to carry one in a holster.
7) Many more bludgeonings and stranglings…many, many more…
8) All those ex-cop, alcoholic detectives will return to the police force…just to get their grubby little fingers on a trigger.
9) Detectives with storylines dependent upon shooting will suddenly, in one installment, move up to Canada where it’s just like American but with GUNS; they’ll go up for a convenient reason—a dame—but they’ll stay…to maim.
10) Noonchucks will experience a renaissance hitherto unseen since the appearance of Bruce Lee.
All of this paints a pretty dismal picture for the American mystery—that little world in books out of which I am tentatively trying to build a small and modest home. Now, I’m no longer sure where I stand anymore on this whole gun control debate. On the one hand, I want to still be able to drink my Free Trade Coffee with a measure of dignity—without the feeling that I’ve betrayed the values of a class to which I marginally belong; on the other, I know that without guns, America will no longer tower above the rest of the world. Nobody will watch our movies. Our books will be castrated. And I will be without a job.
Did you like this blog? Make a struggling writer’s day: Share on Facebook. Tweet your friends. Leave a comment. Here’s a question to get you started: Would you ever read a mystery without guns? What about a movie?
I don’t know… consider the Scandinavians… land of intense gun-control, incredibly low violent crime, etc. etc. Yet, they have a thriving mystery genre culture (great stuff and lots of it) and they seem to be fine fictionally finding every way possible to gruesomely kill off people to set up their murders to solve. So, I think it would depend on what your mystery is interested in… a whodunnit, a noir (i.e. mood, etc. important), a psychological trhiller? I think the Scandinavians (and I would also include the Icelanders and the Finns in this too) would be an example of an extremely non-violent, uber anti-gun culture, with lots of intense and violent crime and mystery fiction. Someone once said that, in fact, they may be channeling their historical violent tendencies (cue the sagas) into their fiction. If you barely have any violent crime, why have so much of it in your fiction? Is it a way to work out these urges in a safe environment? Remember, for several of these locations, these are still places where as a woman, you are safe hitch-hiking around these countries alone and walking at night at 3AM without getting assaulted, harassed, etc. So, what’s the deal?
All quite true, Dorothy. And this is why I love my blog: intelligent, articulate readers! It’s an education, really.
I guess the bigger question is this: are we ready to lose the gun as the primary fixture of our imaginative geography? I think that’s what gets NRA people upset: this vision–vigilante preparedness, survivalism, patriotism–that cuts to the core of being an American. Call it the butterfly effect–gun control will beget many many more changes when underway. I guess the real question is: Can we get rid of the gun from our dream world? If we get rid of guns…or even sharply curtail it…will we be ready for the many repercussions to our imaginative life?
But you know the strange thing about Sweden? It’s all of the above as Dorothy says, but I don’t know another European country in which, within 20 years or so, the prime minister and a senior cabinet minister were murdered on a public street (actually the latter on an elevator in a shopping center). The former, the 1984 assassination of Olaf Palme, remains unsolved to this day. It doesn’t change the fact of their gun-control laws, or even the general calm of Swedish society, but it is an odd aspect.
a few seconds ago · Like
Martin, you are a font of information. Were they murdered with guns? Or with something messier and Swedish–fish hooks or ceremonial daggers or Ikea furniture? The Swedish, it seems, are deeply disturbed people. And one wonders: if they had had access to guns like, for instance, the Swiss, would the president and those hapless ministers been able to avoid catastrophe? I guess the real question, Martin, is this classic detective question: who REALLY did it?
Was it another Swede? If so, then we can say that there is something terrible about those Scandinavians…but if, let’s say, a spying double-agent from another nation–say, Norway–did it, than we not only have the beginning of a brilliant novel but we see that you, dear Martin, are blaming the victim for the atrocities directed upon their person!
Khanh, that’s a very good question. Gun in the case of Palme, knife (it could have been a ceremonial dagger) in the case of Anna Lindh. The difference is that Lindh’s killer, who turned himself in, was a Serbian immigrant to Sweden who is generally regarded to have been mentally ill. Much more mysterious, the assassination of Olaf Palme — an internationally known figure — has never been solved (he was shot dead while walking home from a movie theater with his wife, and as was normal in 1984 he had no police security detail or anything). There were two trials, neither of which secured a conviction, and the case has remained a permanent nagging uncertainty in Sweden. Many theories have been advanced (including an espionage connection, as you suggest), all of which have been found wanting in some way.
But Norway! Now that’s a new one . . .
Martin–One wonders, though, if it’s not guns at all that are to blame or even various and sundry murder weapons. Could it be this? That the rampant pedestrian culture of Sweden could have put the president in harm’s way? I have it on good authority that you can often meet the King and Queen of Sweden walking around the streets. Same goes for Norway. Can you imagine, Martin, the state of the world if President Barack Obama and his beloved, Michelle, were to promenade shamelessly back to the White House after a screening of Ironman? Everyone here would be saying they were asking for it. To which I say: let’s put an official ban on pedestrians; let’s take a closer look at regulating footwear!
In high school, with Monsy Fontes, I was introduced to ‘Shibumi,’ wherein I learned I could kill someone by plunging a stiff straw through the jugular. (The secret is to cover the top opening with your thumb.) I then went home and ruined a sack of potatoes.
I did the same thing, Delia, after reading Shibumi with Monsy. For those of you who are reading and wondering who this legendary Monsy is, check out her book Dreams of Centaur. I count myself lucky to have had a high school English teacher who was actually an award-winning novelist. And the first thing I did as a professor of Creative Writing was invite her to read at my college.
But enough about Monsy: Delia, I like your idea of murdering root vegetables. Next book–“Murder is a Sack of Potatoes…”
I’d read a mystery novel without guns! That’d be pretty interesting, in my opinion.
I love reading your blog by the way; it makes me laugh!
Thanks, Michelle. You made my day. I am a glutton for praise. And I will try to continue making you laugh. I think that a mystery without guns would be, like you said, “interesting.” But that also suggests that it would be a deviation from the standard–the norm. I eat Indian food once a month–an all-you-can-eat binge–because it’s interesting. But could I eat it every day?
Probably…
I’m not a big mystery reader, but I’ve not noticed a lack of guns in movies in other countries that have gun control. James Bond movies are always full of guns.
This is an astute observation and, of course, you’re absolutely right: movies from other countries have few guns, except of course that James Bond with his special “license to kill”…a dispensation which makes for an extremely convenient plot premise. But is this like drinking Coca Cola without the high fructose corn syrup? Will this leave us feeling empty…somehow unsatisfied?