Robert White (aka Terry White) is one of the most ingenious noir writers I've ever had the pleasure of reading. Up there in talent withe likes of Hammet and Chandler, White's stories are perfect examples of how noir and mystery can reveal a lot about humanity. His recurring investigator, Thomas Haftmann, is a fantastic character full of existential angst and a drive for justice. If you've not read Haftmann's Rules yet, you are seriously missing out on one of the best books ever written.
RCT: What intrigues you about mysteries?
RW; I guess in a not so entirely wholesome way, it’s a
voyeuristic thing for me. Peering into
someone’s psyche, checking out the darker thoughts that pass through, and
regarding from the reader’s safety the sheer malevolence of human motives and
behavior have always been fascinating.
Robert Browning was rebuked by late-Victorian society for producing
poems like “My Last Duchess” and “Andrea del Sarto,” both narrated by what we
call sociopaths, and he replied that we should all have an interest in
evil. I do agree. Of course, there are all kinds of mysteries
out there. I’d rather eat one of those
“vomlet” sandwiches fraternity pledges are forced to consume during hazing week
than read a mystery by Agatha Christie (sorry about the rhyme).
RCT: If Inspector Gadget was a woman, would you make lewd jokes about
her?
RW: Never. I hate
to see people picked on. Besides, with
computer graphics being as sophisticated as it is nowadays, they could turn her
into a real hottie.
RW: This is like asking Kim Kardashian about the
sanctity of marriage. I’m not sure I
have a good answer. The short answer is
the wretched times we live in: a hook-up
culture without innocence, everybody hankering for fame. I never read many of those Kinky
Friedman-style novels because they
seemed like piffle to me—popcorn when I craved red meat in my mysteries. Nothing wrong with a wise-cracking detective,
mind you, as the great Raymond Chandler proved long ago. But there are men and
women in our world who can eat the balls off an alligator and not blink. As my response to your first question
attests, writers should do justice to real evil.
RCT: If you could freeze an insect in ice and drop it in
someone’s drink…which insect would you choose?
RW: Without question, the sarcophagus fly. I feel remiss if I have a cadaver in my
fiction and its orifices aren’t being penetrated by these disgusting little
creatures. I’m glad you didn’t ask me
whose drink I’d drop it in. I have a
long list.
RCT: Where do you find inspiration for your novels?
RW: Plot drives me crazy. It should be the easiest thing to come up
with but it’s always the one I think longest about. Haftmann’s
Rules came about because of a trip I took to Boston in the early nineties
and somehow the racist plot evolved from it when I saw two young boys square
off for what looked like a fight. This
was in Copley Square. The one kid was a
prep-school boy with the blue blazer and school patch; the other looked like a
street punk. Instead of fighting, they
shook hands. Seeing the upper class and
the criminal class, neither one with morals, getting along like that gave me an
epiphany. My literary inspiration, I
suppose, is a trio of three greats in the crime genre, although Albert Camus
might be spinning in his grave to hear himself named a crime writer. Besides the great existentialist (and
beautifully simple stylist) there are two contemporaries: David Lindsey and my favorite, Martin Cruz
Smith, creator of the Arkady Renko novels.
I would crawl through broken glass to get the next
RCT: Would you rather eat pizza with George Wendt, or hotdogs
with John Ratzenberger? Why?
RW: If memory serves, these are sitcom actors from Cheers.
Wendt is the stout fellow who resembles John Goodman and was the amiable
one. I won’t cheat by googling
Ratzenberger, but he must be the sharp-tongued mailman who was really testy
when the Sears catalogs came out. My
answer is both. Wendt was like my old
man, an amiable drinker. The “Cliff”
character reminds me of my mother, who was a mean drunk, so I grew up with both
characters except they were Mom and Dad (Sorry, Mom).
RCT: Noir is a type of story that is easily affected by
technology. Something like the Third Man could have been solved so easily
today with street cameras. Haftmann’s world is set in the here and now.
How did you decide to tackle technology without it intruding on the
basics of a good mystery?
RW: I tackled technology because the first comment you
made, as editor of HR, was to ask
where the cell phones were. Nobody in
the book had a cell phone. I had to go
back into the draft and sprinkle in some cell phones, laptops, and make a few
references to the modern era, which has pretty much left me in its wake. I’ve made one or two calls from cell phones
in my life, so I was woefully inept. You
made that flaw disappear or, at least, slip unnoticed into the background. I get all my technology from watching the
Investigation Discovery channel and asking fifteen-year-olds what this or that
means. I realize that’s not the best way
to get verisimilitude into one’s fiction.
RCT: Finish this sentence: I would like two dimes and a
bottle of bleach so I can take care of this_________________
RW: . . . this redneck in his beat-up Ford 150 who just
cut me off and didn’t use his turn signal.
I’ll follow him, rear end him on a deserted road somewhere, and when he
gets out to complain, I’ll hit him on the head with a tire iron and pour the
bleach down his throat. The dimes are
for his eye sockets to make the cops think there’s a wacko serial killer at
work. I just realized something: Ohio has passed a CCW law, so this local
shithead is probably armed to the teeth.
I’ll get shot and the bleach and dimes will be a puzzle to my family
forever.
RCT: The villain in Haftmann’s
Rules is a ruthless pedant up there with Hannibal Lector. I loved his
monologues about society and art. How much research went into his
creation?
RW: I owe everything in that character’s character to
one man: my dear friend Dick Blum in
California with whom I still exchange old-fashioned letters. I dedicated the book to him as both an homage
and an “apology” for so ruthlessly cribbing from a decade’s worth of letters
and perverting everything good and decent he said in our correspondence to
reflect the opposite for the sake of my evil creation. As I said to him in my last letter, I’ve
known exactly two brilliant men in my lifetime and he is one. I had nothing else to draw on to give me that
need. (By the way, I thank you for the compliment.)
RCT: What do you have in the works next? Where can we find more
of your work?
RW: So glad you asked, Ryan. Haftmann is all over the place—that is, in
the archives of various webzines that cater to noir and crime fiction. Sex and
Murder Magazine and Thrillers, Killers, ‘n Chillers have the
latest ones from this current year and two or three each by now. I thought his first appearance occurred in
1999 in Thrillling Detectives, but I
was wrong. There was a print publication
the year prior. Since then, I’ve tried
to cultivate a certain set of traits for him from story to story. The next novel is Saraband for a Runaway which, as you know, is pending from Grand
Mal. I have a couple novel-length drafts
as well that need much polishing. One is
set shortly after Haftmann returns from Florida after the “runaway” caper. Alas, he becomes a heavy boozer and nearly
screws up a case involving murdered prostitutes in Cleveland. Haftmann does all my drinking now. There’s a “prequel” of sorts, in addition,
which shows him involved with a biker gang before he became a cop, then a
private eye, and before his wife threw him out.
It figures my longest response would be shameless self-promotion, so I
apologize and thank you for the opportunity to talk about my obsession here
with your followers.
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