Tribute: Goodbye Robert B. Parker, Thank You Spenser

Not many times in a life do you come across an author that not only moves you deeply, contains talent and skill, and by sheer prolific output becomes somehow part of the movement of your life.

I first came across Robert B. Parker when I was 22 and bringing my then baby, Dakota, to my 7:30am-6:30pm job as a nanny, where I watched a girl baby. During the kids naps, I would browse through the bookshelves and snatch a book quickly, before the kids could wake and steal the short time I had to read. I was lucky enough to one day choose a bland looking little novel, a crime story, about a Browning and Shakespeare quoting private eye, named Spenser. ( Spenser with an S, as he always pointed out ) I read quickly, easily, this wasn't hard reading and it wasn't a shock of instantaneous brilliance. Spenser would find that phrase funny in relation to himself, I know it- ' instantaneous brilliance '- it's actually the exact kind of ' smart guy ' ( as his enemies called him: ie: you some kind of smart guy or what? ) remark he would have made in describing one of his cases to a detractor.


And then- that magic. I fell in love with Spenser. Madly, deeply, in love.

Abel Westing said to me, " You got some smart mouth, fella. You damn near blew the job.
" I know, " I said. " My pulse is still pounding. "

Dry as the finest champagne. Spenser always undermines his foes with this droll and still faced humor, a device which generates much of it's delight from the fact that we- the readers- are in on it, we know what Spenser means and thinks and if he's in a good or bad mood or he and Susan are arguing- while the bad guy or dupe on the receiving end of the remark just has a suspicion that this guy is yanking his chain, mocking him in some way. If the bad guy realizes he or she is being mocked, Spenser just gets dryer and dryer until the only thing more dry would be the bad guy's cold dead body on the ground, which is what does happen, sometimes, in his world.

Spenser was good looking, but not amazingly so. He wore jeans and a jacket and tennis shoes and of course, had demons. At the beginning of the series ( the first Spenser novel is The Godwulf Manuscript ) he meets Susan, a beautiful, intelligent Jewish woman working as a school psychologist, and they slowly and beautifully begin one of the most compelling, tremendously alive and heartwarming relationships I have ever had the privilege to discover in fiction. It is the Spenser/Susan relationship that is at the core of the magic.

And then there is Hawk. Hawk is almost 7 feet, very black, very silent, very dangerous, very wry and on to people, and Spenser's eventual best friend and partner. The 3- Spenser, Susan and Hawk- form a fascinating triangle of relationship that you wish would never, ever end. Only of course they are not real. Whereas Robert B. Parker was very real. Real enough to die this month, at age 77 in the home shared with his wife in Massachusets, of an apparent heartattack. Here is the dedication in his novel The Widening Gyre:

For Joan, David, and Daniel. The center can hold, and does.

That dedication alone is enough to begin to love the man. The classic and adored photo of Parker ( by my husband and I, at least ) on the back seals it.



When I realized that there were an entire series of Spenser books, I was ecstatic. When I realized that Robert B. Parker wrote a book or 2 a year, I was thrilled! And when I married a man who also fell in love with Spenser, Susan and Hawk, I finally had someone to share my adoration with. Mr. Curry fell hard in literary love. We have every Spenser novel Parker wrote, as well as many of his other novels, Jessie Stone novels, random Westerns.

And you think that he did, " I said. ( I is Spenser speaking )
" I have my reasons. "
" What are they? "
She shook her head.
" Oh, " I said, " those reasons. "
" There's no call for sarcasm, " she said.
" The hell there isn't, " I said.
" I think that's probably enough, Mr. Spenser, " Maitland said.
" It's not enough, " I said, " But it's all that I can stand. "
- Hush Money

ShzAMM.

Spenser is a kind of thinking man's Tony Soprano. He kills people, as few as possible, but he does kill people. He loves Susan devotedly without cheating, but he does need his own apartment, his own space, no marriage. He is a loyal till death friend, but he has few real friends. He is a champion of what he believes to be justice, but it can be shady, debatable. He is large and gruff and women swoon around him, he loves a good pair of tits but he is interested in strong, intelligent women who do what is right. He is constantly concerned with what the right thing to do is, but will do the necessary thing. His relationship with Hawk, a more fiercely violent and terrifying type, allows for the release and exploration of man's reaction toward violence, and black and white relationships.

Hawk nodded. " Tha's a good start, " he said. " Then what we going to do, bawse? "
" Get you diction lessons, " I said. " I always know when you are really jerking my chain, because you start sounding like Mantan Moreland. "
" Mantan Morland? "
" I'm kind of proud of coming up with that one myself, " I said. " Where did the Lamont kid do the deed? "
" Had a condo in the South End, " Hawk said. " Did it there. "
" Okay, that's Boston Homicide. Which means Quirk and Belson. "
" So we talk with them first, " Hawk said.
" I'll talk with them first, " I said. " They'd arrest you. "
" Bigots. "
- Hush Money

Susan and Spenser are both intelligent, compassionate thinkers with incredible work ethic, devotion and interest in life, from cooking ( there is a LOT of food in Spenser novels- they are always eating steak and frites with some delicious red wine or drinking steaming coffee with fresh donuts, all of which Spenser sweetly delights in ) to the arts. Spenser just happens to chase and occasionaly kill thugs for a living, while Susan is a psychologist. The two meet, and their relationship, it's ups and downs, the parting at one point and eventual reconciliation, is so hard worn, so ragged at the edges and brimming with love that they feel as real as your own family. They are our own family-

I have read Spenser every year since age 22, and I'm 35 now. I can't imagine never walking into Borders again and seeing a new ROBERT B PARKER on the newly released shelf. I can't imagine never reading another classic Spenser-ism, or another tender but incredibly unshmaltzy love scene with him and Susan, or heartrending hard luck case Spenser involves himself with, the moral dilemas he faces in his line of work, the puns, the shoot out's with Hawk, the redemption of wrongs, the hysterical characters he meets, the incredible way that Parker had of rendering a landscape or town or person so vividly with just a few sparse paragraphs.

I am not just mourning Robert B Parker, or thinking of his wife and children. I mourn Spenser. Thank you Robert B Parker, from the bottom of my literary heart. I love your books, I love your wonderful and tender heart and mind, and my husband and I will miss you and your world, very, very much.

" It makes you better than other men, " Paul said. " If you hadn't been what you are, where would I be? But it also traps you. Machismo's captive. Honor, commitment, absolute fidelity, the whole myth. "
" Love, " I said. " Love's in there. "

Love is definitely there, Parker.