Hey, everyone. “Moriarty” here.
I was enormously fond of Paul Malmont’s debut novel, THE CHINATOWN DEATH CLOUD PERIL,a tribute to pulp heroes and pulp conventions and pulp writers a la THE ADVENTURES OF KAVALIER AND CLAY or CARTER BEAT THE DEVIL, so when he contacted me to ask if I was interested in reading an early copy of his new book, I made room for it at the top of the stack when it arrived.
I have read an obligatory amount of Jack London’s work, but I’m not intimate with the full body of work he created, or with much of his biographical detail. I know he lived in some of the rugged terrain he lived about, so I assume he was a fairly hearty sort of early 20th Century man, the gentleman adventurer that seemed to be the enduring archetype of that age. Beyond that, I only know THE CALL OF THE WILD, THE SEA WOLF, and WHITE FANG. Those seem to be the biggest of the popular successes he created, the ones people return to. So when I picked up Malmont’s new one, JACK LONDON IN PARADISE, I didn’t really have any preconceptions. With his first book, I had my own history with pulp that I drew on as a reader. It was only after I finished the book that I went digging to read about London’s life and death, and his second wife Charmain, and his time in Hawaii, and I’m impressed how Malmont’s constructed a story that could neatly fit into the real life details. Based on what I’ve read about the way London died, and the questions that still exist about it, as well as another mystery involving a house of his that burned down, it seems that Malmont’s created a heartbreaking scenario, a crushing read, and he’s done it with a canny combination of invention and impeccably researched fact.
This is a much more gentle novel in terms of pace and language than his first one, and he does a lovely job painting a picture of a Hawaii still in transition, before it’s been given over completely to the tourists. Speaking as one of those tourists, repeatedly, I’ve fallen in love with Hawaii. I have no doubt I’ll live there at some point. My whole family feels the same way about it, drawn to it, completely relaxed and at home when we’re there.
Malmont effectively layers in the hold that Hawaii can get in someone, imagining how Jack London, running from heartbreak and tragedy and sickness and sorrow, took his wife and bailed out of civilization for a while, hiding out in Hawaii.
At the same time, he tells another story that was completely new to me, a footnote in Hollywood history that I thought was total invention as I read the book. Color me shocked to realize that Hobart Bosworth was a real person and, more importantly, he really did have an intimate friendship with Jack London, a business partnership that yielded several London adaptations that were quite successful in their time. I’d love to see his version of THE SEA WOLF sometime. He was an actor, writer, director, and producer whose early work was distributed by Paramount before the larger company absorbed him whole. Just before this merger, during the last year of London’s life, is when Malmont set his novel, and he uses Bosworth as a way into London’s life. Bosworth is drowning in debt, about to lose his studio, and he knows that the only way he’s going to have a sure-fire hit is to have another Jack London picture. Only problem is, part of the reason he’s in debt is because of how badly he’s getting dicked by Paramount in his distribution deal, and as a result, he hasn’t paid London any of the royalties he owes him, despite all the London pictures being well-known hits. So when he tracks Jack and Charmain down, in Hawaii, on retreat, they’re not exactly happy to see him, and they’re not exactly eager to help.
Jack and Charmain’s marriage is one of the story threads, Jack’s health is another, Bosworth’s goal of getting London to write him a new original script is a third, and what makes this such a rich, mature work is the way he paints every party in this painful slow motion tragedy with a forgiving quality. Malmont doesn’t canonize London at all. He draws him as complex, alternately weak and impervious, a devoted husband and a shameless cad, a hyperproductive artist and a slave to the words. Same with Bosworth. He’s ultimately somewhat sympathetic, but he is not above reproach. Many of his actions are selfish, pathetic, manipulative. And yet, there’s a charm and an exuberance to the way he pursues anything that might help him save his studio. He cares about making pictures above all else, and his zeal is certainly impressive.
Charmain, though... she’s the character I’ll really carry away from the book with me. She’s the most richly imagined and complicated person here, and it’s the second time he’s written a married couple this strong. In CHINATOWN, he created a neo-Nick and Nora out of Lester Dent and his wife, a bantering pair of adventurers who were the most fun thing about the entire endeavor. This time, we’re coming in once the fun’s over. Charmain can’t give Jack the one thing he really wants: a son. They had a daughter, but she was stillborn. The gulf between them is growing emotionally, but Jack’s almost totally dependent on her because of his chronic illness and his need to be medicated almost constantly. The way Malmont charts the dark waters of Charmain’s heart is breathtaking writing, and it kept me hooked to the very last page.
Overall, this marks a sophomore effort that’s every bit as ambitious as his debut, but what makes it more impressive is the way he has taken real life figures, writers in both books, and made them into living breathing people on the page. He’s not writing biography, and he’s not reinventing them in any simplistic way. Malmont seems compelled to dig into what it is that makes these artists who they are. Why do we still read the work of Lester Dent or Walter Gibson or Jack London? What was it in their lives that we still discern in their fiction? I’m curious to see where Malmont’s interests lead him next time, but for now, I’m content in knowing that this guy’s no one-trick pony. His is a storytelling voice that I will gladly indulge any time, and I highly recommend keeping an eye out for this one when it hits bookstores in January of 2009.
Drew McWeeny, Los Angeles
Drew McWeeny, Los Angeles
