READING IS FUCKINMENTAL: Two-Buck Chuck

TWO-BUCK CHUCK

Charles Willeford's sleek, mean prose is worth more than two fuckin' bucks.

No doubt you’ve been known to haunt used book stores on occasion. Or maybe a book sale hosted by your local library. I make that assumption because that’s the type of person who would be reading this blog to begin with. If you’re averse to used book stores or haven’t set foot in a library since Reagan was regularly dropping a deuce in the White House, then fuck you, please visit this blog and let the grownups talk for a while.

Anyway, as much as I love trolling ratty book stores and library sales for decent reading material, there are three inherent drawbacks: 1) It’s too goddamn exhausting to elbow your way past the gargantuan hausfrau wedged between you and that table over there loaded with Really Good Books; 2) It’s difficult to hold your breath for an hour to avoid sucking in the pervasive odor of dried sweat, unwashed asses, and Camembert cheese that seems to swirl around people who frequent these places (present company excluded, of course)—why does “reader” have to equal “lonely, shit-stained derelict?”; and 3) It’s a little bit depressing to find a book you love languishing in a discount bin.

This third point was ably demonstrated the other day, when I discovered Charles Willeford’s The Way We Die Now for about two bucks at a local bibliophile hangout. What a goddamn shame. Willeford’s prose is sleek and mean, and his crime fiction is (prepare for a shocker) character driven, not propelled by the plot alone. Willeford didn’t get much props when was alive, and today certainly doesn’t get the credit he’s due. Consider yourself too “refined” to read crime fiction? Willeford will change your mind about that. He’s what they call a “writer’s writer” (Jesus, I hate that phrase … but it fits), and no Willeford novel should ever be moldering away on a chipped, folding table—which was probably sitting beneath bad pastry for a Mormon church fundraiser twelve hours previous—for two fuckin’ bucks. There’s no dignity in that.   

Jason Matthew Smith is a Texan who never developed an accent, thanks to a steady diet of television reruns during his formative years. He now lives in Utah, where everyone thinks he sounds just like John Astin, the original Gomez Addams.