A Tribute to James Crumley
James Crumley wrote books about private detectives with military training, guys who carry saps, drink vodka straight, and always have an emergency stash. These guys—Sughrue and Milodragovitch—are badasses. They are guys who, if we knew in real life, we’d cross the street when we saw them coming. Real son-of-a-bitches. But we like them because they are the guys we always wanted to be.
See, Crumley wrote books for men who have never had a threesome or won a bar fight. Men with English degrees—open-minded and too-sensitive. Because Crumley straddled both these worlds (as an academic and a roughneck) he was able to show us a place where instinct and loyalty collide, where best friends have your back every time. The way things should be but seldom are.
Driving around with a cooler of Tecate and a bag of tacos, we see the West degenerate through Crumley’s eyes. We see how after miles of cold cases and missing persons you start to lose your way, lose your identity. (Especially when you are doing way too much cocaine, and in his books everyone is always doing way too much cocaine.) Hence the urge toward disguise. To slip on a pair of sunglasses, fake beard, windbreaker. To hide in plain sight. Heck, hide from life. Somehow, Crumley got this.
Maybe it was from experience, maybe from hearsay, but it seemed he knew that by writing things down we can be free. But at what price? Dead at 68, much too early, James Crumley left us with a handful of books to reread and the desire to create our own world. A world where we can be the heroes. Because even if he didn’t live like his characters, his characters clearly live through him. And for that, we say Thank You.
Jonathan Loucks spends his nights at Hough’s Bar in Greenfield