Thomas Harris: the father of Hannibal Lecter

I still remember that night when, sitting on my bed, I was reading the scene of “The Silence of the Lambs” where Clarice enters Buffalo Bill’s house.

I had palpitations.

And I’m not kidding.

I have read many books in my life, some really beautiful and exciting, but only “The Silence of the Lambs” made me feel that way. As I read it, I was Clarice and, between fear and horror, I was exploring the house in search of the senator’s daughter. I was also that girl (I cannot remember her name) who, locked in the well, begged Clarice not to leave her alone. But Clarice must first find the serial killer, so that both were safe.

All the novels by Thomas Harris, even if they are only five, have yielded in me the same effect: I felt inside the story, and I felt compelled to read at any time, whatever I was doing.

No author has ever managed to capture me so much with their prose to push me to read out from the usual places and times that I devote to this activity. There is something unique in his way of narrating that is in perfect harmony with me, without the slightest smear, so when I am asked about my favourite author, I mean the very first one in my ranking, the answer is only one: Thomas Harris.

The others come much later.

We don’t know much about him, as he is a very discreet person, elusive to the media. We know that in thirty years he wrote five books and that more than ten have passed since the last one. Each of them was turned into a successful movie; actually two movies came from his second book “Red Dragon”. Apparently he told Stephen King that writing for him is a proper torture and this explains why he isn’t very prolific.

In my small way I understand him perfectly. Writing is really a torture, but of course he is luckier than me, because he can afford a little more than a book for decades, given the success they have!

Like many, I learned about him with “The Silence of the Lambs”, but my favourite of his books is “Hannibal”, where the figure of Lecter, the perfect anti-hero, is shown in all its splendour to the reader. It is no coincidence that Dr. Hannibal Lecter, the serial killer also known as The Cannibal, for the habit of eating some organs of his victims, is also my favourite literary character.

What I love about Harris’s writing is his incredible ability to develop a character with clear negative connotations, but still be able to let me love it. No one like him can distort the very concept of good and evil.

In “Hannibal” in particular there is no good guy in the strict sense. There is so much evil in the characters that Lecter becomes the hero in all respects. And the way what dwells in his mind (the palace of memory) is shown makes me understand his motivations, why he became what he is, up to immerse myself in him and accept his actions, his malice.

Harris has shown me that a true villain like Lecter (and he is without a doubt a true villain, since there is no remorse in him nor the minimum search for redemption) can be the hero of a novel, appreciated and recognised as that by so many readers.

Lecter makes his first and brief appearance in “Red Dragon”. The first film based on this novel is “Manhunter” starring William Petersen (Gil Grissom from CSI), where Lecter, here oddly named Lecktor, is played by Brian Cox. Its second film adaptation, “Red Dragon” starring Edward Norton, instead shows Anthony Hopkins reprising his role in 2002 after “The Silence of theLambs” (1991), for which he won an Oscar in 1992 as best actor (the Academy also awarded Jodie Foster as Clarice, director Jonathan Demme, screenwriter Ted Tally, and the film itself), and “Hannibal” (2001).

The last novel in the series, “Hannibal Rising”, was published in 2006 and narrates the youth of the character. The story of Hannibal, however, ends with “Hannibal” (published in 1999), which has a completely different ending from that of the film.

A TV series was also dedicated to this character, “Hannibal”.

Before the Lecter Series, Harris wrote “Black Sunday” (1975), a novel that narrates about a terrorist attack with a dirigible against New Orleans stadium, where the Super Bowl is taking place. Even in this one the author investigates the minds of the villains, showing without any filter the logic of their intentions and actions to the reader.

I remember I started reading the book in 2001 and then I was forced to temporarily stop reading after the attacks of September 11, because it appeared too realistic to me. Then I picked it up again years later and finished it in a few days.

After “Hannibal Rising” I wondered what Harris could ever write, because the Lecter series seemed complete. Of course, there would be much to tell between the end of this novel and the beginning of “Red Dragon”, but I don’t know to what extent it would make sense to write a book out of it. Lecter is already perfect this way. Actually, I’d be curious to know what other frightening characters dwell in Harris’s mind. I would like to meet them.

I have no idea what Harris is doing now, but I sincerely hope that he is torturing himself at least one last time so as to give us another beautiful piece of his work.

John Grisham: the king of legal thriller

I don’t remember exactly when I happened to read my first book by John Grisham, nor which one it was, but it certainly was at the beginning of the nineties and soon he became one of my favourite authors. To date as I check the long list of his novels, if you exclude the children series Theodore Boone and some of which I saw the film version (and that’s why I left them aside for now), I find that I haven’t read only six, including the short story collection “Ford County” and one of his sports novels, that don’t interest me particularly.

Grisham is a real lawyer who in the late 80s decided to try his hand at writing with “A Time to Kill”, a novel which was adapted into a famous movie with Samuel L. Jackson, Matthew McConaughey, Sandra Bullock, and Kevin Spacey. His second novel, “The Firm” (this also became a movie, starring Tom Cruise, and more recently a TV series, to which the poster below is referred), became a bestseller and marked the beginning for him to a drastic change of career.

His books are labelled as legal thrillers, but in fact what really unites them is the fact that within them there is almost always a legal element (the result of his background) that is only used as an excuse to tell the stories of people. Some of his novels have actually a rhythm, a suspense, and the ending expected in thrillers, especially the first part of its production, but going forward in his career Grisham has increasingly often written stories focused on a moral and with a realistic ending and, therefore, not always entirely positive for the protagonists. The latter category includes novels like “The Testament” or “The Appeal”.

Grisham has also tried to move away entirely from the legal topic with “Skipping Christmas”, “Bleachers”, and “Playing for Pizza”. The first might be called a humour novel, although I admit I hated the ending, which I didn’t find funny at all. The second is strongly focused on football (the US meaning of this word), a sport that I barely know, and this hasn’t allowed me to appreciate it that much. I decided not to read the third one (or, if I read it, I must have removed it from my mind!), because it’s about the same topic.

“A Painted House”, published in 2001, belongs to literary fiction, although the legal topic makes a small appearance. It is a very special novel, since the story is told by a seven-year-old child. The author wrote it well before he became famous and, thanks to his fame, he could later have it published.

I remember reading this book in the period when it was published and having particularly liked it. It opened my eyes to the talent of Grisham in the narrator’s role that goes beyond the labels affixed to his novels.

My favourite of his work is, without a doubt, “The Runaway Jury”, which is definitely a legal thriller. The story is about a lawsuit filed against a cigarette manufacturer on behalf of the wife of a man, a smoker, died of lung cancer. Beside this topic of great interest is the legal theme developed by the plot: the dynamics of a jury in a lawsuit of this kind, since its formation up to all the intrigues for steering the verdict.

From this novel a movie with John Cusack, Rachel Weisz, Dustin Hoffman, and Gene Hackman was then produced.

If you have never read a book by Grisham, this is definitely the one that I recommend.

My latest reading of his, however, is “Sycamore Row”, where the legal subject is accompanied by that of racism, already seen in “A Time to Kill”, of which it is a kind of sequel.

Among my reviews you can find in this blog, I suggest: “The Litigators”, “The Confession”, and “The Associate”.

Finally, I tell you a little fun fact. Grisham and I, despite being so distant to each other as authors, both for topics and, above all, for copies sold (!), have however become rivals for the second place in the US Kindle Store towards the end of last October 2015, I with my “The Mentor” and he with his “Rogue Lawyer”. Of course, then between the two books there was also another negligible difference: his book cost over seven times mine (which at that time was promoted at a low price)!

However, being up there with him, who is one of the authors from whom I always draw inspiration, was a great emotion that I did not think I would have ever had the good fortune to experience.

Patricia Cornwell: the queen of crime thriller

Photo from Telegraph.co.uk

I was no more than eighteen years old when I happened to read my first book by Patricia Cornwell and it was in English (as you know, I’m Italian). It was “Body of Evidence” and I liked it so much that I decided to continue with “Postmortem”. Only then I realized that not only they were connected, but I had read them in the wrong order! A mistake that I no longer repeated and I invite any reader who wishes to get closer to the works of this author not to commit it, as well.

Surely the most famous series by Cornwell, which today includes twenty-five novels (including the upcoming new release, “Chaos”), is the one whose main character is a medical examiner called Kay Scarpetta. A character of Italian origin that seems to be inspired by a real person, Dr. Marcella Farinelli Fierro, with whom Cornwell worked back in the 80s. Reality and fiction mingle in her novels, in which she narrates with wealth of detail about the work of a medical examiner and brings to the fore the subject of forensic science, so much that it seems that they had a significant influence in many TV series on this topic, such as CSI.

Forensic science is definitely an essential element in this series of novels. The author draws liberally from her work experience at the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner of Virginia. She isn’t a doctor, but worked as a computer analyst, which has undoubtedly contributed to the creation of another character, Lucy Farinelli, Scarpetta’s niece.

In the early books Lucy is a girl with great computer skills, but then we see her grow and become a complex and problematic character. In fact, although the novels in this series are within the so-called crime fiction, what really matters, and the reason why they must be read in the right order, is not the individual criminal case narrated in each book, but the subplots following Kay Scarpetta, Lucy, Pete Marino, and all other recurring characters. In the end the villain of the moment, often a serial killer, is a tool to build dark atmospheres, show the investigation that starts from the corpse of the victim and other physical evidence, but it is just one of the elements of conflict in the books.

Not surprisingly, one thing I noticed since the first reading, is that the resolution, which often leads to the death of the villain, occurs quickly, within a couple of paragraphs, so that every time I find myself going back and re-read them, because I’ve almost missed it!

Yet I continue to read her books, because she always finds a different way of surprising me. You may be wondering how it is possible for an author to continue to narrate about the same characters for twenty-five books, managing to make their vicissitudes interesting.

Cornwell somehow succeeds it, often by means of experiencing new ways to narrate a story. Some of her books are written in first person, others in third person, some in the present tense, others in past tense. In the last one I read, “Port Mortuary” (I have almost all her books, but I like to read them some years after the publication; novels do not expire!), she manages to develop a story in first person within about twenty-four hours. Scarpetta wasn’t present during the murder, of course, and is only partly involved in the investigations, but through a series of gimmicks the author still manages to make the novel compelling and ensure that the case touches closely the main characters, becoming one thing with the subplots.

Thanks to this ability her books are crime thrillers and not mysteries or detective stories.

But Cornwell has not only written the Scarpetta series. This is only her most famous series, which she continues to develop due to its success.

She tried to write something different and, as often happens, her attempt wasn’t appreciated by many of her fans (especially those that fall under the uninteresting category of readers who love to stick to a certain type of readings).

Another series of hers including only three books (“Hornet’s Nests”, “Southern Cross”, and “Isle of Dogs”) is the one with Judy Hammer and Andy Brazil. In the third book you find out that it is set in the same reality of the Scarpetta series (Scarpetta appears in a brief cameo), but it has nothing to do with the stories of the latter.

We have always to do with crimes, but the tone is much lighter, ironic. While reading you often find yourself laughing. The author experiments by showing scenes even from the point of view of animals (in “Isle of Dogs” there is a fabulous scene from the point of view of a crab!) and she dwells upon narrating interesting stories about the locals. The first book in this series also became a TV movie with Virginia Madsen in 2012.

Then there is the Win Garano series, consisting of two short novels (“At Risk” and “The Front”), which features an African-American detective, but also with Italian origins. The tones are darker, but the story runs at high speed and has the characteristic of being narrated in third person and present tense, almost like a screenplay. And coincidentally both novels have been translated into TV movies starring Daniel Sunjata and Andie MacDowell (in both Cornwell herself appeared in the role of a waitress), although the story has some differences and the ending is different.

Instead I’ve never read any of her non-fiction works, such as the one about Jack The Ripper, because they don’t interest me very much or at all (especially the book about Scarpetta’s recipes!).

However, I can safely say that Patricia Cornwell is one of my favourite authors, and especially one of the few of whom I always buy the printed edition. I’m fascinated by her way of writing, so much that for some time now I have decided not to purchase the editions in Italian (also because the translation quality in the latest ones I had read had drastically decreased) and read her books in the original language. However, being an admirer, both as a reader and as a writer of crime thrillers (like the Detective Eric Shaw Trilogy, in which I borrowed the expedient used in “Isle of Dogs” of putting a blog inside the novel), I hope she can break free (her publisher permitting) from the clutches of Scarpetta (shouldn’t she retire sooner or later?) and show us soon her great skills with new stories and new characters.