The other news from Massachusetts yesterday was the death of mystery writer Robert B. Parker, who suffered a fatal heart attack while at his writing desk in his Cambridge home. He was 77.
I’m a big fan of crime and espionage novels (my favorites being Rex Stout, Raymond Chandler, John Le Carre, Alan Furst, Dorothy Sayers, and (of course) Sir Arthur Conan Doyle), and I got a lot of pleasure out of Parker’s work too. Partly it was the Boston setting, but also the trademark repartee of his characters, the blend of grit and sophistication, and the code of loyalty that bound (some of) them together. In addition to the trademark Spenser series, he also invented several other leading characters, along with children's books and (recently) a series of Westerns.
Parker had a Ph.D. in English from Boston University and wrote his doctoral dissertation on Chandler. He liked to lampoon the pomposity of the academic world -- a fat target to be sure -- but he also provided graduate students and academics with some really valuable words to live by. An interviewer once asked him what advice he would give to a young author, and his response was at least as useful as most of the other guidance you’re likely to get from advisors and colleagues. (Confession: I’ve used it with my own grad students from time to time.)
What was his magic formula? Simple. “Keep your butt in the chair.”
He produced over 60 books, so there’s a lot to be said for those wise words.
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