Barry Gifford

Thoughts on about 100 films, mostly crime-related, originally published as a regular column in Mystery Scene magazine.

"Thoughts" is about as generous as I can be to Gifford's musings here. They're too brief to be called "essays" and they aren't thoughtful enough to be called "criticism." "Summaries" might be the best word, because most of what Gifford does is simply to narrate the plot, complete with massive amounts of spoilers. Those spoilers mean this isn't a book for people who haven't show more seen these movies, and people who have seen them aren't going to get any interesting new insights on them from Gifford's superficial recaps, so I'm not sure who the intended audience is.

As for the quality of Gifford's opinions, they are intensely idiosyncratic and shaped by his particular likes and dislikes to an unusual degree. He essentially dismisses Double Indemnity and Body Heat out of hand, for instance, because he doesn't find Barbara Stanwyck or Kathleen Turner sexy enough to be convincing femmes fatales. (And good lord! I am gayer than a warehouse full of rainbows, and even I could get it up for Kathleen Turner in Body Heat!)

I suppose the book might be of some value to the film buff looking for interesting obscurities, but even that value is limited because Gifford sticks pretty closely to the classics. I don't think there are more than a dozen genuine rarities among his selections, and I don't really need one more uninteresting opinion on Laura or Shadow of a Doubt.

It's not even particularly interesting reading on the level of prose. Gifford has a knack for finding the least interesting way to express the most obvious thoughts.

A disappointment. show less

Almost a decade ago, I read through all of Barry Gifford's stories about Sailor and Lula, collected in a single volume. Sailor and Lula are two young lovers from the South who grow old together across the course of the books; most of the books are rambling road trips, excuses for Gifford to embed stories within stories with weird dialogue and strange personalities. The philosophy of the stories is perhaps best explained by this exchange from Sailor's Holiday:

"Ain't it somethin'... how it's

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just one weird thing happens after another?"
     "Stay tuned.... I got a powerful hunch there ain't never gonna be a end to it." 

However, there was technically one Sailor and Lula story omitted from "The Complete Novels." In 1995, in the seventeen-year gap between the sixth and seventh Sailor and Lula novels, Gifford published Baby Cat-Face. Upon reading it, I can see why it was omitted: it consists of three short stories (maybe one is a novelette?) with some linking material: "Baby Cat-Face," "Mother Bizco's Temple of the Few Washed Pure by Her Blood," and "The Lost Sons of Cassiopeia," but Sailor and Lula only appear in the first one, which is actually set before Wild at Heart, the first Sailor and Lula story.

Anyway, the short but unhelpful review of Baby Cat-Face is that if you like the kind of thing Barry Gifford does, then Baby Cat-Face is a good example of it. If you don't like the kind of thing that Barry Gifford does, then don't read this book. I do like the thing Barry Gifford does, so I enjoyed reading this a lot; I think I blew through the whole book in a day.

The first story was definitely my favorite, that classic Barry Gifford structure where we follow a bunch of people in their own strands as they encounter weirdness. The young woman Baby Cat-Face goes on a bus ride with a former music star, and their bus gets commandeered by members of a feminist art institute who force them to watch ballet at gunpoint. It's just full of weird goofy stuff which is a joy to read, such as when the bus hijacker, who is a very large woman, declares, "My name is Daylight DuRapeau. My mama say she name me Daylight 'cause she had a feelin' the world was gonna see a whole lotta me. And as y'all can positively witness, there be considerable of me to see."

The later parts of the book I found less interesting; Baby Cat-Face joins a weird cult and then ends up giving birth to a kid with magical powers. I certainly don't object that it's weird, but it is a style of weirdness less to my taste than what Gifford was doing in "Baby Cat-Face" itself. Still, one is never not entertained reading Barry Gifford, and it all reads quickly and pleasantly no matter how weird and disturbing it gets. show less

This very short novel is also very nearly perfect. The protagonist, Franz, is simply existing from day to day, working for smugglers in a Central American country to make the money he needs for booze and a place to sleep. What makes the book fascinating is that Franz is not a typical noir loser; he is smart, he has charm, and women are attracted to him. He spends most of the time thinking about his past, however, his failed marriage in particular. He has no plan for the future. Gifford tells show more the story in short episodes of no more than a few paragraphs--in a few words doing more than many authors can in a dozen pages. Once you start this book, you won't be able to put it down. show less

Reading the seven chronologically-ordered novels in this collection makes me wonder why Barry Gifford isn’t even more popular. With Sailor Ripley, Lula Pace Fortune, and a cast of rotating and reoccurring supporting friends, family, and criminals Gifford has created some of the most engaging characters in fiction. Throughout these novels they appear, disappear, return, evolve, age and die – often before their time. Gifford is not averse to killing off someone that has outlived their show more usefulness – much the same as his some of characters treat other folks.

The well-known Wild at Heart – the first novel featuring Sailor and Lula - is the story of the two young lovers on the road to trouble. The dialogue is striking and establishes their relationship. Lula’s pondering and questioning contrasts with Sailor’s certainty that things are askew in the world – which doesn’t keep him out of trouble. Perita Durango is such a vivid and exceptional crime story that I’m going to be compelled to seek out the 1997 film version for which Gifford also wrote the screenplay.

Reading the novels in sequence reveals how Gifford has allowed Sailor and Lula to mature, age, evolve, and suffer joy, pain, and the loss of loved ones; which makes them stronger and more aligned with real life while retaining the entertaining aspects of fiction. show less