5 crampons out of 5

HCC 009

361 was the first HCC book I read and it set the bar high.  Way high.  I had no idea that Westlake was such a star in the hard-boiled world, and thinking that I’d just chosen a random release from the HCC stable, the imprint was every god damned thing I’d hoped for – cynical men put through the gamut, twists that are played out for their follow-up effects and not just as plot devices, and stories that don’t settle for a happy or sad outcome.  Since Westlake is such a luminary, not every HCC book I’ve read is up to the challenge, but with a bit more under my belt now, coming back to read 361 gives me a better understanding of how people have taken from and grown from Westlake’s influence.

The story is mostly as generic as it comes – man gets embroiled in nasty mob business when trying to hunt down his father’s killer.  But as is the case with the best of noir, it lives or dies via the writer’s words.  From the get-go our environment and character are shaded by the narration – clipped, to the point.  It side steps being overly hard-boiled language by not grounding it in dames and capers, rather coming across as a cold world through the eyes of the everyman, who in our book is Ray Kelly.  Ray is coming home from an army stint to see his Dad.  The reunion makes us feel at home, but there’re hints of trouble as Ray’s dad seems nervous to step out into Manhattan.  Which turns out to be justified when the two are driving down the highway and a car pulls up alongside, shooting Ray’s father, sending the car careening off the road.  Ray wakes up – his father is gone, his body is scarred, and he’s missing an eye.  Again, the language does it all justice.  There are human responses to the actions, and while they’re not drawn out for longer than necessary, we feel the same surreal acceptance as our lead to the way his life has changed thanks to Westlake’s stepping through Ray’s thoughts.  The emotions and momentum carries us through to understanding why it’s so important for Ray – looping in his brother Bill – to find out why what happened happened.

Some of these books keep the chase up until the very end, and that’s the driving force.  Westlake spins this a little, and it’s for the best.  Revenge tales come in all shapes and sizes, but you’d better have an understanding of the need for the revenge in order to keep your lead’s quest worthwhile.  So just as we’re wondering how long Ray can keep the cold eye-for-an-eye (womp) mentality alive, he makes a pretty startling discovery that causes him to ask the same questions the reader might be… What’s the need to continue?  What am I really after?  Again, Westlake sidesteps some problems with this approach (namely the narrator dwelling either too long, or too morosely, or too shallowly, on these core questions) by covering Ray’s thoughts with another character, Eddie Kapp, who happens to talk a mile a minute, trying to convince himself as much as those who listen regarding what he’s talking about.  It’s an excellent distraction, and central to the plot, working to keep us wondering what Ray’s takeaway from all this is going to be.

The twists and turns that follow aren’t too mind-blowing, but they’re not supposed to be.  It’s all about the toll it takes on Ray; the toll life takes on all of us, willing or unwilling.  The point comes across casually.  361 is a pretty seamless read.  It won’t change your mind about the genre, per se, as it doesn’t exactly do anything new, but what it does it does with its own voice and does it very well.  Memorable passages and striking moments that would look great on film but are more powerful when pondered and imagined from the text.