Item 16 - Finish 30 14 books - "Bad Juju & Other Tales of Madness and Mayhem" by Jonathan Woods

Bad Juju, good cover

I read this book primarily in a bar while waiting for friends. Not in a single trip, hopefully I would give up on waiting after an hour; but it happened to be a book that I had on my phone and that I didn't mind putting down when people would show up unexpectedly. I mention this because there is something deceptive that happens when reading noir fiction in a bar. The atmosphere of a bar can make the worst noir seem good; it can make it more real, more gritty, more sexy. This book was far from the worst but even the bar couldn't put it into great reading territory.

"Bad Juju" committed a few of the ancient sins of noir fiction, things that I hope we can all learn from and work past to make better books. Woods didn't commit all of them, very rarely do you get authors that do that aren't self-published. But in an effort to spread the gospel here are some of the cardinal sins of neo-noir:

• You shall not make your protagonist an invincible badass white guy, Bruce Willis already exists and we're all kind of tired of him anyway.

Seriously, smirking...

...is not...

...acting. Knock it off.

• You shall not make two dimensional female characters that are just sex in high heels, even if you believe that making her the protagonist is "forward thinking." Remember the Bechdel Test and keep it handy.

(Source)

• Smoking and drinking are not all that is required to give fiction a hardboiled edge; reaching for a cigarette or a whiskey is not a character trait, it is just filler.

I'm cutting you off for your own good, trust me (Source)

• Honor your forefathers and foremothers: Hammett, Chandler, Highsmith, Ellroy and Mosley (among others) blessed are their names. Learn from their teachings but do your own thing (i.e. you shall not steal).

(Source)

I'm sure there are many more, but these are the ones I've come up with off the top of my head. I want to reiterate that "Bad Juju" didn't commit all of these sins; its chief problem was that it flogged number two to death. There wasn't a single female character in any of the stories that was more than a sex object or a venomous snake. Not that the male characters were likable nor that characters necessarily need to be likable, but all of the women were little more than prizes to be won or monsters to be defeated.

There was one instance where this wasn't the case. The story in which the POV was a female character by it nature necessitated it. Unfortunately being a woman is her only defining characteristic and her sex is her primary weapon. It all just came off as sloppy and a bit lazy.