Lew Archer

Last updated

Lew Archer
First appearance The Moving Target
Last appearanceThe Blue Hammer
Created by Ross Macdonald
Portrayed by Paul Newman
Peter Graves
Brian Keith
Harris Yulin
James Faulkner
In-universe information
GenderMale
OccupationPrivate detective
SpouseSue Archer (divorced)
NationalityAmerican

Lew Archer is a fictional character created by American-Canadian writer Ross Macdonald. Archer is a private detective working in Southern California. [1] Between the late 1940s and the early '70s, the character appeared in 18 novels and a handful of shorter works as well as several film and television adaptations. Macdonald's Archer novels have been praised for building on the foundations of hardboiled fiction by introducing more literary themes and psychological depth to the genre. Critic John Leonard declared that Macdonald had surpassed the limits of crime fiction to become "a major American novelist" [2] while author Eudora Welty was a fan of the series and carried on a lengthy correspondence with Macdonald. [3] The editors of Thrilling Detective wrote: "The greatest P.I. series ever written? Probably." [4]

Contents

Profile

Initially, Lew Archer was similar to (if not completely a derivative of) Philip Marlowe, the pioneering sleuth created by Raymond Chandler in the 1930s. However, Macdonald eventually broke from that mold, though some similarities remain. Archer's principal difference is that he is much more openly sensitive and empathetic than the tough Marlowe. He also serves a different function from Marlowe. Chandler's books were primarily studies of Marlowe's character and code of honor, while Macdonald used Archer as a lens to explore the relationships of the other characters in the novels. Macdonald wrote, "Certainly my narrator Archer is not the main object of my interest, nor the character with whose fate I am most concerned," and moreover that Archer "is not their [the novels'] emotional center." [5]

Another subtle difference was that Marlowe prowled the city of Los Angeles during the 1940s, while Lew Archer primarily worked the suburbs in the 1950s, moving outward with the populace. Like Marlowe, Archer observes growing dichotomies in American society with visual "snapshots". In The Zebra-Striped Hearse , Archer hunts a missing girl who may be dead, possibly murdered. His path repeatedly crosses a group of young surfers who own a hearse painted in gay zebra stripes. To the youngsters, death is remote and funny. To the world-weary detective, it's close and grim.

Lew Archer is largely a cipher, rarely described. His background is most thoroughly explored in The Moving Target : he got his training with the Long Beach California Police Department, but left (Archer himself says he was "fired") after witnessing too much corruption. Subsequent novels mentioned details of Archer's life only in passing. In Black Money (1966) Archer mentions that he's about 50 years old, thus born circa 1916. In The Doomsters a sheriff mocks his 6'2" and blue eyes. As old failures plague him, we learn he once "took the strap away from my old man", that he was a troubled kid and petty thief redeemed by an old cop, that he sometimes drank too much, that his ex-wife's name is Sue, and he thinks of her often. During World War II, he served in military intelligence in the United States Army, again mentioned in The Doomsters.

Archer is sometimes depressed, often world-weary. An almost Greek sense of tragedy pervades the novels as the sins of omission and crimes of sometimes-wealthy parents are frequently visited upon their children, young adults whom Archer tries desperately to save from disaster. This use of Greek drama was deliberate, e.g., Macdonald based The Galton Case (1959) on a loose interpretation of the Oedipus myth. [5] Key incidents in the novels are typically separated by fifteen years, a scant generation, as evidence from old crimes surfaces to haunt new characters. As suspense in a novel builds toward a climax, Archer often gets little or no sleep, racing the clock and prowling the suburban Southern California landscape day after night after day, trying to put the pieces of a puzzle together in order to prevent new violence. This 36- or 48-hour wakefulness mimes the classic Greek tragic play where everything takes place in one day; here it might be more than a day, but since the character doesn't get to sleep, it essentially honors the tragic convention and contributes to the sense of unalterable impending doom. Tom Nolan in his Ross Macdonald, A Biography, [6] wrote of the author, "Gradually he swapped the hard-boiled trappings for more subjective themes: personal identity, the family secret, the family scapegoat, the childhood trauma; how men and women need and battle each other, how the buried past rises like a skeleton to confront the present. He brought the tragic drama of Sophocles and the psychology of Freud to detective stories, and his prose flashed with poetic imagery." Philosophical references underlined the thoughtful tone of the novels, with The Chill (1964) having mentions of Parmenides, Heraclitus and Achilles and the tortoise, while Black Money (1966) briefly discusses Henri Bergson.

The only recurring characters of note are Arnie and Phyllis Walters, who appear in several of the novels and seem to enjoy a warm friendship with Archer. Arnie is a private detective in Reno, Nevada, about 470 miles north of Los Angeles. Archer sometimes calls upon Arnie for assistance with cases that lead to Nevada. Archer's investigations sometimes lead from California to Nevada, due in part to Nevada then having some of the most liberal marriage and divorce laws in the nation, and also due to Nevada then being one of the only states with legalized casino gambling and the associated organized crime presence.

Archer's name pays a double homage: first to Dashiell Hammett ("Miles Archer" was the name of Sam Spade's murdered partner in The Maltese Falcon [7] ), while Lew Wallace was the author of the novel Ben Hur (1880). [8]

Recognition

According to a New York Times article, "some critics ranked him [Macdonald] among the best American novelists of his generation". William Goldman of the newspaper's Book Review section wrote that the Archer books were "the finest series of detective novels ever written by an American". [9]

Over his career, Macdonald was presented with several awards, primarily for his Lew Archer series. In 1964, the Mystery Writers of America awarded the author the Silver Dagger award for The Chill. Ten years later, he received the Grand Master Award from the Mystery Writers of America, and in 1982 he received "The Eye", the Lifetime Achievement Shamus Award from the Private Eye Writers of America. In 1982, he was awarded the Robert Kirsch Award (the Los Angeles Times Book Prize) by the Los Angeles Times for "an outstanding body of work by an author from the West or featuring the West." [10]

Books

Novels

  1. The Moving Target (1949)
  2. The Drowning Pool (1950)
  3. The Way Some People Die (1951)
  4. The Ivory Grin (1952; aka Marked for Murder)
  5. Find a Victim (1954)
  6. The Barbarous Coast (1956)
  7. The Doomsters (1958)
  8. The Galton Case (1959) [11]
  9. The Wycherly Woman (1961)
  10. The Zebra-Striped Hearse (1962)
  11. The Chill (1964)
  12. The Far Side of the Dollar (1965)
  13. Black Money (1966)
  14. The Instant Enemy (1968)
  15. The Goodbye Look (1969)
  16. The Underground Man (1971)
  17. Sleeping Beauty (1973)
  18. The Blue Hammer (1976)

Short stories

in three collections: The Name Is Archer , Lew Archer, Private Investigator, and Strangers in Town

Adaptations

Film

The character has been adapted for visual media several times: Two feature films starring Paul Newman [11] as "Lew Harper":

Random House Films made a deal in October 2011 to create a movie franchise of Ross Macdonald's detective Lew Archer with Silver Pictures and Warner Bros. Rights holder Stephen White and Random House Studio president Peter Gethers would be executive producers on the movies. This movie series would start adapting with the eighth book in the series, The Galton Case. From Silver Pictures, Andrew Rona and Alex Heineman will be executive producers with Joel Silver producing. [11]

TV series

Archer , a 1975 NBC TV series (NBC) starring Brian Keith based on the character. It was cancelled after six episodes:

Le Loup de la côte Ouest (2002, Hugo Santiago from the short story "Guilt-Edged Blonde") starring James Faulkner as Lew Millar. (Alternate Title: The Wolf of the West Coast)

Radio

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<i>The Moving Target</i>

The Moving Target is a detective novel by writer Ross Macdonald, first published by Alfred A. Knopf in April 1949.

<i>The Way Some People Die</i>

The Way Some People Die is a detective mystery published, under the author's then pseudonym of John Ross Macdonald, by Alfred A. Knopf in 1951. It is Ross Macdonald's third book to feature his private eye Lew Archer. The plot centres on the activities of heroin-traffickers, a form of criminality which Macdonald particularly despised.

<i>Harper</i> (film) 1966 film by Jack Smight

Harper is a 1966 American mystery film based on Ross Macdonald's 1949 novel The Moving Target and adapted for the screen by novelist William Goldman, who admired MacDonald's writings. The film stars Paul Newman as Lew Harper, and was directed by Jack Smight, with a cast that includes Robert Wagner, Julie Harris, Janet Leigh, Shelley Winters, Lauren Bacall, and Arthur Hill.

<i>The Galton Case</i> 1959 novel

The Galton Case is the eighth novel in the Lew Archer series by Ross Macdonald. It was published in the US in 1959 by Knopf and in 1960 by Cassel & Co in the UK. The book has been widely translated, although the title has been changed in some cases to highlight other aspects of the story. In French it appeared as Un Mortel Air De Famille ; in Turkish as Ölmek Yasak ; in Finnish as Rouva Galtonin perillinen ; and in Italian as Il ragazzo senza storia. Macdonald thought that with this novel he found his own voice as a writer.

<i>The Doomsters</i>

The Doomsters is a 1958 mystery novel by American writer Ross Macdonald, the seventh book in his Lew Archer series.

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<i>The Zebra-Striped Hearse</i>

The Zebra-Striped Hearse is a detective mystery written in 1962 by American author Ross Macdonald, the tenth book featuring his private eye, Lew Archer. The Coen Brothers wrote an as-yet-unproduced screenplay based on the novel for Joel Silver.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Find a Victim</span> Novel

Find a Victim is a novel by Canadian-American author Ross Macdonald, the fifth in a series featuring detective Lew Archer. It was published as a Borzoi Book by Alfred A. Knopf in 1954 and mass marketed by Bantam Books in the following year. The first British hardback was published in Cassell & Company's Crime Connoisseur series in 1955, the same year that a French translation appeared as Vous qui entrez ici. At this period the author was writing under the name John Ross Macdonald and was also identified as Kenneth Millar on the Knopf dust jacket.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Name Is Archer</span> Short Stories

The Name Is Archer is a collection of short stories written by Ross Macdonald and featuring his detective hero, Lew Archer. Originally compiled in 1955 and published under the name John Ross Macdonald, more stories were added in later collections under different titles.

<i>Meet Me at the Morgue</i>

Meet Me at the Morgue is the ninth novel completed by Ross Macdonald. Credited at the time to John Ross Macdonald, it was published in 1953 by A. A. Knopf and released as a paperback by Pocket Books the following year. In that year too the book was published by Cassell & Co in the UK under the title Experience with Evil. There had been disagreement over the novel's original title. Knopf turned down Macdonald's suggestion of Message from Hell and Macdonald turned down the suggestion of The Convenient Corpse from Pocket Books.

<i>The Chill</i> (Macdonald novel)

The Chill is Ross Macdonald's eleventh Lew Archer novel, published by Alfred A. Knopf in their Borzoi series in 1964. Macdonald's reputation was now growing and the front cover bore the announcement "a new novel by the author of The Zebra Striped Hearse", which had been well received. After the book was published by Collins Publishers in the UK that year, it went on to gain the Silver Dagger award for 1964 from the British Crime Writers Association. A French translation also appeared in 1964, followed by a Danish translation the following year and an Italian translation in 1967.

<i>The Far Side of the Dollar</i> Novel by Ross Macdonald

The Far Side of the Dollar is the 12th detective novel by Ross Macdonald to feature his private eye, Lew Archer. A condensed version was published by Cosmopolitan in 1964; in 1965 the full version appeared in the US from Alfred A. Knopf and in the UK from Collins Publishers.

References

  1. ↑ Herbert, Rosemary (1 January 2003). Whodunit? : a who's who in crime & mystery writing. Oxford University Press. pp.  10. ISBN   0195157613. OCLC   252700230.
  2. ↑ "Feature - Ross Macdonald Tribute". januarymagazine.com.
  3. ↑ Louis Bayard (2015) Review: Eudora Welty and Ross Macdonald, Conjoined by a Torrent of Words, The New York Times 13 July 2015. Retrieved 14 April 2016
  4. ↑ "Lew Archer". thrillingdetective.com.
  5. 1 2 Macdonald, Ross (1973). On Crime Fiction. Santa Barbara : Capra Press, Series title: Yes! Capra chapbook series ; no. 11
  6. ↑ Tom Nolan, Ross Macdonald, A Biography, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1999 ISBN   0-684-81217-7
  7. ↑ Kreyling, Michael (2005). The Novels of Ross Macdonald . University of South Carolina Press. p.  18. ISBN   1-57003-577-6.
  8. ↑ Tom Nolan, editor, Ross Macdonald: The Archer Files, Vintage Crime/Black Lizard, Introduction: "Archer in Memory" p. xiii.
  9. ↑ Ross Macdonald - A Biography By Tom Nolan
  10. ↑ Mystery Writer Ross Macdonald, 67, Dies July 13, 1983
  11. 1 2 3 4 5 Fleming, Mike Jr. (31 October 2011). "Warner Bros, Joel Silver Revive Ross Macdonald's Lew Archer Novel Series With 'The Galton Case'". Deadline Hollywood. Penske Business Media, LLC. Retrieved 8 February 2016.
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