Tim Baker’s highly-anticipated debut thriller,
FEVER CITY, has several real-life gangsters
as characters. Here Tim reflects on
the challenge of portraying mobsters without glorifying them.
The recent debate
over Sean Penn’s interview with Public Enemy Número Uno, Joaquín Guzmán Loera -
‘El Chapo’, raises once again a familiar but uncomfortable question: why is the
general public so fascinated with murderous criminals?
It was a question
I posed to myself on numerous occasions when I was writing my thriller, FEVER CITY.
Whether they’re
real life killers like Pablo Escobar, Al Capone, or the Kray Twins, or fictional
ones, like Don Corleone, Hannibal Lecter and Tony Soprano, everyone loves a
murderer. Our collective imagination seems to enjoy dwelling on that bloody
borderland between murder and majesty – where real-life criminal power lies.
Criminality and
power are at the heart of my novel, which mixes fictitious characters with ones
inspired by historical figures, including gangsters Johnny Roselli and his boss,
Sam ‘Momo’ Giancana.
This sinister duo
controlled organised crime in the 1950s and 1960s in Chicago, Las Vegas and LA.
Giancana had come to power on the wave of vicious racial attacks in Chicago’s
South Side, and both men were behind various contract killings, robberies and outrageous
casino rackets.
Their reputation
as hard men caught the attention of CIA, who specially recruited them into a
plan to assassinate Fidel Castro (Perhaps that detail puts into perspective
Sean Penn’s little dalliance with El Chapo).
It was because of
the CIA connection that both Roselli and Giancana found their way into my novel.
I knew their presence in the narrative was not gratuitous, but still it felt
uncomfortable having them on board.
How do you write
about vicious criminals without glorifying them, even inadvertently? Because many people seek to do exactly that,
by comparing cold-blooded criminals to rebels persecuted by an unjust state. It’s
the Sheriff of Nottingham defence – no matter how bad the outlaw may appear,
the Law is ten times worse.
Even an
intelligent film-maker like Sean Penn had fallen for this, going so far as to
compare ‘El Chapo’ to Robin Hood in his article for Rolling Stone.
Strangely enough,
I had decided to go this route myself, only in FEVER CITY, it is Roselli who compares himself to Robin Hood. And
in the context of what is about to happen – a murder – it’s absurd.
That became my
weapon to keep any latent admiration for the criminal characters at bay –
absurdity. I decided to show the criminals for who they really were: brutal,
vain and very, very stupid.
Just like El
Chapo.
Gangsters, like
dictators, can withstand almost any form of attack – except for ridicule. For
savage, mocking humour.
This tends to
destroy them because their vision of themselves is so preposterously
self-inflated, that there is never any room for reflection, let alone introspection. The pen is mightier than the sword… If it’s
dipped in satire.
Which brings us
back to the question: why did Sean Penn agree to interview the most wanted
fugitive in the world, however brutal, vain and stupid El Chapo might be?
The answer could
be surprisingly simple: Penn didn’t see a subject for an article, he saw a
potential role.
After all, Penn
was nominated for an Oscar for playing another real-life murderer in Dead Man
Walking. He won an Oscar by playing a victim of crime: murdered Gay activist,
Harvey Milk. He won his first Oscar for his greatest role – that of Boston
gangster Jimmy Markum in Mystic River. Crime’s been good to him.
Even his worst
performance, as real life gangster Mickey Cohen, was so extreme, so Grand-Guignol,
that it has entered into legend for its outré excess. There are no puny
failures. Only grand failures.
So it should come
as no surprise that Penn gravitated to a criminal monster. Monsters are always
more interesting than monks. Unless you’re playing a criminal monk like
Rasputin.
Luckily for
writers, we have far greater choices when we’re searching for characters; we’re
not looking for roles, we’re looking for universes...
FEVER CITY:
A Thriller (Faber & Faber) is out 21 January, £12.99. @TimBakerWrites
Nick
Alston, a Los Angeles private investigator, is hired to find the kidnapped son
of America's richest and most hated man. Hastings, a mob hit man in search of
redemption, is also on the trail. But a sinister cabal that spreads from the
White House all the way to Dealey Plaza soon ensnares both men. Decades later
in Dallas, Alston's son stumbles across evidence from JFK conspiracy buffs that
just might link his father to the shot heard round the world.
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