Laurence Gough

I have now completed my self-appointed summer job of reading all 13 of Vancouver writer Laurence Gough’s series of novels featuring VPD homicide detectives (and eventually husband and wife) Jack Willows and Claire Parker.

I had a marvelous time watching the writer become an accomplished hard-boiled author and then a confident and accomplished novelist. Gough improves and refines his style throughout the series, and his confidence grows with each of the last 7 or 8 books.

These are hard-boiled procedurals, with a satisfying level of violence, set within the geographic, cultural and business textures of contemporary Vancouver. But they also become an extended meditation on both the nature of intimate relationships and of the human condition itself.  The 13-book series takes Willows and Parker through every which way of relationship building; from the first subtle attractions to living with Jack’s children from a previous marriage to being married with an infant son of their own.  This is no longer a particularly successful marriage, but they do the best they can.

I thoroughly recommend him both as a hard-boiled author in the tradition of Hammett and Chandler and Spillane, but also, especially in his later works, as a very good Canadian novelist in his own right.

What Next?

Just a few weeks after finishing the draft of my book and sending off the submission, I can say that the exertion of waiting to hear back is already harder than the effort of research and writing!

In the meanwhile, I’ve read a whole bunch of books — mainly by Anosh Irani and Laurence Gough, two very different Vancouver authors — watched a lot of sports (cricket, Le Tour and sumo) and cooked a number of (immodestly) fabulous meals. Each of these activities is a decent time filler, but none is as satisfying as finding out something new and pounding on the keyboard to explain it.

Retirement, or whatever this period is that I’m now in, certainly gives me the space to develop material (and I could not have completed the research on Commercial Drive without the free time). But it also reduces the urgency of getting things done over a weekend, say, or in the few hours available in the evening after a days’ work. Learning and applying self-discipline within a completely open schedule can be a tough slog!

But what to work on? I have an enormous amount of unused research from the Commercial Drive book and I had assumed I would work that up into something different; we’ll see. Perhaps I’ll try to build on some of the unfinished novels and short stories I have stashed away over the years. Maybe I should start by writing more blog posts. Hmmm, now there’s an idea worth pursuing.