Re-reading “Stand Together” I often notice images, phrases, and names in the text that functioned as inside jokes with myself. Decoding these references is not essential to enjoying the narrative; however, knowing the story behind the story does sometimes make a novel more interesting.
Notes on the first chapter:
Chandler novels delivered to the office. Chandler as in Raymond Chandler, master noir novelist, of course. Similar to what Ace describes here, I once worked with a guy who had boxes and boxes of Amazon.com books delivered to his cubicle. He never made time to take the books home or to read them. I think he just had them there to show off his unused intellectual horsepower. It was all a big joke. Till he was laid off and had to cart all the boxes home.
“I signed countless pseudonyms into the guest books of decrepit motels[.]”
I should point out—because I am sure no one noticed—that this is a rather overt nod to the subterfuge practiced by Humbert Humbert as he flees from responsibility in the pulpish middle section of Nabokov’s famous novel. The similarities between the characters will end here.
Huff, Ohio. The main character in the film version of James M. Cain’s “Double Indemnity” is an insurance salesman named Walter Huff. He and a breathy femme fatale cook up an insurance fraud scheme involving her husband. I read all of Cain’s noir novels while working on Stand Together, Fall Apart. To call them inspirational would be an understatement.
“…a history of violence…” It’s no mere coincidence that this phrase echoes the title of a crime thriller film starring Viggo Mortensen as a man who can’t escape his past. Are you, Dear Reader, noticing a pattern here?
The barber swept clipped hair off his padded seat. Given all the other noir references, you might think this is a tip of the hat to “The Man Who Wasn’t There,” a film by the inimitible Coen Brothers. Ain’t no such thing, pal. When I was a kid in the Eighties, my mother brought me for haircuts to an old-fashioned barber in Parchment, a town well-known for making—you guessed it—paper. The barber had padded leather chairs, fake wood-paneled walls, and crinkly black capes for his clientele. Hanks of hair on the floor. Combs soaking in blue Barbasol. The place was utterly outside of time. It’s gone now, of course. I like to think that Ace Mejeur is sitting in such a place when he sees the newspaper photo of John—and in that moment the entire story of their friendship reels through his mind. If “Stand Together” were a film, it would be bracketed by scenes in that Parchment barber shop.
