The Poet & the Private Eye - Hardcover

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9781847719836: The Poet & the Private Eye

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 184771983X ISBN 13: 9781847719836

Publisher: GARDNERS VI BOOKS AMS006, 2014

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Published in celebration of Dylan Thomas' 100th birthday. New York 1953. A private investigator takes on a tail job for Time Magazine. His quarry is a poet, newly arrived from the UK, who is suing the magazine for libel. The private eye has never heard of him, but he will soon. The mark is the Welsh poet, Dylan Thomas. And in three weeks time, Mr. Thomas will be dead. Based on true events The Poet & the Private Eye is a beautifully written work of historical fiction lamenting the sad end of a brilliant poet.

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Review

Hired to dig dirt on Dylan Thomas during his last visit to New York, a private investigator instead finds the image of his own ruined life in the poet's. Stung by a 1953 profile in the coyly unnamed Time magazine, the distinguished but unruly Welsh poet has threatened a libel suit. The obvious defense, private eye Jimmy is assured by his frequent client, Time attorney Con, is to prove everything in this profile is gospel." That means tailing Thomas as he makes the rounds of the Big Apple's fleshpots in order to substantiate a pattern of misbehavior. . . Gittins (Gimme Shelter, 2013) mines Thomas' real-life last days for these obvious lessons with sensitivity and devotion. --Kirkus Reviews

At the start of this inventive tale set in the fall of 1953 from British author Gittins (Gimme Shelter), New York City lawyer Con, who represents an American scandal magazine, hires private eye Jimmy for a "simple tail job." Dylan Thomas is suing the magazine for defamation, and Con wants Jimmy to follow "Subject Thomas," as he's called throughout, who's due to fly into Idlewild airport the next day. This assignment turns into a life-changer for Jimmy, who tries to square the adulation showered on Thomas with the writer's boorish behavior. The detective even tries to understand Thomas's poetry, with little success. As Thomas spirals into self-destruction, Jimmy becomes obsessed with figuring out why the poet acts so outrageously. For background information, Jimmy travels to Laugharne, Wales, the poet's home since 1949. There Jimmy finds more adulation but also evidence of the bizarre behavior of "Subject Thomas, female." Gittins paints a moving portrait of a talented man feted by the same public complicit in his death. --Publishers Weekly

There s nothing uncommon about literary figures taking star turns as sleuths, but it s definitely out of the ordinary when the real-life character is the object of a fictional PI s investigation. A PI is hired by Time, Inc., to tail poet Dylan Thomas, in New York in 1953 to sign contracts for a lucrative lecture tour. Thomas is suing Time for defamation of character, and the media giant hopes to uncover some dirt on the poet. There is no crime here, though there is, eventually, a dead body belonging to Thomas, who dies from the effects of an extended bender, but, of course, we know that s coming, so there s no surprise. What we have, then, is a historical novel employing the PI frame to tell a familiar story that isn t crime fiction at all none of which makes this peculiar novel any less fascinating. It s a coming-of-age story, really, as our PI, who has never heard of Thomas in the beginning, comes to sympathize with him and even falls under the sway of his poetry ( Time held me, green and dying ). Mainstream mystery fans will be scratching their heads, but the literary-crime crowd will be hooked and find themselves reaching for that tattered volume of Thomas collected poems. --Booklist

The private eye who narrates this novel by British TV and radio writer Gittins is hired by Time magazine in 1953 to tail a poet who has instigated a libel suit. The poet? One Dylan Thomas. Yet once Thomas arrives in New York, he begins a series of drunken adventures even more outrageous than those referenced in Time's article. A few examples: he gropes and vomits on Shelley Winters, urinates on Charlie Chaplin's potted plant, and has oral sex in a crowded movie theater. (All these incidents actually happened, although here they are compressed into one U.S. tour.) But this book is not really sensational; as events unfold, the narrator becomes less sympathetic to the wolfish editor at Time and more sympathetic to this gifted poet, especially during a performance of Under Milk Wood, even as Thomas spirals out of control; it's no spoiler to report that by the end of the book the poet is dead. As he explores the psyche that is Thomas, the narrator begins trying to understand his own, especially in light of an estrangement from his wife. VERDICT The tone here is conversational, making the narrator utterly believable, and there are occasional compelling side trips into things like union-busting and the history of crime fiction. Locale-strong historical fiction with a literary bent, to be read with an open mind. [October marks the centennial of Dylan Thomas's birth. --Library Journal

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