PROLOGUE: I loved Robert Parker’s “Spencer” novels, for two reasons: one, the dialog was delicious - clipped, ironic, hilarious, and somehow believable even if in real life most of us could never aspire to be that witty. Two, Parker set his mystery novels in Boston, a town he obviously knew and loved. (I loathe sloppy novels - John Grisham, I’m looking at YOU - that set their novels in particular locations but make at best a half-hearted attempt to reflect a real love for and knowledge of the locale.) I lived in the Boston area for about 13 years and fiercely love it, so I really appreciated Parker’s knowledgable affection for the place.
ASIDE: Decades ago, I used to walk by the home of Parker and his wife in Cambridge. I’m not sure how I knew it was theirs, but I did.
THE POINT OF THIS OP: Apparently, Parker had a really unconventional relationship with his wife. They jointly owned a Cambridge brownstone, or something like that, and he lived downstairs, she lived upstairs. Again … or something like that. I read about it long before the internet, so I’m not sure exactly how I know this or what the details really are. But here is an article I just Googled that seems to support my recollections..
Does anyone else have a fondness for Robert Parker, or recollections of reading about his relationship?
Bobby B. That’s how I thought of him. If there is a Spencer book I haven’t read, I’d love to know about it. I loved how much he adored Susan and I think I’d like a living arrangement like they had.
I loved his books and didn’t learn about his passing until long after he’d died. He was one of my favorite authors. I always wanted to visit Boston, but I doubt I’ll ever get the chance now.
I didn’t know that, specifically, but it doesn’t surprise me, having just recently read the book (Double Deuce) in which (mild spoiler, maybe) Spenser and Susan try living together, then decide that isn’t really working.
Love Parker and have recruited several devotees over the years. Oddly, have also met a few folks who felt rather meh about Spenser specifically; mostly those folks have drifted away as I find it hard to admire them and do not attempt to retain friends I cannot admire.
Parker’s Spenser has such a strong influence upon me I have used several of the early books as examples of parenting ideals in educational and guardianship settings. I specifically admire his obvious admiration of thought and society and propriety and his willingness to allow force to hold its natural place in human endeavors; that force must be reluctantly applied and other options must be sought diligently first. But mostly I learned that fearing force was a recipe for disaster. To question authority and to question all who deal from a position of power is a moral imperative.
I routinely quote Spenser books and judge things by the morality Parker established. I also make a point of accepting only those I truly trust into my personal circle. If you have a Hawk and a Susan in your life, if help raise a Paul at some point – well you have a perfectly full life. If you can also call on a Rita, Martin and Frank, Healy and too many others to list upon occasion, you have an embarrassment of riches. If one can move seamlessly between a criminal world and in a law enforcement world, one has a balanced life. In my life, I believe it is imperative I am as at home in a church and at a bar; a watered down sense of balance for me personally.
Recently, I even started cooking with wine. Not on a Spenser or Nero Wolfe level, but a step in that direction for the respect in which I hold Parker.
I met Joan Parker once at a fundraiser for a local LGBTQ theater company - she was on their board for many years. By all accounts from my friends who knew her, she was an incredible woman, a force to be reckoned with.
I also enjoy a good Spenser novel. The depiction of Boston is pretty damn good.
Did the whole world seem to coalesce around her as it so often did around Susan Silverman? Some woman surely influenced Mr. Parker to have a healthy respect for strong women, I always assumed it was Joan.
It was so easy for me to admire the character of Spenser. The husband of a woman I went to school with gave me THE JUDAS GOAT to introduce me to the series; he thought it was more like a James Bond story with international travel and intrigue and that I would like that. Then I started at the beginning and read through them in order. As he met Susan and suffered failure while trying his dead level best I felt such a sense of identity. Then Hawk showed up and went from being a scary adversary to being an ally and I really could believe the mutual respect was well earned.
Several years ago I started quoting: “My strength is as the strength of many because my heart is pure”. I tried to live up to my hype and told my associates that I am determined to only use my power for good. As I read the stories I just felt like I was being introduced to the role model most ideal for me. Several years later when my sister died I took on the role of raising her son (whom I still sometimes call Paul Giacomin). I even had my sister reading them before she had the kid.
My nephew and I have read several books (full length novels- not kid books to each other) to each other, many of them Parker books. (The toughest for me wasn’t a Spenser book though - WHERE THE RED FERN GROWS still breaks me down.) He is a young adult now, and he called while I was typing this, kind of poetic timing.
Most of his teachers and counselors were treated to long speeches from and about Spenser. Several actually read a couple of the books.
Hey, this is great! I got called away in the middle of the day unexpectedly and came home to find others love the same things I do. Thanks for the sense of community, shall we celebrate with a drink? We would be fools not to!
Parker wrote in at least one non-Spenser book about a youngster holding his ground in the face of a bear while out hunting and spoke of Scotch as being for hearty men – not for woman and children. Alas, I have no scotch here at the moment, and no Irish whiskey. So I will soon raise a glass of bourbon in toast to my new companions and fellow admirers of Robert B. Parker and his immortal hero Spenser! Cheers!
This conversation also reminds me that Parker clearly appreciated cooking and good food - in his books he’d often have a brief discussion of Spenser getting home and throwing together something easy, yet elegant and tasty, for a meal. I envied Spenser’s kitchen proficiency!
Do you all continue to read the Spenser/Jesse Stone/Sunny Randall books put out by Ace Atkins, Reed Farrel Coleman and Mike Lupica? While not exactly as good as Parker, I do find comfort in still being able to get new stories about these great characters.
Me too.
I seem to remember that Tom Selleck and Joan Parker collaborated to get a Jesse Stone movie made or maybe just completed right after the passing of Bob.
One of the drawbacks to others writing Spenser (and other Parker characters) was that none of them seemed to seize on the elements which were most important to me. For example in one of the um, post mortis books Hawk and Spenser (or maybe Paul and Spenser) had an exchange where one of them quoted a Steve McQueen line from THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN about being “a crackerjack clerk. Crackerjack”. I immediately knew the reference and its source, but it felt sort of pedestrian to me. Spenser quoted poets and fine literature - not some movie line I was likely to know offhand. (In addition, on a personal level I was disappointed that neither my nephew nor my companion knew the quote even though the three of us had watched TMS only a week or two earlier than when we read that chapter.)
I’ve read a few of the Ace Atkins Spenser novels and I thought they were, by and large, pretty solid. He does a good job capturing Spenser’s insouciance and humor. But I am not a Spenser expert, so I suspect there are subtle differences that I am not noticing.
I enjoy the Ace Atkins Spenser books, especially the first one, although not as much as Parker’s originals. I like Robert Knott’s versions of his Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch Westerns more than the originals, mostly because either Virgil’s annoying girlfriend either isn’t in the book, or because she’s written less annoyingly.
