George V. Higgins (1939–1999)

Decades after seeing Peter Yates's extraordinary film version of George V. Higgins's novel THE FRIENDS OF EDDIE COYLE, I finally got around to reading the book, which has a reputation for greatness commensurate with the film's. I love the film deeply. Now I love the book the same way. Higgins, whose first published novel this was, has, as almost every critic has noted, a preternatural gift for startlingly real dialog. Much of the book is written in dialog. None of it is precious or self-consciously "real." It simply is real. Just about every phrase sounds as though it had been recorded verbatim from actual conversation, yet none of it contains the painful gracelessness of actual everyday speech. Every character sounds colorful, but there's no pretense about it, no visible brush strokes. Higgins at the time he wrote this book was an Assistant United States Attorney, and his knowledge of the world of criminals and the law was authentic. This story, about a range of criminals, each connected in some way with a small-time crook named Eddie Coyle, and the law enforcement figures who oppose them go about their activities during a brief period of time. That Eddie Coyle is coming up for sentencing on a minor felony is the hinge upon which all the elements of the story turn. One gets the feeling reading the book that this must be what life for the average criminal and lawman is really like -- often dull or commonplace, punctuated by violence and folly, spoiled or accomplished with large helpings of coincidence and error. This book makes me very much want to read Higgins's other works. (And interpolated kudos to whoever thought to have Robert Mitchum play Eddie Coyle. It's a role one would think no one would consider Mitchum for, yet it became one of his very best and most successfully executed.)… (mer)