The Lion at the Door

Newton Thornburg has been called a post-modern Chandler, a Northwest version (most of his recent books take place in the Seattle/Washington state area) of the most famous of the embittered hard-boiled writers. It's true - Thornburg's books have a fatalistic pervasive sense of sadness and ennui, and are filled with loner lead characters who regret missed opportunities, often looking for redemption. It's never assured they will find it. He's been writing since the 70s, and he's given us one other book since "Lion at the Door" ("A Man's Game") and since he's about 80, we may get no more from him. Too bad. Thornburg's best work, "Cutter and Bone," most clearly encapsulates a late 70s tone of a world going to seed, and broken or wounded characters looking for meaning - usually by solving a mystery - in an amoral and often randomly cruel world. It's a distinctly non-judgmental world view Thornburg outlines. "Lion at the Door" was written 14 years after "C & B," and like all his books, it hews similar thematic territory. A loner (named Kohl here) is present for his friend Ken's misfortune involving possible gangsters and an accidental death, and finds himself involved way over his head, and actually precipitating violent and dangerous events. It's ultimately all in the name of "doing the right thing" for his friend, even when he doesn't deserve it. Nobility among loser characters is an old staple of hard-boiled fiction. "Cutter and Bone"'s language and plot were so hard-edged to the point of being arch, but was immensely readable. "Lion" is a less stringent, the plot is less tightly-wound, and the characters don't make the smartest choices so often it throws the believability of the yarn into question at times. But this relaxed pace does allow the author to explore side avenues of the characters more deeply as they stew, worry, and find themselves doing things they'd rather not. Then dealing with the consequences, both of the bad guys and of themselves. Thornburg's strength has always been in creating characters that never come across as types or cliches (in spite of overly obvious names as Kohl, Cutter, Bone, Slade, etc.). Here he sends Kohl into a deeper and darker path of doubt, wondering if the justice he thinks he's assuring for his friend is turning into mindless revenge. When should he just "let it go"? His friend Ken is falling apart, and Diane, Ken's wife, eventually pleads with Kohl to "choose life, not death." She wants him to follow the light, think of the future, be positive, not go into the "darkness," to destroy his life (and all of theirs, perhaps). Her speech, outlining a philosophy of how to live your life, and how to suffer the immoral evils of the world she deals with every day (she's a real estate broker), is the thematic crux of the book, and may very well be the lynchpin to understanding all Thornburg's conflicted characters through his entire career. "Lion at the Door" ends with an uncharacteristic ambiguou