The Infinite Blacktop by Sara Gran

Published by Atria Books on September 18, 2018

The title of this novel is not Claire DeWitt and the Case of the Infinite Blacktop, but it is a Claire DeWitt novel, notwithstanding the departure from the tradition Sara Gran established when she titled the first two Clare DeWitt novels. Claire DeWitt novels are noir with some bright splashes of paint that occasionally relieve the darkness, but there is still plenty of bleakness for noir fans. The title, for example: “Experience was just a long, infinite, blacktop of things you’d regret not enjoying later.” Or: “There is no escape from the pain of other people. They would ruin you and you would ruin them.” That’s dark.

The novel begins with Claire on the ground and bleeding, the victim of an attempted murder by car. Everyone in LA, Claire is told, suffers a death by car. Now she only needs to figure out who tried to kill her and why. She also needs to survive the killer’s next attempt.

The story alternates the past with the present. The past is 1999, when Claire was investigating the unsolved mystery of an artist’s death. Yes, he died in a car accident — but was it an accident? The 1999 story takes Claire into the art world, where the road to success requires artists to become commercial, while the road to respect (from other serious artists, at least) dooms an artist to poverty. The immensely talented dead artist, Merritt, was the friend of a less talented but successful artist, Ann, who is also dead (yes, she died in a car accident — but). Claire noses around LA artists (an interesting if sometimes appalling group) and digs up facts about the fates of both artists, all in an effort to log enough hours to earn her California PI license.

The present is 2011. Claire is trying to figure out who tried to run her down with a car. The answer, of course, ties into the 1999 mystery. It also ties into a “girl detective” magazine that, like an obscure book about crime investigation by a French detective, influenced her life.

Good fiction is often a self-help book with a plot. Claire is going through some difficult emotional times in 1999 and another character gives her some comforting words about accepting the inevitability of change and pain — comforting not because the thoughts are particularly original, but because they are expressed in an original way. But advice is one thing and internalizing it is another, so Claire is still a bit of a mess. That’s what makes her real.

Speaking of plots — The Infinite Blacktop tells a strange story, but its strangeness is part of its appeal. Some of the story is told indirectly in the final unpublished girl detective story, a story that encourages the girl detective to solve the biggest mystery of all: Who am I?

During most of The Infinite Blacktop I was wondering “Where is this going?” but by the end, I didn’t care. Plausibility isn’t a factor in a story like this; it’s enough that the plot hangs together and gives the characters a platform for exorcising their demons, or at least a chance to learn that they are made of more than the demons who have been driving their lives. This is a serious story about being afraid to die and afraid to live, even if some plot elements can’t quite be taken seriously, but it is also an entertaining story. Of the always-odd Sara Gran novels I’ve read, The Infinite Blacktop is my favorite.

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Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead by Sara Gran

Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt on June 2, 2011

Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead is very different from the other two Sara Gran novels I've read -- Come Closer and Dope -- but like those novels it is quirky and engaging. This novel is playful where the other two were serious. If you're looking for a straightforward detective story, keep looking: this isn't it. Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead resides somewhere between strange and bizarre. That's what I liked about it: I enjoyed its offbeat nature.

Claire DeWitt is the world's greatest private detective -- just ask her -- although her failure to find a friend who went missing when they were both teenagers has been a lifelong frustration. Claire is hired to find Vic Willing, a New Orleans prosecutor with some inherited wealth who disappeared after Katrina. He's been declared dead but his nephew wants Claire to find out what happened to him. Her first "clue" is a business card she finds on a restaurant floor that has no apparent connection to anything. This turns out to be consistent with Claire's unconventional detection methods, which include consulting the I Ching, divining personalities from fingerprints, and denting her rented truck so it will fit in with her surroundings. She rivals Sherlock Holmes in her deductive ability although she seems to pull clues from the ether as much as from close observation.

As Claire endeavors to solve the case, she gets involved with a drive-by shooting, wonders about people messing with electrical transformers atop utility poles who aren't wearing utility company uniforms, ponders the obscure advice about detecting proffered in a French tome on the subject, gets high (because drugs take you to places where you can find clues), is shot at (repeatedly), and reminisces about her mentor, Constance, who taught her most of what she knows about sleuthing while trying (unsuccessfully) to get Claire "to see something better in people, something that would lead us up a little higher."

Claire repeatedly says that we all have mysteries but we rarely want to solve them. Fear of the truth is one of the novel's themes. Clues are central to the novel but not in the usual sense. Clues in this novel aren't only the fruit of detection; they're the key to understanding life. We're told, for instance, that you can't change a person's life, you can only "leave clues ... and hope that they understand, and choose to follow."

The titular "city of the dead" is New Orleans -- a city in which it's "easy to die." Post-Katrina New Orleans plays a key role in the story. One of the characters says that there's "a lot to love" about New Orleans but "it ain't no place for happy endings." That's exactly how Gran portrays it. The novel takes a hard, honest look at the violence that endures in the spirited but tragic city. Gran realistically portrays what passes for a criminal justice system there: a dysfunctional alliance of police and prosecutors that was broken even before Katrina's devastation. Maybe the picture she paints of New Orleans is too bleak -- Gran hammers at the city's abysmal murder rate again and again, almost approaching literary overkill -- but I think the city deserves the spotlight she shines on it and I'm pleased to see the attention she focuses on a vibrant city that continues its struggle to recapture its glory. Gran clearly loves the city (a place where, Claire observes, "magic is real") and feels for the impoverished residents who were most affected by Katrina. There's a poignant moment in which a drug dealer talks about the anger that swelled within him in the aftermath of Katrina, anger that (as Claire points out) would be recognized as a symptom of PTSD under other circumstances or in a different place.

Claire does manage to solve the mystery of Willing's disappearance (she's the world's greatest detective, after all) although she fails to solve all the mysteries in her own life. The solution to the Willing mystery is a little sad, but remember: there are no happy endings in New Orleans. Within the context of this unconventional novel, it's nearly perfect.

I love the way the story is structured, I love the dialog, and I love the message. I hope Gran writes more Claire DeWitt novels.

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