Word: breslin
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...they--Jimmy Breslin, Gay Talese, Wolfe and a few others--began adopting the techniques of the novel in the features they wrote for the Herald Tribune's Sunday supplement, or Esquire or anywhere. Symbolism, multiple perspectives, even self-indulgence: it was all there. What's more, it was all true. Actual Journalism. These journalists staged a shocking coup d'etat against their respected big brothers, the novelists. Soon the oldsters wanted to play...
Dennis Hamill infringes on quite a few of the Breslin patents--there is a fat drunk named Fabulous Murphy who pirouettes every block to prevent the victims of his latest scams from sneaking up with blunt instruments. Murphy buys drinks from a bartender named Oscar, except everyone calls him Ocar because he once tatooed himself and left out a letter. There's a big-hearted oaf of a criminal who marries a hooker because he loves her, and there's his mother who thinks love is eggplant parmagiana. The local police force features a sentimental cop, name of 'Ankles,' because...
Characters are the most important element in the genre invented by Breslin, characters and setting. Hamill concentrates too much on people, not enough on place; his bars are just bars, cars only convenient devices for moving the plot around the city. But the scenery seems lush, an armchair travelogue, next to the attention given plot...
Hamill has a way to go before he writes like Breslin, but there's depth to his stories, and sides to his characters, that never crept into the columns of the New York Daily News. As the cop says early on. "Tommy Ryan is a slimy little punk who couldn't have sniffed your old man's socks...