Queenpin | Megan Abbott

This episode of Books for Men features Queenpin by Megan Abbott. A noir novel about a young woman learning the ropes from (the one and only) Gloria Denton, mob luminary and hustler extraordinaire. It's every bit as good as the classic noir that it emulates. Listen for more!

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Welcome back to Books for Men, a podcast to inspire more men to read and bring together men who do. So I have a really cool book to share with you today, and always we're going to stick with the trend and move from non-fiction into fiction this week. And this is a great work of fiction. It is by a contemporary female author, Megan Abbott, and it is called Queenpin. And so this book is a mystery slash noir. It's short, it's under 200 pages. It was published I think originally in the mid-two-thousands, maybe 2007. I think a good place to start with this book will be the genre because there are some distinctions between noir and a standard mystery. I mean, there are a lot of different types of mysteries whodunits and police procedurals, cozy mysteries. I mean, there's a whole different range.

(00:59)

With that being said, noir is a very, very specific thing, and I think a lot of times people will claim that the work is noir, but I think there's one quality that really, really makes, and that is order does not typically get restored by the end of the book, which is different than resolution occurring in the story because there's typically resolution. It doesn't necessarily mean that order has been restored. They usually feature some type of anti-hero, so someone who has some kind of moral ambiguity, featured books already on this podcast that are noir based. But the big difference with Queenpin and Megan Abbott's work is that it is classic noir, right? It takes from the early noir novels of the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s, and it really subverts the genre by placing a female at the center of the story as opposed to a male, right?

(01:54)

Because a lot of those books are told from the male perspective. I think one of the things that are most interesting about Megan Abbott is that she did her PhD dissertation at NYU on the genre. So she literally studied film noir in noir fiction for over two years. I think one time I read an interview with her online where she said she read nothing but noir for two years. And during that time she kind of fell in love with the genre. It was deep and rich, and she ended up writing a book on the subject matter, examining masculinity through the lens of these great noir novels and great noir films. And it, it's really, really fascinating, her thoughts on that subject matter alone. But anyway, she ended up writing her own novel or a series of novels, I should say, because she wrote four that are in this kind of noir, classic noir setting with a female protagonist at the center.

(02:51)

For me, the best one is Queenpin. That's why I'm sharing it here. Again, you might differ, you might disagree, but the good part is, is that if you really like this book, there are three others that are very similar that you can get down with and enjoy. And I should mention one of the big reasons why I like her work, in general, her writing style. It's very staccato. It's almost like a little machine gun that's firing at you, and it's great. It's like it reads fast, it's edgy, and in a way, it actually reminds me of Richard Price's writing style a little bit. So if you go back to the very first book that I featured on this podcast, which was Lush Life, I feel like Richard Price writes in that same type of angular way. It's hard to explain, but when you read it, you could feel the speed and the energy that's in the writing.

(03:40)

And Megan Abbott does the same thing, and it's really easy for me to read that style of writing for whatever reason. Some might just call it really good. I think it's really good, obviously, but it's one of those things where it's you either like it or you don't, I guess. And intuitively you might be thinking to yourself, of course, I'm going, going to like that. But the reason why I have kind of backtracked a little bit on saying that it's really just great writing is that it's fragmented. And so you kind of have to enjoy that style of writing. I do, obviously, and that's why I'm sharing it, but just for the record, I also do enjoy slow methodical writing as well. This just isn't that. And so I don't want to set the proper expectation for the book. Another descriptor for the writing might be hard-boiled.

(04:27)

That might be a term that you've heard before, although sometimes that is confused with hard-boiled detective novels. With that being said, I think you could use the term to describe the writing itself as just being tough and edgy and in your face and not afraid to go there. And yeah, I mean, I think I've done enough to describe Megan Abbott's writing style and why I really, really like it, and a little bit about what noir actually is. Now, lemme tell you a little bit about what the book is about. I don't want to share too much, and I typically try to avoid that in these fiction episodes. I don't want to give away the story. That's part of the fun of reading a work of fiction. Obviously, what's going to happen next, but I have to give you something. So the book is set on the heels of the mob's golden era.

(05:14)

So I would say maybe forties, fifties, or something like that timeframe. The protagonist is nameless. She's a nameless young woman. She gets taken under the wing of the infamous Gloria Denton, who is this tough, strong luminary in a way. Someone who has her hand in all the action casinos, heists, racetracks, all the hustle and bustle, and she shows the nameless protagonist, the ropes and how to make it in this man's world. Everything sort of falls apart when this nameless protagonist falls for the wrong guy and things start to unravel. So I don't want to share too much, but I think one of the great things about this story is yes, these characters are morally ambiguous. There are definitely things that will make you cringe so to speak, or things that will make you shake your head, but that doesn't mean you can't learn valuable things as you're reading the book because the book centers around one woman teaching another woman how to behave or how to act.

(06:20)

And even if the intentions of the characters are less than great, I think that you can pull great lines and great things from a book and learn a lot about life even in those types of situations. And maybe you have different intentions when you go with those lessons that you learned, or maybe you're just reminded of them. And in that way, I think a lot of the story and the interaction between Gloria and the nameless protagonist, teach you a lot about life and it reminds you a lot about little things about life. One of my favorite quotes from the book is, if you could control yourself, you could control everyone else. And so that's very manipulative, but it's also an interesting thing to think about because how many times are we out of control? And then when we're out of control, nothing seems to be in control.

(07:07)

So it's like these little types of subtle reminders are peppered throughout this book, and it's really a testament to the sensibility of the author who's able to infuse this kind of stuff into the work itself. And my absolute favorite quote in the entire book is, you have to decide who you are, little girl, once you know that, everyone else will too. And I think that that's such a great thing for men and women, which is you got to understand who you are if you want other people to know who you are. Otherwise, the world is going to tell you who you are. And that is such a powerful lesson, and it's baked right into this book, and it's baked into this crazy story that you would never, ever expect something like that to pop out and smack you right in the face. But it definitely does.

(07:57)

And as I said, Megan Abbott's work is peppered with this stuff, and this story specifically because of that interaction between the mentor and the mentee. And I just wanted to share two more things before I let you go and wrap this up. One of them is that one of my favorite aspects of noir fiction, or I should say classic noir fiction, is its simplicity of it. Stories don't typically tend to be too involved. They just tend to be these very simple stories that unfold exactly how they're supposed to unfold. And I don't really know how else to explain it except that there are definitely twists, but there are not a lot of tricks. And because there are not a lot of tricks, it's a fun genre to read. It relies a lot on the characters themselves. And to me, there's just nothing that's more interesting and more fun to read than a really well-done edgy, slightly crooked. And that's what these books feature.

(08:56)

Lastly, I did just want to mention that Megan Abbott made kind of a pivot out of these classic noir books and started writing more modern noir, so using completely modernized topics, things as cheerleading, things like a ballet studio. That was her most recent book. And it's much, much different than those four early novels, obviously. And I've only read the latest, which is The Turnout because I wanted to continue reading her work because I really liked the way that she writes. But I did want to just mention that in case you were to come across her name and you're like, wait a minute, this isn't what Doug just talked to me about because she did pivot out of those classic noir books. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this episode, and if you did, I always want to encourage you to please share it with a friend, a family member, or someone who you think might like it.

(09:52)

Word of mouth is everything when you're trying to push forward an initiative. And in this case, it's inspiring more men to read and bringing together men who do. And we need women to do that just as much as we need men to do that. And of course, if you want to double down on your support, please rate, follow, subscribe, and review all that good stuff. For any of it on the podcast provider that you're listening to this on, remember, you can always find out more information at BooksforMen.org where you can also sign up for the newsletter, a monthly roundup of all the books and authors that you hear on the podcast.