Crime fiction and social work
2008-10-16I just finished reading Dennis Lehane’s A Drink Before the War, the first book in his Kenzie/Gennaro detective series. As a point of reference, Book Four is Gone Baby Gone, which was recently made into an outstanding film. (I discuss the film with spoilers here.)
This is an unformed thought, but here goes.
So, this book is part of a stream of crime fiction that I’m finding I really appreciate. To wit, it’s social critique in fiction form. The Wire would be another example of this. (Fun fact: Dennis Lehane wrote several episodes of The Wire.) Specifically, it’s a form of crime fiction dealing with issues that counselors and social workers would have to address. In many ways, it seems comparable to the Spy vs. Guy espionage fiction written by John le Carré and others, as both are actually about addressing social and political ills through genre fiction.
And all this makes me think about an aptitude test that I took way back in high school. This was one of those tests that you take to help you figure out what you want to be when you grow up. At the time, I knew what I was going to be: a computer programmer. Duh.
So, imagine my surprise when “social work” came back at the top of my list.
That’s stuck with me over the years.
But, as I’ve gotten older, it has started to make more sense. That’s really where my heart is: with hurting, violated, abused people who need to be rescued from their sins. Hurting people who hurt people. That’s how I see my calling.
So I guess that my interacting with crime fiction makes sense. It’s preparation to interact with the people that I really want to help. Maybe that’s why it feels so much like coming home.
It deals (mostly) with the other end of the social spectrum, but Ross MacDonald’s work really fits this mould, too. His work is all about damaged souls and the evil that damage leads them to do.