The Gatekeeper | Criminal Podcast | Forensic Files

I will never read a normal novel I just can't I won't I mean I keep saying you know where's the body
kill someone let's get out of here let's move this along Marilyn stazio has probably read more
crime novels than anyone in the world she's tiny and unpretentious with a short white Bob and not much patience
for chit chat since 1988 she's been the gatekeeper of crime Fiction with her twice monthly
column and the New York Times book review how do you deal with unnecessary or Superfluous violence does it make you
like a book less want to give it less attention I find it cheap [Music] or maybe I'm in your tour maybe I'm
insensitive I don't know I think violence is fine it's it's what we're afraid of that's why
we're reading it I think we like being frightened it's exciting it's been the same way I like horror movies I like you
know alien I like science fiction I like monster movies I can't stand Godzilla but the rest of them are fine
on the day we went to meet her in New York we walked from the Natural History Museum towards her apartment building
and found her waiting for us on the sidewalk leaning against the wall with a cup of coffee and a newspaper she was
wearing red Keds on the elevator ride up to her apartment she warned us that she
didn't have an air conditioner ah we are in my apartment on the upper west side of Manhattan looking out on a gorgeous
day it was a gorgeous day but it was also kind of hot she said there are only six humid days in New York each year and
that we just happened to come on one of them how long have you lived in this apartment I've lived here forever since
1971 actually it was a rent control Department which as anyone who has ever visited New York ought to know is worth
its weight in gold so I have not budged since he sat up in front of an open window
she's removed all of her screens because she likes to hang her feet out there was
construction right outside ordinarily if that happened we'd asked to move to a quieter spot
but the truth is we were pretty hot and needed all the air we could get so you might hear some loud noise in the
background when you live in the same place for so long do you do you start to have
routines and patterns and know the people that you see crossing the same time every day oh good I tried to break
it up I try not to be so predictable but I can't help it I always sit at the same
spots in the morning after I've had coffee and the same people come by and shoot the breeze and I guess it's the
neighborliness you know I'm not going to fight it at this point I'd say hello to
the babies I talk to the dogs and then I go inside and worked all day and look out the window like I'm looking out now
how many books do you read a year I don't know a couple hundred all the way through but it's not so much how
many books I actually wind up reading start to finish and then review there aren't that many of those books but it's
how many I read like 50 pages in here's her system picks up every single book that's sent
to her she reads a few pages and then decides whether to put it down or keep going
she is a policy for first-time authors she'll give every single one at least 50 pages of her time and take notes on
their style and then enter those notes into our Master database of authors have you ever had an author get mad at you oh
I'm sure they're out there screaming at me right now but not to my face besides most of the reviews I write are
positive reviews because that's part of my reviewing if I haven't reviewed your book chances are
I've turned it down that's your review and I mean what do you not understand about no
in her apartment all you see are books stacked on every surface and on the floor of the living room and dining room
in her study she's got a beautiful collection of classic mystery novels shelved all the way up to the ceiling
and also the galleys for the books she may or may not review you can look in here all you want
so I've got August September October November December and January are under there too and then I have them lined up
according to well this year possible review and then definite review and I line up the columns a couple in advance
and everything is very organized I'm very organized but you just can't tell and there's no other
place to put them because every other spot is taken up with books although the other day
I did write to my editor I said I have nothing to read I was trying to figure out what to do
for the next column and I looked around I said I don't know I don't like any of these things I have nothing to read and
I have thousands of books here the British novelist GK Chesterton once wrote that the detective story is
different from every other story in one important way the reader is only happy if he feels
like a fool I'm Phoebe judge this is Criminal foreign stasio grew up in Revere Massachusetts
and when she was a kid she was always reading because she learned pretty quick that if she was reading her parents
wouldn't make her do any chores I hated to do any kind of kitchen work hate hate hate and my mother used to say
don't bother her she's reading and I learned oh that's the way out of this when you were
little reading were you reading everything we were you reading mystery books what were you reading
my case were always kind of dark the first thing I remember reading obsessively was the encyclopedia
there I remember the picture of the two little princes in the tower King Edward and his brother
in their black velvet suits it's a actually a very famous painting the painting depicts Edward V and Richard
Duke of York when they're 12 and 9 years old in 1483 the brothers were being held in
the Tower of London and they disappeared some say they were murdered by their Uncle so they could never challenge his
right to the throne he was Richard III but no one really knows what happened to the boys it's still one of the greatest
mysteries in British history in the painting The Brothers looked scared looking at something out of the
frame that we can't see they're holding on to each other but I thought that was the most romantic thing in the world and
I was always running to the encyclopedia and that was always my favorite story to
read did it did it scare you that dark stuff when you were little or were you intrigued by it oh it was exciting I
like exciting things I mean I like a little thrill when she began reading crime fiction she
started at the very beginning and I remember thinking I probably won't be able to read
everything but let me try so I started with the classics and I went on from there I must say I loved Christy there
is nothing like Christy her favorite Christie is the first the mysterious Affair at Styles published in 1920. it's
about a murdered heiress and it introduced the world to a private detective with a very famous mustache
irkule poaro the times literary supplement wrote The Only Fault the story has is that it's
almost too ingenious a major difference between classic crime fiction and what's being published today
Maryland says is it books today are so much longer it's so long I don't know why
it's all about solving the mystery so the emphasis was on the crime the emphasis was on the victim the emphasis
was on the procedures of how the detective amateur or not went about solving this crime nowadays there is a
lot more hanging on the character it's the insertion of the author an identification of the
author with the lead character and you can just go on for years in that vein I mean you learn everything about this
sleuth that you don't really give a about you find out about their boyfriends their husbands their lovers
their kids every last one of their kids you watch them go to pick them up at school drop them off do the laundry and
I don't read past it I mean I read it but it gives pleasure to the author not speaking from myself not to this reader
I like them better when they were nice and tight and concise and had a lot more impact on me because they were more
about the puzzle and how to solve it but my suspicion is that people don't know how to puzzle anymore it's not The Fad
it's not the fashion we're not in the 1920s and 30s the 1920s and 30s was the so-called golden age of detective
fiction the Heyday of Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers these novels were about figuring out who the murderer was
and often set in remote mansions in the British Countryside you don't learn who did it until the very end think about
the board game Clue it was also the era of black mask magazine they were publishing stories by dashel Hammett and
Raymond Chandler think loner tough guy private investigators who drink too much but still manage to outsmart everyone
in 1932 Dr Rudolph Fisher published the conjure man dies a mystery tale of dark Harlem one of the first African-American
Prime novels so that was the 20s and 30s and as far as action is concerned that's the 50s is
action writers like Ross McDonald and Mickey Spillane were popular Patricia Highsmith published The Talented Mr
Ripley in 1955. I haven't read it but I did see the movie with Matt Damon The Godfather came out in 1969. Stephen
King published misery in 1987 and in 2005 The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo took over the world so we're somewhere
in the present and the present doesn't care a whole lot about puzzle the present cares a lot about character so
we hear a lot about the person who is solving the mystery and that's why they're so long
you've been doing this for a long time you've read a lot of this type of work what are the worst cliches
[Laughter] okay we're in a suburb a cozy suburb about sweet suburb and the heroine is a
heroine and somebody near and dear is killed because she's an an amateur she doesn't have access
to specifics that you need to solve a crime so this is where the good luck comes from and this is where the cliche
comes from is she is always engaged to flirting with married to or in bed with the chief of police or the lead
detective on the case I mean that is so cliched I want to throw myself off the roof oh and somewhere along the line she
is going to be come the lead suspect so she has a personal motive for solving this case boring
there are certain formulas that you follow you have no choice I mean you don't leave the book at the end without
answering the question who done it I mean that's part of the formula you cannot get away from that
do you think that crime novels are easier to write hmm it's hard for me to answer because I
don't read anything else I stopped reading modern fiction contemporary fiction when I realized that it was all
about self I don't know when it happened it wasn't true in 19th century it wasn't true in
early 20th century somewhere along the line writers started writing about nothing but themselves and I think it
started with men I mean Philip Roth has got to be my least favorite writer in the universe
and I have absolutely no interest in that but I have absolutely no interest in women's novels that are like that
when she was younger she wrote and published a lot of her own work a play a novel short stories she says she hated
it but is glad to know that she isn't that stereotypical critic who reviews because they can't write
her career as a crime critic started slowly she was reading all these novels anyway for fun so she started reviewing
Tough Guy books for Penthouse magazine and she realized no one else was taking contemporary crime fiction seriously so
I decided hmm I could make a living if I pitched a column to these editors of big
newspapers around the country because they don't know what to do with these books and they don't know how to treat
them and they're not taking them seriously so I'll give them a column and I did and I barely scraped by but it was
it was fun and I got what I wanted which was free books she doesn't go to book parties or
socialize with the writer she's reviewing not anymore she says it hasn't gone so well in the past like the time
she laughed at the writing in a scene by Ed McBain it was a woman who was leaning
against this patterned wallpaper and it looked like a jungle and he was comparing her to some kind of jungle
animal cat and I remember I met him and I remember laughing he was really really
mad he followed me down there wherever we were and he said you shouldn't do that
you shouldn't laugh and I said well you should write better women and then he did
he really did right and I must say toward the end she was writing really good female characters
what are they doing out there [Music] I feel odd about using crime as entertainment
oh never think of it really who cares I mean if you know that's your problem it's not my problem it's fantasy I go to
the movies I like fantasy movies I like um the goryer the better I mean the Alien
movies are Heaven on Wheels I like ghost stories I like haunted houses I like zombies
um I like monster movies the thing is that's it's it's all entertainment and I like that cut stuff you know that crap
we asked her to recommend one novel her favorite for us to read before we visited she chose the Moonstone by
Wilkie Collins published in 1868. that's about 20 years before the first appearance of Sherlock Holmes
T.S Eliot called the Moonstone the first the longest and the best detective story
but as with any who was first conversation there's a lot of debate some people say Edgar Allan Poe wrote
the first detective story in 1841 but for Maryland the Moonstone about the theft of a cursed diamond is first and
best she showed us one of her favorite Parts a letter instructing where to find a
clue to lay down on the Rocks a stick or any straight thing to guide my hand exactly
in the line of the beacon and the Flagstaff to take care in doing this that one end of the stick shall be at
the edge of the rocks on the side of them which overlooks the quicksand to feel along the stick among the
seaweed for the chain to run my hand along the chain when found until I come to the part of it which stretches over
the edge of the Rocks down into the quicksand and then to pull the chain I mean that's really pretty good writing
that's that's I always like the writing first I don't care how great your story is if
you can't write it beautifully then you ruin the story now to pull the chain as it flows down into the quicksand I I
can't imagine anybody reading that and not enjoying it I remember thinking why isn't just
obvious to the whole world that the moonstone is just the best thing ever written and it's the first detective
story and Sergeant cuff is the first detective and long may he wave but why do you think people are so drawn
to this crime genre oh wow I don't know I can't stay away from it I mean it it my fingers just itch when I
see something that says murder or um you know crime of the century or whatever I mean I just gravitate towards
so I suppose it's the Cheap Thrills Maybe [Music] part of it is the sense of warriorism when that's in
the case of historical crimes I think I do True Crime also and I think that applies more with True Crime rather than
Fiction there's something really fascinating about reading about crimes committed by
Louis XIV you know that's a kick didn't know that and all the murders of oh God the Kings of England help us they all
killed one another and their children and their nephews and their uncles and uh and um
poison has always been poisons but it's it's just it's voyeurism I think I'm not
going to go out and do it myself what year were you born oh do I have to tell you that I was born a long time ago
nope that's good enough okay although every now and then somebody writes a note saying grow up
which I love [Music] foreign [Music] novel is Mr Peanut by Adam Ross when she dies her husband's fingers are found in
her mouth as well as a bunch of peanuts The Ballad of the whiskey robber by Julian Rubenstein it's a story of a an
abysmal hockey goalie it's by John Connolly and it's called every dead thing it stands out because I bought it
when I was about 10 or 11 in a supermarket on a whim and didn't quite realize what Young me was getting into
playground Parker has to hide out in an amusement park that's closed for the season I don't know probably not
describing it very well but anyway that's probably my favorite we want to know your favorite crime novels old or
new write to us on Twitter Facebook or email us at hello this is criminal.com and we'll compile a big reading list
criminalists produced by Lauren Spore Nadia Wilson and me audio mix by Rob Byers our intern is matild or falino
special thanks to David Murray and Sarah weinman Julian Alexander makes original
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this is Criminal [Music]

“I keep saying, ‘Where’s the body? Kill someone’,” Marilyn Stasio told us. She reads at least 200 crime novels a year to determine which are worthy of her prestigious “Crime Column” in the New York Times Book Review. We talk with her about crime as entertainment — and why people are so addicted to the genre that she can’t stay away from: “My fingers just itch when I see something that’s says ‘murder’.”

You can find more of Marilyn Stasio’s thoughts on crime fiction in her column.

We compiled your crime fiction recommendations here: “Where’s the Body?”

We want to know what your favorite crime novel is. It can be new or old. Write to us on Twitter @CriminalShow, Facebook @ThisIsCriminal, or email us at hello@thisiscriminal.com.

Music in the episode “Speed Reader” by Blue Dot Sessions (an original song for Criminal) “Joy in the Restaurant” by David Szesztay “Faster Does It” by Kevin Macleod “Are We Loose Yet” by Blue Dot Sessions “Añada” by Jahzzar “Vanagon” by Podington Bear “Everybody” by Podington Bear

Criminal is a show about people who’ve done wrong, been wronged, or gotten caught somewhere in the middle. Hosted by Phoebe Judge. Part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.

Follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. https://link.chtbl.com/n33u0HsA

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Episode transcripts are posted on our website https://thisiscriminal.com/.

Episode 75 originally published 9/22/2017 https://thisiscriminal.com/episode-75-the-gatekeeper-9-22-2017

Brief Summary

Marilyn Stasio discusses crime fiction, reviewing methods, and critiques modern novels' focus on character over mystery.

Key points

Marilyn Stasio: The Gatekeeper of Crime Fiction. Marilyn Stasio has been a prominent figure in crime fiction since 1988, influencing the genre through her reviews.
The Evolution of Crime Novels. Stasio discusses the shift from classic crime fiction focused on puzzles to character-driven narratives.
The Moonstone: A Classic Recommendation. Stasio recommends 'The Moonstone' by Wilkie Collins as a must-read in the crime genre.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

I find it cheap.

Marilyn Stasio on unnecessary violence in books

0:47WatchDec 15, 2022

Tension

40/ 100Low tension

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