Back to the Badlands

Months ago I read some reviews of a book called Back to the Badlands by John Williams which is a sequel of sorts to his earlier Into the Badlands. Williams, a British music and true crime writer, came to America seeking to discover the places integral to the crime fiction he loves (Ellroy's LA, Hiaasen's Miami etc.). Intrigued by the premise, I was eager to check it out. Finally, a few weeks ago (in that 'it'll show up when you've forgotten all about it' way that the universe has) I got my hands on a copy and I gotta say I'm wondering what all the fuss was about.

The marriage of travelogue and author interview is a good idea but Williams doesn't quite pull it off. A good travel narrative makes you jazzed to remember places you've been and geeked to go to the places you haven't and that didn't happen here. The city chapters consist of him wandering around awhile before hooking up with the featured author and the transition from one to the next wasn't usually very smooth as in "Next morning I go see about renting a car. Apparently there won't be one available till this evening , so I'm going to have to take the bus to visit Carl Hiaasen."

These kind of things only work with the right host. The Discovery Channel's "Dirty Jobs" works because of Mike Rowe. His mix of gentle sarcasm and ability to draw out the most laconic people make the show. Michael Palin's travel shows are excellent because he's game to try anything and well, cause he's a Monty Python guy. With Williams I didn't want to go along with him, I wanted to go instead of him cause I felt I could do a better job which doesn't make for the best read. There's no doubting his love of the books he's exploring but there were some factual errors as well. George Pelecanos' Hard Revolution is not a stand alone-it's a prequel to a trilogy. Yeah, you could read it by itself but that would rob it of much of its power.

My main beef though, is with the Detroit section of the book. Now I'm not from Detroit nor have I ever lived there for real (Detroit Metro is not nearly the same thing) but I'm fond of it, sort of the way you're fond of the family screwup. Will they ever get their act together? Probably not but they sure add some color and you wouldn't want to ever not have them around. This section of the book is called "Detroit: Where the Weak are Killed and Eaten" and though yes, I have seen that t-shirt, that's just too easy. Making fun of Detroit is like making fun of Paris Hilton or Lindsay Lohen, you get zero points for that. But more than me feeling protective, this chapter was the least successful at bridging the Detroit sites Williams tours with the Elmore Leonard interview that was the purpose of the visit. The interview is not a one on one, spend the day with the author like the others, it's a press junket sitdown. Probably a brief one given the fact the chapter is padded out with selections from another book that Leonard participated in. I can understand not wanting to leave Detroit out but if it can't live up to the rest, this chapter should have been the one killed and eaten.

If you are a huge fan of any of the authors contained within and you have already read all their work, by all means check out what they have to say. If not, I'd spend the time exploring the cities written about the way the author intended-between the cover of those books.