Joe Ide channels Chandler
Southland novelist gives his best-known mystery solver, IQ, a rest to take up Philip Marlowe in ‘The Goodbye Coast’
Joe Ide, the mystery novelist, is most known for his creation of Isaiah Quintabe, or IQ, a young Black man in Long Beach whose intelligence rivals Sherlock Holmes’. But this winter, the Japanese American author raised in South Central takes a break from IQ to bring to his readers a modern-day version of Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe in the novel “The Goodbye Coast.” While Ide’s publisher, Mulholland, had to license the Marlowe character from the late author’s estate, Ide did not have to submit pages for approval as he wrote and recast the hard-boiled Los Angeles private detective in the 21st century instead of the 1940s. Also, instead of emulating Chandler’s stylized, first-person point of view, Ide used his trademark propulsive third-person narrative, entering the heads of multiple characters, including Marlowe’s father, Emmet, an aging LAPD officer, and Cody, a client’s missing teenage daughter. The prose is pure Ide, infused with whip-smart dialogue and fast-moving scenes throughout iconic Southern California hangouts.
Ide himself is Marlowesque — content to be on his own in his home in Santa Monica to work without the assistance of writing groups or creative partners. Here he shares how Hollywood almost broke his passion to write and how a cousin from the other coast made it possible for Joe to find his place in the nation’s literary landscape. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Q
How has it been for you during the pandemic? Has it prevented you from capturing the iconic Hollywood locations in “The Goodbye Coast”?
A
Things haven’t changed much. I stay home and write. I don’t go out to dinner and that kind of thing. I’m good. I know what Marlowe’s neighborhood, East Hollywood, looks like. I used to live down there. East Hollywood has not changed much at all. It’s different around Grauman’s and all, but East Hollywood has been a hardpressed neighborhood for a long time. The money just left it behind.
Q
You’ve dedicated this book to your cousin Francis Fukuyama. You are a mystery writer and he has published books about politics and predicting the future. Why did you dedicate this book to him?
A
When I finished my first book, “IQ,” I had been out of the movie business for five years. I didn’t know anyone in publishing. I waffled a little about contacting Francis. He’s a busy guy. He agreed to read my book. I wasn’t very hopeful. I didn’t know how much he could relate to the book. He grew up on the East Coast and went to excellent schools. But he called me back and he really liked the book. He turned me on to his agent. And I had the easiest ride any writer had in terms of getting published.
Q
You mentioned that you had been out of the movie business for five years. You worked as a screenwriter. Can you tell us about your experience with Hollywood?
A
I was working a fair bit for most of the majors. I sold specs and did rewriting and polishing. But nothing I wrote got made. And that’s how you keep score in Hollywood. I started to get fewer and fewer calls. It got so discouraging. I would open the screenwriting program and I got physically repulsed. I just couldn’t. And so I quit. I was just depressed for a long time: If I wasn’t a screenwriter, who was I? But writing is the only thing that I knew how to do. I started to write a novel. I figured that I had the writing part down. But it turns out that writing long-form narrative is a whole different creature. I had to learn how to write decent prose. It took me a year just to do it.
Q
You seem to be a fan of classic mystery writers. Did reading their books help you?
A
Some books did. Like Thomas Perry’s books. During that time, I studied what I wanted to write. I tried to understand how these writers were doing what they were doing. Like Jo Nesbo and suspense. That guy can kill you. I was trying to understand the mechanics of it in a very granular way. Does this sentence work? Does it transition from the one before it and the one after it? Rewrite, rewrite and rewrite. The prologue in “IQ” was 2½ pages long. I rewrote it 27 times.
Q
You modeled IQ after Sherlock Holmes, and now this book is based on Raymond Chandler’s writings. Can you tell us more about your relationship with these two writers?
A
In terms of [Arthur] Conan Doyle I read his stories — multiple times — in middle school. I carried Sherlock Holmes as my alter ego as I grew up. I didn’t read Chandler until I was in my 20s, and it was recreational reading at the time. But it did make an impression on me. I like cool guys like Marlowe. Iconic loner, survivor in the big city.
Q
If you were in trouble, who would you call first — would it be Sherlock or would it be Marlowe?
A
Sherlock is much more attentive to detail. His actual knowledge factual base is much more vast. But Marlowe has a much better grasp of people, relationships and issues. Sherlock was pretty removed from people. He was more about the clues. Marlowe has to take in clients that are much more finicky and demanding. The danger that he deals with is much more life-threatening. He’s more suited to contemporary society. So I would call Marlowe. He is also someone I could talk to, whereas Sherlock is much more challenging.
Q
In “The Goodbye Coast” the father, Emmet, takes up a very large role. Did that evolve as you were writing it? Were you surprised by that?
A
I wanted somebody close to Marlowe that he could talk to, somebody who had something to say about his work, and somebody formidable. Somebody who knew him growing up and had input on that. OK, that’s family, but I needed conflict between Marlowe and whoever his sidekick turned out to be. I thought that a cranky old father and his smooth son — there would be a lot to make the scenes interesting. Emmet grew as I wrote him. His underlying conflict was written on the fly. One of the parent-child issues is bubbling on the surface and is always there. I also wanted Emmet to represent old Hollywood.
QIs
there a cranky old father in your life?
A
Not in the same way. My father was a Japanese dad, very aloof. Anything that had to do with family and kids was my mother’s responsibility. I really resented that. I resented it then and never resolved with him or myself. That’s something that I unconsciously go back to — that child-parental relationship. That comes through in all of my writing, one way or another.
Q
Favorite Chandler book?
A
“The Long Goodbye.” It was the first Chandler book I read and the character always stuck with me. And then I saw the [Humphrey] Bogart movie. That made an impression on me. I thought, “That’s Marlowe.”
Q
You have Musso & Frank Grill in your novel. Your favorite eatery in Southern California? A
Tacos Por Favor. It’s this little place in eastern Santa Monica. Carnitas tacos. I also like a Chinese restaurant called Paul’s Kitchen.
Q What’s next?
A
I’m working on IQ No. 6. I’d like to write another Marlowe but it’s dependent on the publisher and estate to decide what to do.
Naomi Hirahara is the Edgar Award-winning author of multiple mystery series and noir short stories, including the Mas Arai series. Her acclaimed novel “Clark and Division” was named a New York Times Best Mystery Novel of 2021, and her next novel, “An Eternal Lei,” will be published March 22.