Sitting down at my PC, which as late in the day as yesterday afternoon would see me pre-occupied with the completion of a first novel (keep the champagne on ice awhile: the life-work of my favourite author can be measured by the linear foot, four of them), I must say I feel at a bit of a loss – almost as if there had been a death in the family (which, as a matter of fact, there has been). All I really want to do is sit in the shade in the sun for seven days somewhere in the Canary Islands with George V Higgins of Boston, Massachusetts.
Not that Mr Higgins knows me, or will ever do, for Mr Higgins died some time ago (another death in the family). No, George V Higgins is known to me simply because he very obligingly left behind him a substantial body of work (two and a half linear footsworth), much of which I have read over the years, plus another eight titles I managed to access before Christmas via www.abebooks. com (Advanced Book Exchange of Victoria Island, British Columbia) with a view to taking them to the Canaries with me.
The bookshop I normally use in Manchester city centre had shown itself capable of assisting me with only 12½ per cent of my George V Higgins order. And interestingly enough (well, I think it is), amongst the full 100 per cent quota (i.e. eight books) I received via www.abebooks.com came a brand new copy of one of those Higgins’ titles that was billed to me (ex-New York, New York, inclusive of post and packing) for £3 less (yes, I’ve done the currency conversion) than that bookshop in Manchester city centre could have supplied it for had I presented myself to pay/collect at its fiction desk five weeks down the line – this representing the full extent of its 12½ per cent capability in the matter.
I have probably overdone it with eight books by George V Higgins for holiday reading. But better too many books than too few, I always say - that is, if you can get me to say anything other than: ‘Shhhh!’, while I’m about it. Oh, I can read a book a day on holiday easily enough (seven Rumpoles, seven by Dick Francis maybe), but George V Higgins’ books are literature of a different order; and when I say this I am not referring to the fact that George V Higgins’ books are consistently mis-filed under ‘Crime’ at every bookshop on the planet. No, what I mean is that George V Higgins’ books are literature per se, irrespective of genre. So Mr Higgins’ books take – heck, Mr Higgins’ books deserve – a modicum of mastication prior to digestion, which is not to say they are unreadable; they are the exact opposite of that.