Exam
A dangerous business
By Jane Smiley
Knopf: 224 pages, $28
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Eliza was free. Dragged west to the California Gold Rush from Michigan by her bully husband, freed by a bullet that turned her into a widow, she considered her future in the windswept port city of Monterey. She did not miss her husband, who before his death had “clarified to her that he intended to ask her, whether she liked it or not, once or twice a day”. She did not miss her close-knit Christian parents. She didn’t miss Kalamazoo.
Eliza’s options were limited. The logical next step for a destitute woman was prostitution, and she went into it with few regrets. The widow known as Eliza Cargill became the prostitute Eliza Ripple. She found work in a high-class brothel and, thankfully freed from the conventional obligations of womanhood, she served many customers, from teenage virgins to frail old men. She even made a friend. Life seemed tolerable, even better, until other prostitutes, nameless young women who seemed to be missed by no one, began to disappear.
This is the configuration of “A Dangerous Business” by Jane Smiley. Smiley, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of “A Thousand Acres” and numerous other novels, lives in Monterey County, and her new book is a tribute to her home’s frontier past, when Monterey was a motley mix of banks, bars and brothels, a magnet for sailors, swindlers and fortune hunters, surrounded by rolling hills and trackless hinterland. It’s a deftly constructed historical novel, but it’s also a murder mystery – and in that regard, the results are mixed.
Eliza’s desire to discover the truth behind the disappearances begins with a literary dispute with her friend Jean, a transvestite prostitute and an adventurer in the service of women. The subject of their argument: Edgar Allan Poe, a horror writer whose short stories gave the creeps to Americans from coast to coast. Fast Friends, “the only thing they disagreed on was Mr. Poe’s job, a job that Jean liked and Eliza didn’t like at all, because it was too weird and it made him gave the jitters. Yes, said Jean, that was the goal, and she didn’t mind being nervous. That, at least, was better than feeling depressed; it gave you a curiosity about things.
Curiosity might get a woman in trouble, but as Eliza reads, she begins to take an interest in Mr. Poe and his detective C. Auguste Dupin, finding something in her own makeup that reflects the coldly logical mind of the Frenchman. As more bodies are found, Eliza and Jean are drawn into their own investigation. They have a knack for seeing what others don’t – a stained glove, a beanie string, a corpse without a “baby finger” – but are hampered by the fact that the citizens of Monterey don’t care about victims and are not sorry to see them disappear.
The law, as it exists in the California border, does nothing. Even Mrs. Parks, Eliza’s employer, warns Eliza to shut up. Like serial killers throughout history, the Monterey Murderer preys on people who have cut ties with anyone who might report their loss. Even politics play a role: Eliza acknowledges that “it could all become an excuse to run Mrs. Parks out of her business and put all the girls in jail”. So Eliza and Jean patrol the streets and roam the hills above the town, looking for bodies and clues.
Smiley has created several endearing characters. It vividly recalls the political tumult of the 1850s, when the country’s unity was threatened by the pernicious practice of slavery and even the citizens of far western California were embroiled in the heated debate over its future. His wry sense of humor is a brilliant thread, and it has to be said that lifelong horse owner Smiley writes some of the best horses in fiction.
But the suspense in this story is like a simmering kettle that never quite boils. There are walks, conversations and discoveries; the sense of threat, however, is muted. Another ingredient of the narrative’s subtle, dreamlike quality is Eliza’s detachment, which is ingrained in her personality and reinforced by her profession. Eliza is a keen observer of men and a caring human being, but the nature of her job requires her to disengage. What motivates her, beyond the need to protect herself and survive? What makes her tip over and confronts her with danger? It’s not entirely clear.
Again, Eliza’s detachment is her greatest asset; this helps her overcome the horrors she and Jean face. After the murder of a dear friend, Eliza thinks of Poe’s detective and looks to the author’s words for advice and strength: “What struck her most about Dupin was that he could looking at all kinds of hurt and destruction and continuing to think about what you might call it in a cold, logical way. She learns to use her head, and to control fear: “It was as if, all her life, she had been mute and patient, like a cash cow. Now she remembered Query, wiggling her ears here and there, but trotting. She felt her fear vanish, as if the bench morning mist was retreating into the bay and the sun was lighting up the sky.
If “A Dangerous Business” falters as a detective story, it does better as historical fiction. The title comes from Mrs. Parks. “Everyone knows it’s a dangerous job,” she tells Eliza, “but, between you and me, being a woman is a dangerous job, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”
Smiley recreates a world in which women – be they wives, daughters or prostitutes – are coerced, their movements restricted, their opinions rejected, their very existence threatened. In this regard, “A Dangerous Business” achieves the goal of all worthy historical novels: to open a window to the past, to force comparisons with the present, to raise troubling questions about what has really changed.
Gwinn, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who lives in Seattle, writes about books and authors.