Thomson - Suspects

English-American writerDavid Thomsonwas educated at Dulwich College and the London School of Film Technique. After seven years at Penguin Books, he became a Director of Film Studies at Dartmouth College, New Hampshire between 1977 and 1981. Perhaps best known for his magisterial Biographical Dictionary of Film, Thomson is a prolific writer on film including biographies of David O Selznick and Orson Welles, and two books on Hollywood: Beneath Mulholland: Thoughts on Hollywood and Its Ghosts and The Whole Equation: A History of Hollywood.

Quite probably, Suspects is the most elaborate and witty piece of fan fiction ever

- Laurence Phelan, The Independent

a dazzling work of narrative invention

- Laura Miller, Village Voice

a work whose power is incremental, whose shadow-America is elaborated step by step

- Graham Sleight, Strange Horizons read the full review

Wright Morris, Reflection in Oval Mirror, Home Place, Nebraska, 1947

For

Tom Luddy

My answer must be both. It is film criticism and movie history, but it is a fiction in which the material (the life) is the world created in a genre of movies. This is not just a way of warning readers of the rules of the game. It is a reminder that fiction has no hold unless we believe in it, and that movies use the exact poignant imprint of so many glances and faces to make a dream. So try to read without having to slap me, and ask how much your own real experience treasures imaginary beings and absurd possibilities.

David Thomson

November 1984

Each mans life touches so many other lives.

Clarence the angel, inIts a Wonderful Life

Round up the usual suspects.

Captain Louis Renault, inCasablanca

People ask how I wrote Suspects, or why? They find it hard to imagine how someone felt any need for such an odd book no matter that they may have been entertained by it; no matter that I found its form obvious and even necessary from the start. Without that, I wouldnt have done it. Not that I had understood what was happening. Rather, some force had pulled me along. And when it became clear at the end, I was as surprised as anyone. When the book first appeared, in 1985, no one thought to ask me about that process. But they wondered whether they were to regard the book as a novel, or as something else. Both, I said. But now, twenty-one years later, perhaps some discussion of that will be helpful.

A man named Jay Landesman approached me. He had read TheBiographical Dictionary of Film (1975), and he wondered if there might be some future in the idea of a biographical dictionary of movie characters. I was intrigued by the suggestion for at least two reasons: I enjoyed the format of the Dictionary, where I might write an entry in a single sitting so that you could feel the arc or the story of a career; and secondly, I always wanted to write more fiction.

So I thought about it and I came to the conclusion that covering all film characters would be impossible and unproductive I dont know if genres really mix. How could Henry Fonda as he is in The Lady Eve rub shoulders with Fonda in The Grapes of Wrath? On the other hand, the Fonda from The Wrong Man would certainly hope to meet the one from 12 Angry Men. So I proposed to take one genre, and I knew it had to be film noir, if only because at that moment (about seven years after I had started to live in America) it meant the most to me. Noir seemed the closest to life in America, and if I was ever going to try to write an American novel then chances are it would be noirish. You see, I had written a couple of novels in England, but I felt uneasy at first about writing American dialogue or American English. But starting from noir and knowing it quite well there was a way of talking that I could begin to imitate or make my own.

Fine, said Mr Landesman. Draw up a list of likely characters round up the usual suspects, I thought. And I did that, without great difficulty, because the genre is crowded with lively people, especially if youre willing to drop down (or rise) to the level of supporting characters. So I had a list and thats when the imp of mischief, or creativity, or just making life difficult for oneself, spoke to me. I judged that I could supply this list with lives, but before Id begun I felt a twinge of boredom as if to say, well if thats all there is to it