Soul Circus

by George Pelecanos

Reading Group Guide

  SOUL

  CIRCUS

  A Novel by

  GEORGE PELECANOS

  George Pelecanos’s film noir favorites

  Anyone who has had a look at my website (www.george-pelecanos.com) knows that I am a fan of ’70s crime/action films, so there is no need to once again talk up those movies (but if you have not seen Charley Varrick, Rolling Thunder, The Outfit, or The Seven-Ups, seek them out). For a change of pace, here are some older noirish crime films that deserve a look.

  Public Enemy (1931)

  William Wellman’s tough look at the rise and fall of a criminal in Prohibition-era Chicago set a template for the gangster film that has remained relatively unchanged and unimproved for eighty years. Jimmy Cagney, in a star-making role, plays the title character. The violence and sexuality are pre–Hays Code daring. Look for the infamous grapefruit to the face of Mae Clarke and the powerful final scene. With Edward Woods, Joan Blondell, and Jean Harlow. An early sound picture that is still highly watchable today. “I ain’t so tough.”

  Angels with Dirty Faces (1938)

  One of the many gangster films of the original, Depression-era cycle, but this is in a class of its own. Two childhood friends take very different paths: Jerry Connolly (Pat O’Brien) becomes a priest; Rocky Sullivan (James Cagney), a hoodlum. When Sullivan is sentenced to death for his crimes, Father Connolly asks his genuinely tough pal to act like a coward in order to turn the young men who worship him away from a life of crime. The ending of this film, Sullivan’s last walk to the chair, packs a wallop. Max Steiner’s ominous score and director Michael Curtiz’s staging caused my heart to pound in my chest and all-out shocked me when I first saw it as a kid. It hasn’t left me to this day. Angels has been an influence on many of my books, most noticeably The Big Blowdown, Hard Revolution, and The Turnaround. With nice, naturalistic performances by Frankie Burke and William Tracey (Rocky and Jerry as boys), the original Dead End Kids, and Humphrey Bogart as a villain who gets his comeuppance in lead. “Let’s say a prayer for a kid who couldn’t run as fast.”

  Kiss of Death (1947)

  Henry Hathaway’s direction and all New York City locations are a highlight of this ’40s crime film about ex-con turned family man Nick Bianco (Victor Mature), who agrees to work with the DA and bring down a psychopathic criminal (Richard Widmark in his screen debut as the giggling, bonkers Tommy Udo). This is the one where Widmark ties an old lady to her wheelchair and pushes her down a flight of stairs, a scene that has lost none of its power. Kiss would be a better than average film even if it had been cast with a bland noir stalwart like Dana Andrews or Dennis O’Keefe in the lead, but the hulking, vulnerable Mature plays Bianco with genuine emotion and lifts this into the realm of top-shelf drama. The climax, played almost wordlessly in an Italian restaurant, is super tense. With a radiant, natural Colleen Gray as Bianco’s wife and Brian Donlevy as the law.

  Act of Violence (1948)

  Many of the films in noir’s second cycle concerned themselves with veterans returning from the war only to find that their lives have been irrevocably altered; death has followed them, and its shadow has crept across their hometowns. Of these stories, Act of Violence, directed with flair by Fred Zinnemann, is one of the best. Van Heflin plays a former POW with a secret who is stalked by one of his fellow soldiers/prisoners, Robert Ryan. The casting could not be more perfect. Heflin was an everyman, and Ryan (a marine who my father called the McCoy) was always at his best as a sadistic tough guy. Mary Astor (from The Maltese Falcon) stands out as a barroom slut. With Janet Leigh as Heflin’s luscious young wife. Concludes, Western style, with a shootout by the train tracks. Catch this on TCM.

  Force of Evil (1948)

  Abraham Polonsky’s searing study of corruption and what it does to the relationship between two brothers, played by John Garfield and Thomas Gomez. On-location New York cinematography influenced by Edward Hopper paintings, true noir sensibility, and dialogue that nears poetry in its rhythm and complexity (indeed, a portion of the voiceover narration in the final act is written in iambic pentameter). Here Polonsky linked the numbers racket to the crooks on Wall Street and, among other reasons, was blacklisted because of it; the strain of that witch hunt was reportedly a factor in Garfield’s fatal heart attack four years later. He left behind a work of art.

  In a Lonely Place (1950)

  A melancholy screenwriter (Humphrey Bogart) with violence issues is suspected of a murder until a neighbor (Gloria Graham) in his garden apartment complex provides his alibi. After they fall for each other, she begins to doubt his innocence. Nicholas Ray’s masterpiece, Humphrey Bogart’s best performance, and a showcase for the lovely Gloria Graham, who shined similarly in Fritz Lang’s volcanic The Big Heat. In a Lonely Place manages to locate the psychological heart of noir without resorting to the visual self-parody that eventually crippled the genre. Lush black-and-white cinematography by Burnett Guffey. Music by George Antheil. The Smithereeens wrote a song based on the poem recited in this, one of my favorite films.

  Gun Crazy (1950)

  Joseph H. Lewis’s stylish, sexy take on the Bonnie and Clyde legend is a prime example of a talented filmmaker spinning gold with poverty-row funds. John Dall and Peggy Cummins play sharpshooters who meet at a carnival and fall in love. They knock off a series of gas stations, banks, and payroll facilities until their inevitable fall. Dall is willowy and sensitive, while the blond and beautiful Cummins is most alive with a gun in her hand; she gets off when the shooting starts. Inventive camera work by Russell Harlan puts us in the backseat of the car during the main robbery and makes the viewer complicit in the crimes. Written, mostly, by blacklisted Dalton Trumbo under the name of Millard Kaufman. In the noir tradition, the fog that envelops the lovers in the film’s climax has been creeping toward them all their lives. One of the very best films of its kind.

  Pickup on South Street (1953)

  A Cold War thriller about a pickpocket (Richard Widmark) who unwittingly gets tangled up with Commie spies. Sam Fuller’s skillet-to-the-face style is relatively subdued here, to great effect. The New York locations, particularly the waterfront, are as memorable as the story. Brutal and convincing, with damaged characters whose loyalties, motivations, and actions are complex. With Jean Peters as the love interest / punching bag and Richard Kiley as a conflicted heavy. Thelma Ritter, playing a stoolpigeon named Moe, buys a piece of immortality in her shattering last scene. Lovingly restored on DVD by Criterion.

  Kiss Me Deadly (1955)

  From its stunning opening sequence to its apocalyptic finale, Kiss Me Deadly is, visually and thematically, the ultimate film noir. Adapted from the Mickey Spillane novel by the great Greek American novelist and screenwriter A. I. Bezzerides and directed by artist/journeyman Robert Aldrich. Ralph Meeker plays Mike Hammer the way Spillane unintentionally drew him: brutal, destructive, and not particularly bright. Cloris Leachman is the doomed hitchhiker he picks up one night, setting in motion a chain of events that leads to an atomic meltdown. Shocking violence, great L.A. locations, and a gallery of grotesques that includes Jack Elam, Albert Dekker, Paul Stewart, and Gaby Rogers as a blond-haired dish who stinks of death. With Nick Dennis as an auto mechanic who gets under the wrong car. The unorthodox credit scroll tells you that everything you are about to see will be counter to your expectations; you’ve entered a “world gone wrong.”

  The Killing (1956)

  I love John Huston’s The Asphalt Jungle, but I give the nod to this similar heist film because of its unbeautiful actors, unsavory characters, and down-and-dirty milieu. Tall country-buck Sterling Hayden (also from Asphalt) leads the team in a racetrack robbery that (naturally) goes awry. Director Stanley Kubrick and “Dime Store Dostoyevsky” Jim Thompson adapted the novel Clean Break by Lionel White. Kubrick plays with time and structure and comes into his own with the assured style of a maverick in his second feature, but it is in the writing and acting where this one shines. Watch the turns by Elisha Cook Jr., Marie
Windsor, Ted De Corsia, Vince Edwards, Jay C. Flippin, and Kola Kwariani. A special place in movie history awaits the legendary Timothy Carey, here playing a racist sniper. Hayden’s last line in the film encapsulates the noir ethos perfectly.

  Touch of Evil (1958)

  Mexican chief of narcotics Vargas (Charlton Heston) and his newlywed wife (Janet Leigh) encounter danger and corruption south of the border when they come up against a dirty American police captain named Hank Quinlan (a nearly unrecognizable Orson Welles). Crime films seem to unleash the outlandish in Welles. As in The Lady from Shanghai, the director pulls out all the visual stops, but Lady was a trip to the funhouse (literally, in its climax) whereas Evil is a twisted ride to the bottom of the gutter. With this one, Welles cut to absolute black, and effectively put an end to the genre. Everything that has been done since has been a parody. R.I.P., film noir.

  Look for George Pelecanos’s further suggestions for viewing in the reading group guides to his novels Hard Revolution and The Way Home.

  Questions and topics for discussion

  1. Pelecanos uses slang and urban dialect to great effect in Soul Circus. Each character, regardless of race or ethnicity, has a distinct voice. Discuss what dialogue means to the story, and the way Pelecanos uses dialogue differently with different characters in Soul Circus.

  2. Morality is a theme that weaves itself throughout Soul Circus. Which moral issues stand out the most to you? Which characters face the toughest moral dilemmas, and how do they resolve them?

  3. What do you think of the relationship between Mario and Dewayne Durham? Discuss how their feelings for each other alter their actions and reactions throughout the book.

  4. Granville Oliver faces a possible death sentence in his trial. How do you feel about the potential use of capital punishment in Oliver’s case—and in general?

  5. At several points in the novel, Derek recognizes how lucky and happy he is to have a real home and family with Janine and Lionel, yet he still feels the need to keep his row house on Buchanan Street. Why do you think Derek seems uneasy about giving up that part of his life?

  6. Do you think Derek and Terry Quinn should feel any responsibility for Olivia Elliot’s death?

  7. What racial struggles does Quinn face on the job? How does he deal with these tensions, and how do they affect his relationship with Derek? How do they influence his actions?

  8. What is Ulysses Foreman’s role in the crime chain? How much guilt do you feel he carries by trafficking guns to the gangs?

  9. What considerations does Devra Stokes need to take into account before agreeing to testify on Oliver’s behalf? Do you think she makes the right decision?

  10. What is your opinion of Mario Durham? Do you feel any pity for him and his predicament? Do you feel he is appropriately punished by the novel’s end?

  11. How are the female characters in Soul Circus perceived by the male characters? Discuss the ways in which the women in the novel are vulnerable and influenced by the men in their lives, and the ways in which each woman is strong.

  12. What similarities can you find between Derek and Nick Stefanos? Do you think these similarities are important—to the men themselves and/or to the story?

  13. Do you feel there is justice in the action Derek and Nick take at the end of the book?

  14. What does Pelecanos’s writing reveal about urban life in Washington, D.C., and the cultural upheavals in his hometown? In what ways does he succeed in shedding light on the D.C. underworld?

  … and the next Derek Strange novel

  In Hard Revolution George Pelecanos reaches back to a turbulent period in Derek Strange’s early life. Following is a brief excerpt from the novel’s opening pages.

  ONE

  DEREK Strange got down in a three-point stance. He breathed evenly, as his father had instructed him to do, and took in the pleasant smell of April. Magnolias, dogwoods, and cherry trees were in bloom around the city. The scent of their flowers, and the heavy fragrance of a nearby lilac bush growing against a residential fence, filled the air.

  “You keep your back straight,” said Derek, “like you’re gonna set a dinner up on it. You ain’t want your butt up in the air, either. That way you’re ready. You just blow right out, like, and hit the holes. Bust on through.”

  Derek and his Saturday companion, Billy Georgelakos, were in an alley that ran behind the Three-Star Diner on a single-number block of Kennedy Street, at the eastern edge of Northwest D.C. Both were twelve years old.

  “Like your man,” said Billy, sitting on a milk crate, an Our Army at War comic book rolled tightly in his meaty hand.

  “Yeah,” said Derek. “Here go Jim Brown right here.”

  Derek came up out of his stance and exploded forward, one palm hovering above the other, both close to his chest. He took an imaginary handoff as he ran a few steps, then cut, slowed down, turned, and walked back toward Billy.

  Derek had a way of moving. It was confident but not cocky, shoulders squared, with a slight looseness to the hips. He had copied the walk from his older brother, Dennis. Derek was the right height for his age, but like all boys and most men, he wished to be taller. Lately, at night when he was in bed, he thought he could feel himself growing. The mirror over his mother’s dresser told him he was filling out in the upper body, too.

  Billy, despite his wide shoulders and unusually broad chest, was not an athlete. He kept up on the local sports teams, but he had other passions. Billy liked pinball machines, cap pistols, and comic books.

  “That how Brown got his twelve yards in eleven carries against the ’Skins?” said Billy.

  “Uh-uh, Billy, don’t be talkin’ about that.”

  “Don Bosseler gained more in that game than Brown did.”

  “In that game. Most of the time, Bosseler ain’t fit to carry my man’s cleats. Two weeks before that, at Griffith? Jim Brown ran for one hundred and fifty-two. The man set the all-time rushing record in that one, Billy. Don Bosseler? Shoot.”

  “Awright,” said Billy, a smile forming on his wide face. “Your man can play.”

  Derek knew Billy was messing with him, but he couldn’t help getting agitated just the same. Not that Derek wasn’t a Redskins fan. He listened to every game on the radio. He read the Shirley Povich and Bob Addie columns in the Post whenever they saw print. He followed the stats of quarterback Eddie Le-Baron, middle linebacker Chuck Drazenovich, halfback Eddie Sutton, and others. He even tracked Bosseler’s yards-per-carry. In fact, he only rooted against the ’Skins twice a year, and then with a pang of guilt, when they played Cleveland.

  Derek had a newspaper photo of Brown taped to the wall of the bedroom he shared with his brother. With the exception of his father, there was no one who was more of a hero to him than Brown. This was a strong individual who commanded respect, not just from his own but from people of all colors. The man could play.

  “Don Bosseler,” said Derek, chuckling. He put one big, long-fingered hand to the top of his head, shaved nearly to the scalp, and rubbed it. It was something his brother, Dennis, did in conversation when he was cracking on his friends. Derek had picked up the gesture, like his walk, from Dennis.

  “I’m kiddin’ you, Derek.” Billy got up off the milk crate and put his comic book down on the diner’s back stoop. “C’mon, let’s go.”

  “Where?”

  “My neighborhood. Maybe there’s a game up at Fort Stevens.”

  “Okay,” said Derek. Billy’s streets were a couple of miles from the diner and several miles from Derek’s home. Most of the kids up there were white. But Derek didn’t object. Truth was, it excited him some to be off his turf.

  On most Saturdays, Derek and Billy spent their time out in the city while their fathers worked at the diner. They were boys and were expected to go out and find adventure and even mild forms of trouble. There was violence in certain sections of the District, but it was committed by adults and usually among criminals and mostly at night. Generally, the young went untouched.
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  Out on the main drag, Derek noticed that the local movie house, the Kennedy, was still running Buchanan Rides Alone, with Randolph Scott. Derek had already seen it with his dad. His father had promised to take him down to U Street for the new John Wayne, Rio Bravo, which had people talking around town. The picture was playing down at the Republic. Like the other District theaters on U, the Lincoln and the Booker T, the Republic was mostly for colored, and Derek felt comfortable there. His father, Darius Strange, loved westerns, and Derek Strange had come to love them, too.

  Derek and Billy walked east on the commercial strip. They passed two boys Derek knew from church, and one of them said, “What you hangin’ with that white boy for?” and Derek said, “What business is that of yours?” He made just enough eye contact for the boy to know he was serious, and all of them went on their way.

  Billy was Derek’s first and only white playmate. The working relationship between their fathers had caused their hookup. Otherwise they never would have been put together, since most of the time, outside of sporting events and first jobs, colored boys and white boys didn’t mix. Wasn’t anything wrong with mixing, exactly, but it just seemed more natural to be with your own kind. Hanging with Billy sometimes put Derek in a bad position; you’d get challenged out here when your own saw you walking with a white. But Derek figured you had to stand by someone unless he gave you cause not to, and he felt he had to say something when conflict arrived. It wouldn’t have been right to let it pass. Sure, Billy often said the wrong things, and sometimes those things hurt, but it was because he didn’t know any better. He was ignorant, but his ignorance was never deliberate.