Hats Off!

Why hats? Why trenchcoats? Why is the world of hardboiled fandom so hung up on the sartorial habits of the 1930s and 40s? Why can't we move on?

It's not hard to see that the hat didn't start out as a fashion accessory. Anyone who's ever watched the train station scene in Casablanca knows that a hat is first of all functional: it keeps the rain off your head (or, in warmer climes, the sun). Sure, since time immemorial the Beau Brummels of the world have turned clothing into a form of personal expression, but keeping warm or dry or just covered was always the prime motivation. Everything else is lagniappe.

Male hat-wearing began to decline in the 1950s, although it persisted in some circles into the 60s and even beyond. My own theory: Is it any accident that hat wearing declined at the same time as American car culture began? The connection between teen-age hotrodders and their father's headgear may not be clear at first, but think about it. Cars had become so common that every family had one, or even two. No one walked anymore even as far as the bus stop. You didn't need a hat any longer because you weren't going to be out in the weather. As additional proof, this era spawned another trend, the rise in obesity (no walking!).

Without their main reason for being, hats became just another part of the wardrobe, and, being "uncool" and the mark of the "square", soon fell out of favor. Would the Sixties have been the same if they'd crammed all that hair under hats? I think not.

In many ways, the 1970s were all about integrating the dramatic social changes of the 60s into mainstream American life. One side effect was a longing for a simpler time, and Hollywood, sensing a buck to be made, was happy to oblige. First came American Graffiti, then Grease, and later Raiders Of The Lost Ark. And, of course, Chinatown.

Chinatown was a monster hit, virtually sweeping the Academy Awards, and it helped spur along the revival of the classic private eye. Robert B. Parker started the Spenser books, the best private eye series of the 1970s, at roughly the same time. By 1980 the core membership of the future Private Eye Writers of America were all active.

About this time Andrew Berg wrote The Big Kiss-Off Of 1944. His hero, Jack LeVine, said of his appearance, "I don't look half-bad when I keep my hat on." Hats again! Within a few years Stuart M. Kaminsky started his Toby Peters series, featuring a screwball private eye, and not long after that Max Allan Collins started writing about Nate Heller, whose cases frequently intertwine with real historical events. More recently, George Pelecanos wrote a string of historical novels following the members of a Washington, D. C. community from the 1940s to the present.

Historical mystery fiction is flourishing today, covering eras ranging from ancient Rome to medieval Ireland to English country houses of the 1920s. What's too often missing in these stories is real relevance. The best historical fiction tells us something about today as well as something about the period it's set in. Too often these stories are just rehashes of popular material from a different era. The wisecracking 40s private eye with the office bottle and the leggy secretary would be a horrible anachronism today, but pack him off to the past and he fits right in.

This does a disservice to hardboiled fiction. When Dashiell Hammett and Paul Cain started writing, they used the style they did because they felt that no one was writing stories that reflected what was really going on down on the street, what was happening every day as people tried to live their lives, and most of all, no one was saying it the way it was really said. Too often today writers take their cues not from the world around them, but from books, movies, and television, reinforcing the myths of an earlier generation.

All of which is to say that if hardboiled fiction, and especially detective fiction, wants to be important, if it wants to occasionally rise above mere entertainment, it's got to reflect the way the world is today. After all, private eyes can change in ways that cowboys (for example) can't. Yesterday's private eyes drank rye whiskey. Why not have today's puffing on a joint? The answer is that many writers are taking up the challenge of dragging mystery fiction into the new millennium. If the number of private eye movies and television shows is any indication, there's still a lot of work to be done. One thing you can say for certain about this new breed.

They won't be wearing hats.