| Lew Archer | |
|---|---|
| First appearance | The Moving Target |
| Last appearance | The Blue Hammer |
| Created by | Ross Macdonald |
| Portrayed by | Paul Newman Peter Graves Brian Keith Harris Yulin James Faulkner |
| In-universe information | |
| Gender | Male |
| Occupation | Private detective |
| Spouse | Sue Archer (divorced) |
| Nationality | American |
Lew Archer is a fictional character created by American-Canadian writerRoss Macdonald. Archer is a private detective working in SouthernCalifornia.[1] Between the late 1940s and the early '70s, the character appeared in 18 novels and a handful of shorter works as well as several film and television adaptations. Macdonald's Archer novels have been praised for building on the foundations ofhardboiled fiction by introducing more literary themes and psychological depth to the genre. CriticJohn Leonard declared that Macdonald had surpassed the limits of crime fiction to become "a major American novelist"[2] while authorEudora Welty was a fan of the series and carried on a lengthy correspondence with Macdonald.[3] The editors ofThrilling Detective wrote: "The greatestP.I. series ever written? Probably."[4]
Initially, Lew Archer was similar to (if not completely a derivative of)Philip Marlowe, the pioneering sleuth created byRaymond Chandler in the 1930s. However, Macdonald eventually broke from that mold, though some similarities remain. Archer's principal difference is that he is much more openly sensitive and empathetic than the tough Marlowe. He also serves a different function from Marlowe. Chandler's books were primarily studies of Marlowe's character and code of honor, while Macdonald used Archer as a lens to explore the relationships of the other characters in the novels. Macdonald wrote, "Certainly my narrator Archer is not the main object of my interest, nor the character with whose fate I am most concerned," and moreover that Archer "is not their [the novels'] emotional center."[5]
Another subtle difference was that Marlowe prowled the city of Los Angeles during the 1940s, while Lew Archer primarily worked the suburbs in the 1950s, moving outward with the populace. Like Marlowe, Archer observes growing dichotomies in American society with visual "snapshots". InThe Zebra-Striped Hearse, Archer hunts a missing girl who may be dead, possibly murdered. His path repeatedly crosses a group of young surfers who own ahearse painted in gay zebra stripes. To the youngsters, death is remote and funny. To the world-weary detective, it's close and grim.
Lew Archer is largely a cipher, rarely described. His background is most thoroughly explored inThe Moving Target: he got his training with the Long Beach California Police Department, but left (Archer himself says he was "fired") after witnessing too much corruption. Subsequent novels mentioned details of Archer's life only in passing. InBlack Money (1966) Archer mentions that he's about 50 years old, thus born circa 1916. InThe Doomsters a sheriff mocks his 6'2" and blue eyes. As old failures plague him, we learn he once "took the strap away from my old man", that he was a troubled kid and petty thief redeemed by an old cop, that he sometimes drank too much, that his ex-wife's name is Sue, and he thinks of her often. DuringWorld War II, he served inmilitary intelligence in theUnited States Army, again mentioned inThe Doomsters.
Archer is sometimes depressed, often world-weary. An almost Greek sense of tragedy pervades the novels as the sins of omission and crimes of sometimes-wealthy parents are frequently visited upon their children, young adults whom Archer tries desperately to save from disaster. This use of Greek drama was deliberate, e.g., Macdonald basedThe Galton Case (1959) on a loose interpretation of theOedipus myth.[5] Key incidents in the novels are typically separated by fifteen years, a scant generation, as evidence from old crimes surfaces to haunt new characters. As suspense in a novel builds toward a climax, Archer often gets little or no sleep, racing the clock and prowling the suburban Southern California landscape day after night after day, trying to put the pieces of a puzzle together in order to prevent new violence. This 36- or 48-hour wakefulness mimes the classic Greek tragic play where everything takes place in one day; here it might be more than a day, but since the character doesn't get to sleep, it essentially honors the tragic convention and contributes to the sense of unalterable impending doom. Tom Nolan in hisRoss Macdonald, A Biography,[6] wrote of the author, "Gradually he swapped the hard-boiled trappings for more subjective themes: personal identity, the family secret, the family scapegoat, the childhood trauma; how men and women need and battle each other, how the buried past rises like a skeleton to confront the present. He brought the tragic drama ofSophocles and the psychology ofFreud to detective stories, and his prose flashed with poetic imagery." Philosophical references underlined the thoughtful tone of the novels, withThe Chill (1964) having mentions ofParmenides,Heraclitus andAchilles and the tortoise, whileBlack Money (1966) briefly discussesHenri Bergson.
The only recurring characters of note are Arnie and Phyllis Walters, who appear in several of the novels and seem to enjoy a warm friendship with Archer. Arnie is a private detective inReno, Nevada, about 470 miles north of Los Angeles. Archer sometimes calls upon Arnie for assistance with cases that lead to Nevada. Archer's investigations sometimes lead from California to Nevada, due in part to Nevada then having some of the most liberal marriage and divorce laws in the nation, and also due to Nevada then being one of the only states with legalizedcasino gambling and the associatedorganized crime presence.
Archer's name pays a double homage: first toDashiell Hammett ("Miles Archer" was the name ofSam Spade's murdered partner inThe Maltese Falcon[7]), whileLew Wallace was the author of the novelBen Hur (1880).[8]
According to aNew York Times article, "some critics ranked him [Macdonald] among the best American novelists of his generation". William Goldman of the newspaper's Book Review section wrote that the Archer books were "the finest series of detective novels ever written by an American".[9]
Over his career, Macdonald was presented with several awards, primarily for his Lew Archer series. In 1964, theMystery Writers of America awarded the author the Silver Dagger award forThe Chill. Ten years later, he received the Grand Master Award from the Mystery Writers of America, and in 1982 he received "The Eye", the Lifetime AchievementShamus Award from the Private Eye Writers of America. In 1982, he was awarded the Robert Kirsch Award (theLos Angeles Times Book Prize) by theLos Angeles Times for "an outstanding body of work by an author from the West or featuring the West."[10]
The character has been adapted for visual media several times:Two feature films starringPaul Newman[11] as "LewHarper":
Random House Films made a deal in October 2011 to create a movie franchise ofRoss Macdonald's detective Lew Archer withSilver Pictures andWarner Bros. Rights holder Stephen White and Random House Studio president Peter Gethers would be executive producers on the movies. This movie series would start adapting with the eighth book in the series,The Galton Case. From Silver Pictures, Andrew Rona and Alex Heineman will be executive producers with Joel Silver producing.[11]
Archer, a 1975NBC TV series (NBC) starringBrian Keith based on the character. It was cancelled after six episodes:
