Elmore Leonard In South Miami
Elmore Leonard's novel "LaBrava"received the 1984 Edgar Allan Poe Award from the Mystery Writers of America for best novel, but the book's strengths are more in atmosphere and in characterization than in its story of extortion and crime. The novel offers a realistic, detailed portrayal of Miami streets and also makes great use of the art of photography and of film noir.
Set in a crime-ridden, deteriorated Miami of the 1980s, the novel centers on its title character, Joe Labrava, 38, an ex-Secret Service man who has redirected his life to pursue his passion for photography. LaBrava is a close friend of another main character, Maurice Zola, in his 80s. Maurice operates a hotel in what once was a fashionable area. He too had been a photographer from his early years when he also was involved in crime, including bookmaking. Congressional investigations in the 1950s curtailed Maurice's criminal activity.
Both LaBrava and Maurice have romantic, sexual interests in Jean Shaw, a former Hollywood actress who played the femme fatale in many a film noir. Her films (fictitious) are described in detail in the course of the book, and many of them become echoed in the story's tangled plot. LaBrava says Jean became his first love when at the age of twelve he saw one of her movies. Jean is also an old flame of Maurice and his business partner who own a more than 5o percent stake in the hotel. Still, Jean has fallen on difficult times financially with the end of her movie career and the death of her husband. Another woman character and romantic interest of LaBrava, Frannie Kaufman, is a budding artist, a painter, but she works to get by selling phony cosmetics to some of the elderly, wrinkled residents of South Miami who live on their dreams and illusions. Frannie comes close to stealing this novel with her energy and her sexuality.
The two bad guys in the story, Richard Nobles and Cundo Rey, have tangled criminal and personal pasts. Both men are evil but also dumb and dull. The portrayals of these two characters add little to the book.
Leonard develops his story carefully and slowly to draw the reader in. The opening chapters introduce LaBrava, Maurice, and Jean and develop their backstories and their relationships. Leonard weaves in a discussion of some Florida history, including the natural disaster which occurred in the 1920s on the railroad linking the Florida Keys to the mainland. Maurice gained reputation from his photographs of the calamity. The book then follows LaBrava as he walks through the streets of once
thriving South Miami to photograph the hotels and businesses, and, more importantly, the people, from the elderly and lost to the young junkies, criminals, druggies, and hustlers. LaBrava has the rare artistic gift of capturing the subjects of his photographs in unguarded moments, making them reveal their characters almost in spite of themselves. LaBrava becomes taken with his former childhood love, Jean, and the two spend a great deal of time discussing her old film noirs and their stories.
The criminal element of the novel develops slowly and gradually. LaBrava finds through his photographs Nobles and Rey engaged in a clumsy shakedown effort for protection money among the local businesses. The shakedown soon assumes a more personal, immediate cast as the bad guys try to extort $600,000 from the apparently impoverished Jean. In the latter part of the book, the extortion attempt assumes prominence at the expense of the characterizations and depictions in the early part of the novel. The plot becomes overly-cumbersome with some surprising twists.
The book is full of Leonard's sharp observations and of his gift for sharp, pungent dialog. For example, in an early scene, LaBrava and Maurice are discussing Maurice's early life and his easy, wealthy criminal past. The following short conversation ensues.
"You told me you were a millionaire at one time"
"Used to be," Maurice said. "I spent most of my dough on booze, broads, and boats and the rest I wasted."
In another early passage, Leonard describes how LaBrava's life in law enforcement gradually morphed into his artistic realism in photography.
"LaBrava said he'd almost quit after guarding Teddy [Kennedy]. But he hung on and was reassigned to go after counterfeiters again, now out of the Miami field office, now getting into his work and enjoying it. A new angle. He picked up a Nikon, attached a 200-mm lens, and began using it in surveillance work. Loved it. Snapping undercover agents making deals with wholesalers, passers unloading their funny money. Off duty he continued snapping away: shooting up and down Southwest Eighth Street, the heart of Little Havana, or riding with a couple of Metro cops to document basic Dade County violence. He felt himself attracted to street life. It was a strange feeling, he was at home, knew the people, saw more outcast faces and attitudes than he would ever be able to record, people who showed him their essence behind all kinds of poses -- did Maurice understand this? -- and trapped them in his camera for all time."
With its focus on street life and on photography, film, and painting, "LaBrava" has more of a noir character than most of Leonard's writing. The book's setting and its non-criminal characters are convincing, as is the story of simply wandering the streets of a decaying part of town and observing. The extortion plot, when it develops and resolves, feels overly tangled. It constitutes a falling-off from the way in which Leonard begins and appears to be taking his book. Still, in its portrayal of street life and in its discussion of the lives and passions of the four main characters, "LaBrava" is gritty and magical. It may not be a great crime story, but it is an enjoyable, thoughtful book. "LaBrava" is available as an independent paperback and in the outstanding compilation from the Library of America: "Elmore Leonard: Four Novels of the 1980s".
Robin Friedman
