Book Review: “The Goodbye Coast” by Joe Ide

The Goodbye Coast by Joe Ide

I loved IQ, but we all needed a break (not least IQ himself). Ide’s latest is another LA crime story, but this time it is “A Phillip Marlowe Novel”. 

Which is actually a thing.

There seems to be a minor industry among Angelinoscibes, adding to or updating the Marlowe canon, as well as extending Chandler’s own biography.  This is totally understandable.  Every American detective story is basically a pale echo of these paradigmatic characters and stories.  So why write a story just like a Phillip Marlowe story, why not write an actual Phillip Marlowe story?

And Ide does his best.  Hard shelled detective with a squishy sentiment interior.  Innocent victims. Violent bad guys. Sexy, dangerous women.  Crazy rich people.  And the gritty, nasty city itself.

As with the original Chandler stories, Marlowe channels the author’s love/hate for his city.  He seems to hate the ugly, dishonest, violent metropolis, “Marlow had lived here all his life and never once taken the long way home.” (p. 203).  But throughout, the story is awash in nostalgic love for the history of LA and the vast diversity of people (and food) found there.

The plot involves looking for lost children, which is yet another metaphor for the whole LA thing.  Of course, not every lost child is innocent, nor is every searching mother worthy.  And when the search succeeds, you may not like what you find.

Marlowe gets tangled with sleazy exes and Russian mafia.  He gets help from his messed up dad and several clients whose bacon he truly saved.  There are a lot of casualties, good and bad, innocent and guilty.  Just getting out alive feels like a big win.

And, of course, if you promise “A Phillip Marlowe Novel” you promise a specific kind of writing, which Ide takes a serious stab at. 

“Love, Marlowe thought. Sooner or later, everything came back to that cave of terrified bats.”

(p. 278)

So, well done, Mr. Ide.  This is not just an homage, it’s a solid story on its own.  Honestly, it would work without the “A Phillip Marlowe Novel” part.

But why does this ‘Marlowe’ stuff even work?  I mean, “A Sherlock Holmes Novel” wouldn’t work in a contemporary setting.  Nor would “A Tom Sawyer Novel” or whatever.

I think it works because all the gritty realistic detail in the original isn’t there as a documentary setting, it’s dressing for the metaphorical dark, dirty city and its people.  An updated version of the city like Ide’s is all different in detail, but its still the same dark and the same dirt and the same people.

So…Marlowe still fits.  He’s still the last honest man, the unhappy knight in dented armor, part of the city, but not part of the game.

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1. Joe Ide, The Goodbye Coast: A Phillip Marlowe Novel, New York, Mulholland Books, 2022.

Sunday Book Review