Ok, it’s trite, but also, perhaps, true. FD suspects that a lot of people who, in real life, are frustrated and appalled by the fetishization of guns and the glorification of violence in the US are, at the same time, big readers of murder mysteries and similar fiction, and don’t feel quite the same ambivalence about the protagonists’ use of violence against malefactors. FD turns off the endless reporting of the 24-hour news networks, which are never happier as when they have some real life slaughter on which to focus. But FD is still reading murder mysteries, and can remember reading Red Dragon and The Silence of the Lambs while in graduate school and saying to a friend and fellow fan of murder/crime fiction, “this guy is the best horror writer since Poe.” (We were students of US popular culture…)
But, FD has become a bit more discriminating. Harris’ subsequent novels don’t hold any attraction — perhaps FD depended too much on the reviews, but it does appear Harris joined a lot of other writers in stepping up the horrifics and focusing on the kind of genius psychopathia seldom seen in real life. Not as interesting to FD, which prefers novelists who stay a little closer to real life and focus more on the effects of crime on non-criminals. Is this an effect of getting older? FD has read that horror movies (e.g. the Saw series) are much more popular with younger viewers than older. Does a better sense of one’s own mortality reduce the appeal of so many contemporary mystery/crime novels, which seem to offer more and more bizarre miseries directed at hapless victims. Still, there are less gruesome novels to read and these, FD is sure, provide a somewhat paradoxical escape from the real-life murders, rapes, and mutilations that the all-news networks love to follow for as closely and as long as possible.