Ron Goulart

• Born: January 13, 1933
• Birthplace: Berkeley, California

Types of Plot: Private investigator; amateur sleuth; metaphysical and metafictional parody; horror; comedy caper

Principal Series: John Easy, 1971-; Jack Summer, 1971-; Jake Conger, 1973-; Ben Jolson, 1973-; The Avenger, 1974-; Odd Jobs, 1975-; Terry Spring, 1978-; Groucho Marx, 1998-

Contribution

In the tradition of Anthony Boucher (with whom he once studied), Alfred Bester, Mack Reynolds, and Hal Clement, the prolific Ron Goulart successfully blends—and bends—the disparate mediums of mystery and detective fiction and science fiction. He is the only writer ever to win a Mystery Writers of America Edgar Allan Poe Award for what is arguably a science-fiction novel (After Things Fell Apart, 1970). Even his “conventional” mystery and detective fiction often requires the willing suspension of disbelief necessary for the enjoyment of science fiction. His stories are notable for iconoclastic satire, wry humor, and a perceptive and sometimes compassionate insight into the human condition. Goulart—who was nominated for a Nebula Award in 1966 for his short story “Calling Dr. Clockwork”—except for perfecting the crossover story that combines elements from various traditions, has brought no major innovation to either the mystery and detective or the science-fiction field. Aficionados of both genres, however, can savor his distinctive fiction.

Biography

Ronald Joseph Goulart was born to Joseph Silveria Goulart and Josephine (Macri) Goulart on January 13, 1933, in Berkeley, California. He studied writing with Anthony Boucher while still in high school. Boucher had an admittedly strong influence on Goulart’s career, especially in his penchant for mixing the genres of mystery and detective and science fiction.

Goulart enrolled at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1951 and received a bachelor of arts in 1955. After college, he began a career as an advertising copywriter with the San Francisco firm of Guild, Bascom, and Bonfigli, where he worked in two separate stints (1955-1957 and 1958-1960). He moved to Los Angeles in 1961 to take a consulting copywriting job with Alan Alch, Inc., where he remained through 1963. He left the advertising field in that year to pursue writing full-time. Goulart married fellow writer Fran Sheridan in 1964, and two sons, Sean and Steffan, were eventually born to them. Goulart returned to advertising copywriting briefly from 1966 to 1968 with the San Francisco firm of Hoefer, Dieterich, and Brown. In 1968 he became a full-time freelance writer, and he has created an enormous volume of work that includes original novels in a variety of genres, novelizations of films, comics, television series, short-story collections, entries in existing series under house pseudonyms, collaborative fictional efforts, and a considerable body of nonfiction.

Goulart’s first book-length effort was in the mystery and detective field, where he served as editor and author of an introduction to The Hardboiled Dicks: An Anthology and Study of Pulp Detective Fiction (1965). A second anthology, Line Up Tough Guys (1966) followed before the release of Goulart’s first full-length fiction, The Sword Swallower (1968). A science-fiction novel that introduced a universe far from Earth, known as the Barnum System, where shape-shifters called the Chameleon Corps operate, The Sword Swallower set the standard for the mystery-science-fiction hybrid that became Goulart’s hallmark in a succession of Barnum System books, including The Fire-Eater (1970), Shaggy Planet (1973), A Whiff of Madness (1975) and The Wicked Cyborg (1978). In 1970, his best-selling After Things Fell Apart won the Edgar Award and helped establish his reputation in both mystery-detective and science-fiction genres.

Since the late 1960’s, Goulart has produced a veritable avalanche of written work: some two hundred books and several hundred short stories that have been frequently anthologized. Much of his work involves the author’s longtime fascination for comic books—critics, in fact, note that a great deal of his fiction, though usually action-packed and entertaining, is cartoonlike, with two-dimensional characters, overblown dialogue, and wildly improbable plots. Goulart has invented his own comic heroes (the Star Hawk series, with illustrations by Gil Kane), contributed to the comic creations of others (including Challengers of the Unknown, the Hulk, Captain America, Vampirella, the Phantom, and Flash Gordon), and written extensively about comics, cartoonists, and the pulps in nonfictional works (such as The Adventurous Decade: Comic Strips in the Thirties, 1975; Ron Goulart’s Great History of Comic Books, 1986; The Great Comic Book Artists, 1986, and Great American Comic Books, 2001). In 1998 Goulart launched a new humorous historical mystery series, featuring comedian-actor Groucho Marx, with the publication of Groucho Marx, Master Detective.

Analysis

Ron Goulart defies categorization as a writer. His published works range from original novels and short stories to novelizations of motion picture and television scripts, from novels based on comic-strip characters to nonfictional studies of pulp magazines and cartoons, and contributions in existing series from Tom Swift to the Bobbsey Twins. Much of his best work is in the mystery and detective or science-fiction genres or, more usually, a combination of the two. His fiction is invariably satiric. The irreverent humor in his best work is worthy of Mark Twain; in his worst work, the humor is unworthy of an inept standup comedian.

Goulart’s characters, even main protagonists, are typically only superficially developed. All his stories unfold primarily through dialogue. He is a master at concocting startling opening sentences, which seize interest; this ability is perhaps a legacy of his career in advertising, where the emphasis is on capturing attention and drawing in the reader. The characters that cavort through his pages are outrageously bizarre parodies of familiar human types or well-known individuals. Even Goulart’s “straight” mystery and detective works contain situations as fantastic as anything found in science fiction.

The fictional worlds created by Goulart are seemingly without direction or purpose. The characters in his mad universe are as unpredictable as the inmates of any insane asylum. Goulart’s heroes (or antiheroes) are constantly engaged in struggles to impress some sane pattern on societies undergoing constant random metamorphoses. They usually succeed but often in ways more disturbing to the reader than the worlds they describe. Running throughout most of his stories is Goulart’s sometimes cruel and always impudent humor.

Most of Goulart’s straight mystery and detective fiction is set in Southern California. The area’s various arcane subcultures, as seen through Goulart’s eyes, bear a striking resemblance to his description of the through-the-looking-glass worlds of the Barnum System, in which many of his science-fiction stories take place. Those earthly locales are the settings for stories and characters reminiscent of fairy chess, a game in which the players make up pieces (complete with moves) as the game progresses. Such characters and situations permeate Goulart’s fiction. The Southern California of John Easy could be a planet in the Barnum System. In all of his works, Goulart holds up various unpleasant aspects of society and forces his readers to scrutinize them. The world as Goulart portrays it seems to be a cosmic practical joke perpetrated accidentally on the fall-guy human race by random chance. The crime, its solution, and the characters are not paramount in Goulart’s fiction. Goulart is intent on amusing readers, making them laugh (he often uses several pages to set up obscure jokes or puns), yet at the same time making them think seriously about themselves and society. His stories are not tightly plotted, nor do they contain clues for the solution of clever puzzles. The characters are virtually never developed fully enough that the reader can identify with, or even like or dislike them. This is true even of recurring characters in Goulart’s several series. His best mystery and detective fiction is written on many levels and is definitely not for readers who are interested only in unraveling the solutions to puzzling crimes.

After Things Fell Apart

Nowhere is Goulart’s caustic wit more pronounced than in his acclaimed After Things Fell Apart. The hero is craggily handsome Jim Haley of the Private Inquiry Office (a privately funded investigative agency with the authority of an official government bureau). Haley attempts to track down Lady Day, the leader of a mostly female organization bent on the assassination of prominent public figures in the San Francisco Enclave, one of many independent states formed after the (unexplained) collapse of the United States government at some indeterminate time in the future. As he homes in on Lady Day, Haley stoically encounters a procession of decidedly odd characters in places such as the Nixon Institute (administered by the Parker Brothers), a home for aging rock music stars; the G-Man Motel, owned and operated by former members of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, whose customers must submit to foot-printing and interrogation before being assigned a room; and a town controlled by the amateur Mafia (no Italians allowed).

A Whiff of Madness

Jim Haley’s infrequently encountered fellow agent, the bald and sexually insatiable La Penna, is interchangeable with Palma, the bald and sexually insatiable photographer-sidekick of Mudrake Magazine’s Jack Summer in one of Goulart’s science-fiction/detective series set in the Barnum System. In A Whiff of Madness, a typical novel of the Jack Summer series, Summer and Palma are dispatched to the planet Peregrine to investigate rumors that the king of one of the planet’s warring nations is responsible for the serial murders of little old ladies. After Summer’s arrival on Peregrine, he frequently sees the king on television telling his subjects, “I am not a murderer.” Despite the king’s assurances to the contrary, Summer and Palma (with the help of some sexy ladies and assorted screwball characters) manage to show that the king turns into a royal strangler when he sniffs an addictive gas that was developed to make ordinary soldiers into ruthless killing machines.

Even the Butler Was Poor

A nonseries comic crime caper novel, Even the Butler Was Poor (1990) revolves around beautiful auburn-haired Helen Joanne “H. J.” Mavity, a painter of romance paperback covers. After a former boyfriend who owes her five thousand dollars drops dead at her feet in a shopping mall, she enlists the aid of former husband Ben Spanner, a gifted mimic, comic, and voiceover actor on radio and television commercials (who specializes in personifying inanimate objects, such as a baby’s bottom for diaper ads or an English muffin for a fish-and-chips account) in solving the meaning of the dead man’s last words to her before expiring: “Ninety-nine clop clop.” As usual, Goulart spends little time sketching in character details, preferring instead to plunge headlong into a wacky mystery incorporating a mutilated ventriloquist’s dummy, damaging photographs, attempted blackmail, and murder—while adding a typical assortment of puns, elaborate jokes, and pokes at society’s foibles.

Principal Series Characters:

• John Easy , Goulart’s only conventional detective character, is a Hollywood private investigator in his thirties. Tough of mind and body, he is usually involved in tracking missing women through exotic—and sometimes erotic—Southern California milieus. Easy strives to discern rationality amid the chaotic environs into which his cases take him.
• Jack Summer , an amateur sleuth and intergalactic investigative reporter for Mudrake Magazine, is a handsome crusader in his thirties with remarkable intuition and considerable appeal for beautiful women. He solves everything from Jack the Ripper-type murders to intergalactic drug smuggling.
• Jake Conger uses a number of “wild talents” (especially making himself invisible) to solve outrageously wacky cases for a shadowy government agency. Conger is resourceful, clever, and unbeatable.
• Ben Jolson uses his unusual ability to alter his shape to solve seemingly impossible cases of intergalactic wrongdoing for the universally famous Chameleon Corps, into which he was drafted against his will and which he serves only under duress.
• The Avenger undertakes cases that involve vampires, demons, and other supernatural beings. The stories in which he appears are aimed primarily at a juvenile audience.
• Jake Pace and
• Hildy Pace , the husband and wife owners of a futuristic investigative agency known as Odd Jobs, Inc., take on cases that have baffled all other private eyes or which other private eyes refuse to take. Jake and Hildy are confronted with cases ranging from a prolific creator of monsters to a cryogenically preserved Nazi scientist to an assassination ring specializing in heads of state.
• Terry Spring is a young, idealistic, and exceedingly nosy female television reporter/detective. She could almost be said to be a female version of the Karl Kolchek character in the old Nightstalker television series. She is particularly attracted to unusual or macabre cases.
• Groucho Marx , the pun-prone comedian-actor, is portrayed as a private detective in league with his friend, former crime reporter Frank Denby. Together they solve crimes in the late 1930’s and early 1940’s, often involving Hollywood personalities.

Bibliography

Bell, Thomas R. Review of Odd Jobs No. 101 and Other Future Crimes and Intrigues, by Ron Goulart. Library Journal 99, no. 19 (November 1, 1974): 2874. An unfavorable review of this collection of mostly detective stories set in the future or science-fiction stories written like detective stories. The reviewer found the tales “predictable, repetitive, and unredeemed by Goulart’s humor.”

DeAndrea, William L. Encyclopedia Mysteriosa: A Comprehensive Guide to the Art of Detection in Print, Film, Radio, and Television. New York: Prentice Hall, 1994. Contains a brief entry on Ron Goulart, focusing on his work in the mystery genre, particularly Hollywood private eye John Easy.

Goulart, Ron. “Comic Book Noir.” In The Big Book of Noir, edited by Ed Gorman, Lee Server, and Martin H. Greenberg. New York: Carroll & Graf, 1998. A good sample of Goulart’s expertise in the field of comic books, wherein he demonstrates that the medium of comics, influenced by European expressionist films and by pulp magazines—and led by such creations as Superman, Batman, and the Spirit—was a standard-bearer of noir sensibilities from the late 1930’s.

Kirkus Reviews. Review of Elementary, My Dear Groucho, by Ron Goulart. 67, no. 19 (October 1, 1999): 1526-1527. An unfavorable review of this Groucho series book in which comedian Groucho Marks and his pal, former crime reporter Frank Denby, investigate a crime. Panned for the portrayal of Groucho as unconvincing and one-dimensional, for an almost nonexistent plot, and painful jokes.

Pronzini, Bill, and Marcia Muller, eds. 1001 Midnights: The Aficionado’s Guide to Mystery and Detective Fiction. New York: Arbor House, 1986. Contains a Julie Smith review of Goulart’s Ghosting, a humorous murder mystery involving Barney Kains, a ghostwriter for a comic strip, “Poor Little Pearl.” Smith gives the book a positive recap, noting the information about the comics business, and recommending Goulart’s other comic crime novels, including A Graveyard of My Own, Hawkshaw, and the John Easy series, particularly One Grave Too Many.

Publishers Weekly. Review of Daredevils, Ltd., by Ron Goulart. 231, no. 20 (May 22, 1987): 70. A favorable review of Daredevils, Ltd., cited for its humor and its inventive plot featuring shape-changing spies, robots, and wisecracking appliances.

Publishers Weekly. Review of Groucho Marx, Private Eye, by Ron Goulart. 246, no. 9 (March 1, 1999): 63. A favorable review of this Groucho series book, in which Goulart is complimented for capturing the “voice and social conscience” of the hero, for updating an old plot—the murder of a leading plastic surgeon and drug supplier to the stars—and for including celebrity cameos and fine period details.