Book Review

By Derryll White

Paretsky, Sara (1982). Indemnity Only.

This is Sara Paretsky’s first published novel, and the first volume in the V.I. Warshawski series. I was very pleased to see it was dedicated to Stuart Kaminsky. He is my Raymond Chandler, the old quirky pro of the mystery genre. It was interesting to learn that Kaminsky took Paretsky under his wing 35 years ago, encouraged her and coerced his literary agent into taking on a new writer.

“Without Stuart I would not have had the confidence to push the story through to the end. That is why ‘Indemnity Only’ is dedicated to him.”

And the rest is history!

It’s the 1980s and July in Chicago, Illinois. Anyone who has been there knows just how oppressive that scene is – hot, with humidity that forms a tangible wall of cloying dense air. Warshawski’s office is fourth floor, broken elevator, very shaky air-conditioning and contains a portable Olivetti typewriter. Computers are a titillating rumour.

A new P.I. figure named V.I. [Victoria Iphigenia] Warshawski – single 30s-something woman, Italian-Polish, messy, and fiercely independent. So remember, this was written in 1980, after the first swell of affirmative action but before women were regularly challenging for men’s roles – in life or literature. Paretsky showed real fortitude in bringing Vic to life. She developed her as a quirky, headstrong woman who ran her own bar tabs and stood up to threats with resolution instead of false bluster. And she created a strong and nurturing family to sustain her.

Cleverly, Sara Paretsky also gave V.I. Warshawski the same fears that gnaw at most 30-something women – concern about clothes, food, exercise and self-preservation. The package is believable, appealing and unique to the mystery genre in America. I like Sara Paretsky and enjoyed ‘Indemnity Only.’

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Excerpts from the novel:

UNIONS – The International Brotherhood of Knifegrinders was notorious for their underworld connections. They’d hired muscle in the rough-and-tumble days of the thirties and had never been able to get rid of them since. As a result most of their elections and a lot of their finances were corrupt…

BASEBALL – “Yankees!” I expostulated. “I don’t see how anyone can root for them – it’s like rooting for the Cosa Nostra. You know they’ve got the money to buy the muscle to win – but that doesn’t make you cheer them on.”

RELATIONSHIPS – “There really are times when I wish I did have a couple of children and was doing the middle-class fancy thing. But that’s a myth, you know: very few people live like an advertisement, with golden harmony, and enough money, and so on. And I know I’m feeling a longing for the myth, not the reality.”

WOMEN’S RIGHTS – “I was in his class on ‘Big Business and Big Labor.’ He felt the major battle against oppression had been won when Ford lost the battle with the UAW in the forties. If you tried to talk about how women have been excluded not just from big business but from the unions as well, he said that didn’t indicate oppression, merely a reflection of the current social mores.”

– Derryll White once wrote books but now chooses to read and write about them. When not reading he writes history for the web at www.basininstitute.org.

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