Rodney Whitaker, Writer, Is Dead at 74; Best Known as Trevanian - New York Times:
Rodney Whitaker, a writer best known by one of his many pen names, Trevanian, who was the only writer of airport paperbacks to be compared to Zola, Ian Fleming, Poe and Chaucer, died on Wednesday in the West Country of England. He was 74.[much mysterious whiffle about Whitaker's life omitted ... the key news item for book-lovers follows]
[Whitaker's agent] Mr. Carlisle pointed out that between that book and the next, “Incident at Twenty-Mile” (1998), some 15 years passed. During that time, Mr. Whitaker wrote extensively, and some of that work will be published posthumously under the name Trevanian.
Trevanian — pseudonymous author of such chilly classics as THE EIGER SANCTION and THE LOO SANCTION — always bothered me because of his distinctly sociopathic protagonists. A realistic view of the world of international assassins, no doubt, but scary, too–is this the inside of the author’s mind? Nevertheless, I eagerly awaited INCIDENT AT TWENTY-MILE, his first book after fifteen years (St. Martin’s), for the simple reason that Trevanian is a wonderful writer. I was pleasantly surprised. On the surface, entertainment level, this is an extremely clever “anti-Western”, with gripping suspense as a band of mysterious drifters and criminals converge on the mining town of Twenty Mile, and a terrific series of denouements.More importantly, where I remembered THE EIGER SANCTION and THE LOO SANCTION (which I read as a teenager) as merely fascinated with violence in a disturbing way, now, reading TWENTY-MILE as an adult, I see a far deeper, subtler, and (yes) more worthy attempt to grapple with the causes and costs of violence. Trevanian, with his oblique, very adult characterization and thoroughly cynical view of human nature, is probably the last person that one would expect to be labeled as a Lensman in the “space opera” spirit of E.E. Doc Smith. But, after reading TWENTY-MILE, I begin to whether wonder Trevanian may have been working for the Galactic Patrol all along . He might deny it; but I would like to ask him whether it is entirely a coincidence that the protagonist in TWENTY-MILE takes his inspiration from a series of “horse operas” starring the very upright “Ringo Kid”. By this device, Trevanian preserves a very sophisticated and worldly authorial persona, but actually spend a great deal of time writing from a very simple, childlike perspective on right and wrong. Underneath all the cynicism and all the dazzling cleverness, there is a longing for justice–a contempt for chaos and disorder– in Trevanian’s writing that is very much in keeping with the goals of the Patrol.
Looking back, it may well be the case that my comments above are complete piffle. Maybe Trevanian was as cynical as he seemed. He cleverly constructed an authorial persona that was almost immune to criticism.
In any event, I am sad to learn of Trevanian’s death.
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