Where Evil Lives

by Libby Hellmann



It’s hard to believe Hitchcock’s PSYCHO was released 50 years ago, but it was, and there’s a terrific article in this week’s Newsweek about it. The author, Malcolm Jones, does an excellent job explaining why PSYCHO still feels so contemporary half a century later.

The articles notes that PSYCHO delivered several cinematic “firsts.” It was the first film to show a toilet flushing, to murder the star early on in the film, and, of course, there’s the shower scene, which many say ushered in the era of explicit violence on screen.

But the real power of the film, according to the author, is the randomness
of Norman Bates’ act. Evil is random, Hitchcock believes. It can strike anyone, anytime. Janet Leigh in PSYCHO; Cary Grant in NORTH BY NORTHWEST; Tippi Hedren in THE BIRDS; you; or me. (Coincidentally, I just saw THE BIRDS for about the 4th time a couple of days ago, and this time I couldn’t watch the scenes where Tippi Hedren and the others get attacked. Is there something about getting older and having less stomach for horror? Or am I just becoming a chicken?)

At any rate, this notion of the randomness of evil resonates with me. Jamie, in her inaugural post last week, talked about how evil can be camouflaged in civility. For me, the fact that evil is random is terrifying. And irresistible. In fact, I suspect that’s the case for many of us.

In fact, it makes me wonder if all of us have recurring tropes that come to mind when we’re exploring the random nature of evil. I do -- it’s World War Two. It was a time of profound conflict; a time fraught with danger, mistrust, and hopelessness. Most of all, it was a time that elicited both heroism and cowardice. I’m not talking about the Evil that was Nazism, which wasn’t random at all, but its effect on ordinary people, particularly those in the Occupied countries.

Like Sean, I am in a reading rut, so I joined Netflix and watched 4 films (and counting) on my new Mac this weekend. Three of them: BLACK BOOK (which I highly recommend despite a couple of “coincidences”), DIVIDED WE FALL, and INGLORIOUS BASTERDS, all take place during the War. And while there were Evil Nazis in all three films, the most fascinating parts were the way ordinary people behaved and reacted to them. Some became wicked themselves; some didn’t. The point was (at least to me) it is impossible to predict how people will react when faced with evil.

Which means that the fact that others suffer or lose their lives because of that unpredictability is totally random. The people who are terrified they might be reported to the Gestapo; the people whose homes might be razed by bombing raids; the soldiers who are gunned down or executed for some infraction of the rules…. There are infinite possibilities where the randomness of evil affects life and death. Of course, many authors – Alan Furst, John Le Carre, Philip Kerr, Jack Higgins, Ken Follet, Alistair Maclean – have already tapped into this area more eloquently than I. Still, I never seem to tire of it.

What about you? Is there a time, place, or situation that calls to you in your reading or writing or film-making? A place you keep returning to? A place where evil lives?

Opposites Attract

by Jamie Freveletti

This is my first blog for The Outfit! Been given my marching orders by Libby (best topics: crime, Chicago, writing, but if you have a meltdown and wish to address something else by all means do so) and although I’m generally a happy person I thought I’d start out with a bang and write about evil.

When writing, isn’t evil that much more terrifying when paired with the mundane? We’re all used to thinking of evil as this strange and unusual event that we confront hopefully only once or twice in a lifetime, and with really good luck, never, but evil isn’t always done on a grand scale. It’s the everyday evil that’s fodder for crime writers.

I’m a martial artist, and Monday nights I teach people how to defend themselves. One thing about teaching such a course is that you realize pretty quickly that most of us don’t confront evil enough to recognize it in the mundane. I ask people what acts might trigger their instincts and I get the obvious: the guy in the bushes, the one acting erratically, the one carrying the gun (I teach in a gang infested neighborhood so, sadly, this last suggestion is not out of line).

I suggest different triggers: The good looking guy in a polo shirt who knocks on your apartment door late at night and says he’s there to see your roommate. Something’s “off” and you tell him through the door she’s not in and he persists and rattles the door handle while making a hissing noise, or the priest who marries you who is later arrested as a pedophile. I don’t tell them this to freak them out –okay, maybe a little- but more as a reminder to look beneath the surface. I tell them that when something feels “off” and they can’t put their finger on it, they need to listen to that feeling, not shrug it away. They can’t identify it because the mundane is cloaking the evil below.

I use this juxtaposition in my writing and it works every time. The obvious, broad brush violence and triggers are great for action sequences, but when you want to evoke a creepy feeling nothing beats the devil in civilized attire.

Here’s another one for you. Before becoming a writer I worked as a trial attorney. One of my partners was a former State’s Attorney charged with the prosecution of the serial killer John Wayne Gacy. I’ll blog about the case a little later, because it’s a fascinating story about true crime here in Chicago, but suffice to say that Gacy was evil incarnate. My partner kept a framed photograph of Gacy in his office. In it, Gacy was dressed as a clown, holding a balloon and smiling. I’ll never see a clown the same way again.

(I’m excited to join The Outfit and would like to thank Libby Hellmann for thinking of me. My first thriller novel, “Running from the Devil,” launched last May, and it’s been a great ride ever since. My thanks to the Outfit for adding to the fun).

What is Evil?

by Libby Hellmann

One of the things that strikes me about Chicago’s media coverage of the Family Secrets trial are the descriptions of witnesses. Nick Calabrese, once one of the most dangerous Mafioisi in the Outfit, wears a “gray sweatsuit and rounded eyeglasses. With his white hair neatly parted, he looked more like a doughy banker in his pajamas than a "made" member of the mob.” When the son of mobster Frank Calabrese testified, the Sun Times said, “at first he had a little tremor in his voice. He appeared nervous.”

The media have done their job-- they’ve humanized evil. I’m not criticizing. As crime fiction writers, we do it all the time. We introduce characters we know to be evil, dress them in designer clothes, give them sympathetic traits, and in an effort to fully develop them, even give them a compassionate back story. The bad guys had a deprived childhood… abusive father… alcoholic mother. Whatever. Readers might not root for them, but at least they “understand.”

What I keep wondering is whether, over time, our attempt to humanize evil has watered down the concept. Just what does it take for us to recognize evil these days?

Fifty years ago, the Outfit was one of the most evil organizations known to man. Elliot Ness was a hero. But now, in our Soprano-fueled culture, the Outfit yields not much more than a yawn. Is it familiarity? Too much exposure? Familiarity is supposed to breed contempt, not boredom. To a degree maybe that’s happened. We perceive the Outfit as less muscular, more feeble. As Kevin pointed out in his last blog, the holy picture ritual almost made them out to be buffoons.

Our tolerance for evil seems, like so much else in our culture, to have coarsened. We search out “new and improved” evil-doers… the Russian mob.. Asian gangs… Arab terrorists. Quick: which are worse: Nazis or Al Qaeda? Serial killers or pedophiles?

As kids we knew the evil monster in the closet would get us if we didn’t say our prayers, brush our teeth, share our toys. Today, our moral compasses seem so skewed that only the vilest, most reprehensible monsters can rile us. We seem willing to accept, even condone, a laissez faire attitude toward guilt and innocence. (And yes, I’m generalizing to make a point).

But it does become problematic. I’m about to start a new novel. Usually my first step is to define the evil I’ll be writing about. What is it? Who is practicing it? How will it be revealed? Honestly, this time I’m flummoxed—I’ve done the corrupt politician, the neo-Nazi, the vengeful real estate developer, Big Oil, the amoral father. What’s left? An African dictator? Health insurers? The current administration? Whoever killed Kennedy? It all seems so ho-hum. Been there done that…

So, I ask you – writers, readers, observers of today’s society – what do you believe is true evil? What is the worst kind of sin?

Btw, for a study of systemic evil in war, I highly recommend Paul Verhoevens’ film ”Black Book.” It’s a stunning examination of good and evil, and how our perceptions can be upended.

Vice is Nice

by Michael Dymmoch

Pride. Avarice. Lust. Anger. Gluttony. Envy. Sloth. Shakespeare may have cribbed his plots from history, myth, and lesser writers, but his plays are still staged because his characters were driven by the urges that trip us up today. The seven cardinal sins are great inducements to villainy.

Change is the essence of story, but conflict is its life-blood. Not only are the vices terrific motivators for an antagonist, they're a perfect source of conflict--internally for the protagonist, and between him and his significant others. (In a pinch, insanity is useful but it's used overmuch of late, and it’s difficult to portray convincingly without specialized training or major research.) Vice is something every writer has experienced, every reader can relate to.

It's a cliche that sin is more interesting than virtue. Almost nobody says why. One reason is that right conduct and good habits are so boringly predictable. Sin, on the other hand, is exciting. Someone who'll break the rules, has unpredictability in common with madmen--either might do anything. (We all like to be frightened a little--but only a little. We like the adrenaline high, but walking the mean streets in a character's head is so much safer than doing it in a bad part of a real town.) Vice speaks to the dark side of emotion. And emotion is what makes a story lift off the page and strike the reader's heart.

The variations and combinations are limited only by the writer’s imagination. Check out Law and Order, or 24, or Shark. What drives the villians if not pride, lust, greed, or rage? Even the “less interesting” vices have plot potential—what is obsessive hoarding but a form of gluttony, whether it’s Imelda Marcos collecting shoes or some crazy old lady with 200 cats? Didn't they both start out with one? Didn't they fail at some point to rein in their appetites? And before you decide that sloth doesn’t motive malfeasance, remember what Edmund Burke said on the subject: The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.