4/30: 

Give or Take a Quarter Inch

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This week’s story is “Give or Take a Quarter Inch,” by Joseph S. Walker. This story was published in The Best Mystery Stories of 2022.

 

Aside from the obvious connection to last week’s kidnapping story, I chose this piece because it illustrates such a different style of storytelling than we’ve experienced. While this is not a traditional mystery featuring a detective or private investigator, Walker grabs us from the start with a terrifying situation. But as we settle into the narrative, we relax as we learn the story behind the story. This is a good example of how the mystery genre has changed over the decades.

About Joseph S. Walker

Mr. Walker and Feline Friend

I usually have good success when I do my internet sleuthing and I can turn up all kinds of interesting facts about our writers’ lives.

 

Mr. Walker proved to be a hard nut to crack!

 

I found just the minimal information about him online, plus his mug shot with a fat cat (literally).

 

His story seems similar to many writers we’ve read in the Best Mystery series. It appears that he works full-time (teaching writing and literature) while his great passion is writing mystery fiction.  And he’s good!

 

I also appreciate how on his website he posts many of his stories for free.  That’s rare!  Please check them out.

Here’s his bio from Best Mystery Stories and his website.

Joseph S. Walker lives in Indiana and teaches college literature and composition courses. He has a PhD in American literature from Purdue University. He is a member of the Mystery Writers of America, the Short Mystery Fiction Society, Sisters in Crime, and the Private Eye Writers of America. His stories have appeared in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, Mystery Tribune, Hoosier Noir, Tough, and numerous other magazines and anthologies.

He has been nominated for the Edgar Award and the Derringer Award and has won the Bill Crider Prize for Short Fiction. He also won the Al Blanchard Award in 2019 and 2021. Recent anthologies from small presses (which are helping to keep short crime fiction alive out of love and dedication, and are richly deserving of support) containing his stories include Mickey Finn: 21st Century Noir Volume 2 (Down & Out Books), Monkey Business: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Films of the Marx Brothers.

An Interview

Learn more about Walker’s writing process in this interview by Judy Sheluk.

Why do you write?

Every writer probably has several answers. We write because we feel compelled, because it’s fun, because we hope it will be rewarding. But we also write—or at least, I also write—in hopes of having a particular kind of impact on the reader.

For example (and spoilers ahoy).

I love Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings movies, but I’ve never entirely forgiven Jackson for omitting my favorite moment from Tolkien’s trilogy. At the Council of Elrond, after it has been decided that the ring must be taken to Mordor and destroyed, the representatives of several races are sitting around gloomily wondering how this can be done. Then Bilbo—tiny, aged Bilbo—steps forward to say that he knows what they’re all hinting at and, fine, if someone will just be kind enough to point the way, he will take it. Some in the circle laugh, but Bilbo is entirely sincere, and his offer is received gravely by those who know him.


Forty years after I first read that passage, I can remember almost every detail about it. It’s one fleeting moment in an epic tale, but in that moment Professor Tolkien has seized a part of my imagination that can never be taken from him.

Another, more recent example. A few months ago, I watched the 1972 film Fat City, directed by John Huston, screenplay by Leonard Gardner (based on his own novel). The film centers on two undercard boxers in Stockton, California, one (Tully, played by Stacy Keach) on his way down, the other (Munger, played by Jeff Bridges) on his way up.


Late in the film, Tully’s trainer reluctantly accepts an offer for Tully to fight Lucero (Sixto Rodriguez), a tough, veteran Mexican boxer. Lucero arrives in town on a bus, dressed formally in a three-piece suit. He goes alone to his hotel, where we see he has blood in his urine. After a tough fight in which both men are knocked down, he loses to Tully. At the arena’s exit, Tully, still dazed, celebrates with his friends. After they leave, Lucero comes out of the dressing room, back in his suit, carrying his suitcase. He walks out alone into the night.

I don’t think Lucero has a single line of dialogue in the film, aside from mumbled exchanges with his cornermen. I’m sure, however, that he will stick in my mind long after the rest of the film has become more a vague impression than a memory. To me, there is not just a character but an entire history, an entire world, in the details with which this character is sketched. We see how the careful formality of his bearing is his fragile shelter against the pain and loneliness of the life he has led. To a certain extent this arises from direction and performance, but the voice of the writer is clearly here as well. I very much now want to read Gardner’s original novel, to see how this Lucero was translated from the original, but in a way that doesn’t matter. The film’s Lucero will not leave me.

I could offer a hundred more examples, but these are enough to illustrate the thing I most hope for as a writer. It’s to create a moment that will stick with the reader for a long time, maybe even for as long as I’ll remember Bilbo at the council and Lucero’s lonely walk through that arena. I guess the catch is this: will I ever know if I have?

The Story Behind "Give or Take a Quarter Inch"

[From Best Mystery Stories]

I wanted to write about a kidnapping where the ransom was something other than cash, so I thought about what else might motivate a person to commit such a desperate act. For world-class athletes, the line between being one of the all-time greats and being an also-ran can be terrifyingly thin. That's true for a lot of people, but athletes act out their fates live, with thousands looking on. A good play at the right moment can become the foundation of a Hall of Fame career; a bad one can wipe out the memory of many good seasons. Ryan Vargas is on one side that line and Mickey Loch is on the other.


Reading "Give or Take a Quarter Inch"

This is a focused story, with just two main characters, two scenes, and one main activity. Such a focus on just a few aspects of a story helps us look at each one, and step back to see how the story works overall. Here’s what I mean:

 

Setting:


These are images we’re familiar with, so it’s easy to imagine ourselves in Ryan’s (cleated) shoes

 

Point of View:

Third person omniscient narrator—but the we’re seeing through Ryan’s eyes. Walker also uses a great deal of dialogue to tell the story and advance each step in the plot.

 

Characters:

Ryan Vargas—what defines him? How does Walker create this sports hero?

Mickey Loch—what defines him? How does Walker develop this anti-hero bad guy?

 

Plot:

It’s not complicated: a guy comes home after a recruiting trip and his wife has been kidnapped.  It’s the ransom demand that makes this story especially unique. Interesting example of cause and effect, how, as Walker wrote, one bad play wiped out “the memory of many good seasons.”

 

Told through dialogue and memory flashback, we see how the past affected the present and future.

 

Theme:

Clearly, this is a story of revenge, but what else do you think is going on? See if you can (psycho)analyze our characters to better understand what makes them tick.


And by the way: What do you think of the title?


 In your experience, has Joseph S. Walker accomplished his goal of creating “a moment that will stick with the reader for a long time”?

 

Looking forward to our discussion on Tuesday!

Works Cited

Joseph S. Walker Website (2024).

 

Sheluk, J. (2021). Behind the Scenes: What I Aim for When I Write.  Retrieved from https://www.judypenzsheluk.com/2021/06/03/behind-the-scenes-joseph-s-walker/