One Shot Mystery – Oliver Harris

We presented a round-up of recommended books last month. Here’s the first recommendation of the new year – Beat scholar, Burroughs scholar, Oliver Harris‘
second, unclassifiable, hybrid work, (part scholarship, part-memoir, part-detective-story, 2023’s Two Assassins: William Burroughs/Hassan Sabbah was the first), published by the enterprising German publishing house, Moloko Print,  One Shot – A Beat Generation Mystery

From the publisher’s informative jacket-blurb:

“If you only know one photograph of the Beat Generation, you know this one.

It’s the single most famous picture of Burroughs, Ginsberg and Kerouac.  But who took it, when, where, and why? What are its secrets, and how can it be a crime scene? Whatever you think you now is almost certainly wrong, so to unravel its mysteries and find out where all the bodies are buried, follow in the footsteps of the world’s most dedicated Burroughs scholar as he applies his forensic sleuthing skills to the image that defined the Beat Generation. Always fascinating, sometimes funny, occasionally dark, and with a twist ending, One Shot is a page-turner, a hybrid of detective fiction, personal memoir, and endlessly obsessive scholarship. Or, as Harris himself puts it, “Depending on how you look at it, this is either a triumphant tour de force, a virtuoso performance of scholarly ingenuity and passion, or an indulgent self-parody, a reductio ad absurdum of academic work. I like to think it’s hard to tell the difference.”

Yes, that photo, which we all know well (or do we?)

“This was not some casual moment”, Harris writes,  “that happened to be caught on film, taken while the were otherwise engaged in some other activity – walking, hanging out, enjoying themselves, whatever. The taking of this picture was not a separate activity; it was the activity. This is a photograph of people being photographed. This is what’s happening, this is what they’re doing there, and why its significance has not been recognized.”

This first revelation, an essential one, and this is just the beginning.

and the end? – but, most importantly,  “it isn’t about the end…it’s all about what (you) find along the way, the pleasures and the frustrations, the little triumphant discoveries and tantalizing dead ends.” (Harris quotes the great Tom Waits  – “the obsession’s in the chase not the apprehending”)

Spoiler alert – Harris takes a long close look at this – (“Exhibit B”)  and this may have something to do with it:

and also discovers further significant and clarifying  insights  (“Exhibit C”) whilst perusing Allen’s archives at Stanford:

“Ginsberg (and, by extension,  Ginsberg’s captions) were often the main source for biographers”,  he notes, and yet Ginsberg’s memory was, candidly, “often unreliable, as well as creative.”.So where to locate the truth?

The recognition there that the truth is often hiding in plain sight, and that, as they say, “the devil is in the details”.

There’s the secret of the snow that finally ties it all together (or does it – is it ever possible to tie it all together? –   (what’s the secret of the snow? – well, you’re just going to have to read the book!) – It’s a page-turner and a great read, you’re not going to be disappointed.