Spillane, Mickey (1918—)

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Spillane, Mickey (1918—)

In terms of sales, Mickey Spillane is one of the most popular writers of the twentieth century, and of all time. In terms of the content of the books themselves and the two fictional heroes for which he is best known, he has been widely reviled for his portrayal of extreme violence, sexual excess, and right-wing bigotry. Whatever the opinions of his critics, since the 1940s Spillane has proved himself to be a talented comic book writer, an author of prize-winning books for children and young adults, and, through his Mike Hammer series, a key player in the history of the hard-boiled detective novel.

Frank Michael Morrison Spillane was born in Brooklyn, New York, and brought up by working-class parents during the Great Depression. He began publishing stories in the pulp magazines soon after graduating from High School and, dropping out of college and frustrated with his sales job, eventually ended up working on comic books. In One Lonely Knight Max Allan Collins and James L. Traylor suggested that he was particularly successful at this, producing three times the output of other writers and devising a new, more efficient method of composition. When the war intervened, Spillane became a fighter pilot instructor, and afterwards found that comic books were no longer popular enough to provide a reliable source of income. This led him to write his first novel and to create the New York-based detective, Mike Hammer.

The first Mike Hammer novel, I, the Jury, was published in 1947 and is a landmark in the development of private-eye fiction. Famously, in I, The Jury, Mike Hammer discovers his lover, Charlotte, to be the killer he has been pursuing. When she tries to save herself by seducing him, Hammer shoots her and leaves her to die. The underlying moral logic of this (that the villain must be punished at whatever cost to the hero) is no different from Sam Spade's turning Brigid O'Shaunnessy over to the police in Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon (1930). However, Spillane's novel represents a significant shift from public to private justice. Sam Spade investigates but does not punish crime. Mike Hammer is investigator, judge, jury, and executioner. Spillane's other series hero, the spy Tiger Mann, is also successful in his use of violence to solve problems. Tiger Mann differs in very little other than name from Mike Hammer and appears to have been written in response to successful spy stories, including Ian Fleming's James Bond novels in the 1950s and 1960s.

After publishing seven novels between 1947 and 1952, Spillane seemed to respond to criticism of his portrayal of sex and violence by producing no more for the next nine years, although he continued to write and publish short stories during this period. When he began publishing novels again in 1961, the violence in them, and particularly the link between sex and violence, was hardly diminished, but over the years since, Spillane's reputation with critics gradually improved. He became respected as one of the most influential mystery writers of the late twentieth century. After producing over 30 adult novels, including 13 Mike Hammer adventures and four in the Tiger Mann spy series, Spillane surprised critics by publishing a novel for children and young adults, The Day the Sea Rolled Back, in 1979, which won a Junior Guild Literary Award.

Spillane has always been heavily involved in promoting his work. He has appeared as Mike Hammer on film and on the covers of some of the later novels, as well as reading his work on audio recordings. He made numerous chat show and game show appearances during the 1970s and even appeared as a parody of Mike Hammer in TV commercials for Miller beer. Somewhat notoriously, his second wife, Sherri, posed nude for the dustjackets of The Erection Set (1972), and The Last Cop Out (1973). Despite this, Spillane remains a rather private man, and his desire for publicity is perhaps summed up in a comment he made, quoted in One Lonely Knight : "Hell, I'm not an author, I'm a writer. I've got to make a living, somehow."

—Chris Routledge