In Bunker's world crime has a gravitational force, sucking wayward
characters in and holding them there. In his first book No Beast
So Fierce, Max Dembo tries to go straight but can't, leaving crime
the only option. In Little Boy Blue an eleven year old boy called Alex wanders into crime without ever making a conscious step towards
it.
We accompany Alex from boarding school to his capture for armed
robbery several years alter. Judging by bunker's life history
(at eighteen he was the youngest man in San Quentin) this story
could well be autobiographical.
Perhaps due to his personal experience Bunker acknowledges how
complicated motivation is, making Alex's transformation into a
criminal appear a sleight of hand rather than a product of crisis.
You can see the evolution, but it is impossible to pin point exactly
when it happens so apportioning blame becomes impossible. this
stops Alex being dismissed as either a bad egg or a victim of
society, which makes him all the more fascinating. Bunker wants
you to comprehend Alex rather than forgive or pity him.
Alex's character has a direct bearing on his fate - even if it
isn't the deciding factor. His life is determined by his reluctance
to submit to a variety of hostile environments. The stubbornness
is invariably interpreted as rebellion and rewarded with increasing
hostility, the pattern repeated throughout his progression from
institution to institution. as Bunker tells it, placing Alex into
boarding school causes a slow-working chemical reaction, the end
result being no-one's intention.
A hard shell develops around Alex due to his strength of character
and toughening environment. This hardening is more out of necessity
than masculine pride - Alex fights anyone who crosses him because
to do otherwise would be suicide. This Little Boy Blue has in
common with crime fiction from WR Burnett to Edwin Torres, but
here the emphasis is on understanding rather than entertaining.
the strain of perpetually showing strength and hiding vulnerability
comes across alongside the respect and fear it engenders.
Bunker writes to convey truth rather than style, which in my mind
creates the best style of all . Just as James M Cain was accused
of being hard-boiled when he was trying to "merely write
as the character would write", Bunker's writing also follows
its function. with no conceit, no overt showmanship in communication
of character or atmosphere he gives the book a pure tone unfettered
by self conscious authorial presence. Because no-one is there
to explain away what is happening the book chills you all the
more. You are left alone and powerless, watching Alex's life evolve
into bittersweet chaos.
the book ends with Alex's criminal metamorphism complete, which
in itself would be a humdrum conclusion. But added to the emotional
momentum Bunker has created, the lack of an appropriate conclusion
creates a drama of its own. You feel like a cartoon mouse so engrossed
in chasing a cat it unwittingly runs off a cliff. Bunker provides
no soft landing because the fall is in your head rather than his
- it arises from the struggle to fit the book into your sphere
of experience. Little Boy Blue could only be written by a criminal, because only a criminal has crime so close to them that they can't
distinguish it from themselves, so to provide an answer or a solution
is to deny who they are.
