I first met Kinky at a book signing in London in 1996, when he was the perfect Southern gentleman. And like thousands of his fans, I feel I know him well from his mystery novels, if novel is the right word for a unique form of detective fiction, pioneered by Kinky and starring himself and the Village Irregulars: Ratso, McGovern, Ramban, his real-life friends, solving imaginary murders in the Greenwich Village district of New York in the early 1980s.
In an interview with Joel Bernstein which appeared in Country Standard Time in 1999 Kinky explained how he got started as a novelist:
“Things weren’t going well. The Jewboys had been disbanded. I was living in New York and playing the Lone Star Cafe every Sunday night. Right at the low ebb, I took a shot at writing a mystery novel, which I’ve always liked. I put in a lot of leftover lyrics. I’ve got a warehouse full of them. I thought they’d be a novelty, but it’s still going strong. (His 11th novel was just published.) They’ve just been translated into Hebrew and Japanese. That’s 17 foreign languages they’re in now.”
Kinky’s unique prose style can move seamlessly from the sacred to the profane in a single sentence. His plots have been criticized as slight, but that is not really the point. Kinky’s distinctive aphorisms (he does not walk but “ankles it “up Hudson Street) and his mastery of speech patterns – he nails precisely the mockney drawl of his hip London photographer friend Mick Brennan – give the books a unique flavour while his laconic descriptions conjure up with photographic vividness the louche neighbourhood of Greenwich Village in the early 1980s. At the same time he touchingly explores the bonds of friendship between a group of misfit male friends who tolerate a high degree of eccentricity amongst each other.
One of the real attractions of Kinky’s books is that he describes real places, like Big Wong’s Chinese Restaurant in Mott Street where Ratso eats his favourite roast “pawk” (and always manages to land Kinky with the bill) and the Corner Bistro just across the road from Mike McGovern’s clutted apartment in Jane Street.
So I have always wanted to go to New York and see if these places really existed. And earlier this year I got the chance and indeed they do. Greenwich Village may have been gentrified out of all recognition since Kinky lived there but Big Wong’s is still there and so is the Corner Bistro. Some locations have changed their name and are under new ownership, but these too can still be visited. The original location of the Monkey’s Paw dive bar, modelled on the Lion’s Head in Christopher Street is still there although it is now occupied by the Kettle of Fish.
One great mystery however remains, where was the original 199b Vandam Street, Kinky’s loft? To find out you’ll need to read “Where the Hell is 199b Vandam Street” post on this blog.
Great website!
I stumbled across it on a random web search to see if I could find a picture of the puppet head.
I’m new to Kinky Friedman novels & have read about 6 of his books in the last month. Thanks to this rotten recession, I am between professions & have plenty of time to enjoy reading his work…………..I’d re-career into PI work, but Kinky has me convinced that there is too little money in the job & too many dead bodies!
Do you happen to know how many of the Village irregulars are real people? ……..I understand Rambam is a real guy, and that the “real” Rambam is in a current pickle with the Feds….
Thanks again for letting me enjoy your website!
Cheers,
Patrick
Yes the Village Irregulars are mostly real people – apart from Stephanie. I think there are some links in my blog site to their identities but Kinky also reveals who they are in the books. I went to see him play in London last year and he was accompanied by Washington Ratso and Little Jewford. Kinky has announced he hopes to stand for Texas Governor again next year – this time as an Independent Democrat. We shall see. But it will probably revive interest in him so I am thinking of updating this site and moving it to a webspace of its own. (I have a main Word Press blog called The Folly Fancier and added the Kinky site as a second one with the same owner id. As a result it doesn’t seem to get picked up on any search engines in its own right. ) I have lots of photos of his haunts in NY as they are are today. I live in the UK but my son and his wife live in NY and I got them to go round last year to take photos of all the places mentioned in the books.