Thank You, Mr. Poe
57
Pendergast’s sidekick in Still Life with Crows is probably one of the most
interesting characters in any of the books. His assistant is a bright but very
unhappy 18 year old girl named Corrie Swanson, who sports purple hair and
black clothes. At the introduction of this character, she is laying in jail thinking
to herself how being there “wasn’t any worse than sitting at home, listening to
her mother’s nagging or drunken snoring. And the folding bunk was at least as
comfortable as the broken-down mattress in her own bedroom” (67). This initial
window into Corrie’s thoughts indicates the type of upbringing she has suffered.
Corrie is bailed out by Pendergast, who enlists her help as a driver and eventual
assistant for his detective work in Medicine Creek, Kansas. Corrie initially
thinks Pendergast is interested only in sex, which is why he bails her out, but she
learns that is not his motivation and eventually starts to trust him. As the course
of the story unfolds, Corrie and Pendergast develop a sort of mentor-apprentice
relationship, and Corrie’s self-esteem grows. By the end of the narration, Corrie
is upset because she recognizes the potential in herself and wishes that
Pendergast would take her away from Medicine Creek because she knows she
will never be allowed to escape the shadow of her drunken mother and defiant
past. Ultimately, Pendergast does rescue Corrie from the town by enrolling her
in an East Coast boarding school. After the gruesome misery and perversion of
life depicted in Still Life with Crows, the optimistic outcome for Corrie after
witnessing her devel opment as the sidekick of Pendergast leaves the reader
feeling guardedly hopeful for her future and is demonstrative of her growth as a
character and role as a modernized, dynamic sidekick.
Finally, the assistant in Brimstone is Sergeant Vincent D’Agosta, a previous
partner of Pendergast’s. D’Agosta, similar to Corrie, has reached a low point in
his life. His pride has been wounded due to his demoted position with a small
town police force and the impending divorce from his wife. He is physically out
of shape and depressed that his writing career never flourished. Like with
Corrie, Pendergast’s confidence in D’Agosta forces the policeman to rise to the
occasion of being a worthy assistant to Pendergast and causes his development
as a character. His obscure Neopolitan dialect of Italian helps their investigation
while in Italy; he forces himself to practice shooting to get his aim back and
winds up saving Pendergast’s life as a result. He even manages to start a
relationship with a beautiful former colleague on the New York police force.
Like both Nora and Corrie, D’Agosta is that character with whom the reader can
identify because of the low situation she or he began each story. While Preston
and Child’s implementation of the sidekick is completely original in relation to
Poe’s role of the sidekick, just the device of the sidekick in a detective story can
be linked to Poe’s narrative “Murders in the Rue Morgue.”
The final element of detective horror fiction most obviously borrowed from
Poe and most consistently implemented by Preston and Child in this series of
novels is the characterization of Special Agent Aloysius Pendergast. He would
not exist if it were not for the invention of Auguste Dupin by Poe.