Freeper Reading Club Book Discussion: "The Choirboys"

Self | October 14, 2003 | PJ-Comix

[PJ-Comix]

The Freeper Reading Club Book discussion this time around is about Joseph Wambaugh's HILARIOUS book, The Choirboys. One of the best compliments paid to this book was by a Missouri Police officer, Robert Thompson, from St. Louis Missouri who had this to say in his Amazon review of The Choirboys:

As a police officer in the Midwest, I was shocked...that a story written over 20 years ago about policemen half a continent away would sound like it was written about us yesterday. The colorful characters seem ripped right out of my squadroom, and incompetent supervisors taken right from our rolls and the calls from the public right off my log sheet!! I shook my head as I sympathized with the characters, their inner demons and outer perils. This book is a MUST read for any police officer in the nation, or anyone who wants a safe look at a policeman's world with the ever present danger they face.

[dixie sass]

If you look at the stats, you will find that the highest acoholism and divorce rates are among persons who work in law enforcement and medicine (particularly emergency work). Seeing what the see on a daily basis 8 to 12 hours a day "ain't purty".

[PJ-Comix]

The Los Angeles Police Department as portrayed by Joseph Wambaugh is a far cry from how it was portrayed on that 1960s show "Adam-12"!

I wonder if Wambaugh wrote his book partly in reaction to the "Adam-12" show.

[PJ-Comix]

The first book I read of his was Onion Fields based on an actual case. I have been a fan of his ever since.

I read almost all of Wambaugh's books. One exception was The Blooding which is just a couple of feet from me right now and which I will commence reading soon. BTW, what was Wambaugh's most recent book?

[PJ-Comix]

I liked the part near the end where the D

Huh? I think your sentence got cut off. It reminds me of when I do an impression of singing the theme tune of Sound Of Music: "THE HILLS ARE A..."

[PJ-Comix]

I liked the part near the end where the D

Huh? I think your sentence got cut off. It reminds me of when I do an impression of singing the theme tune of Sound Of Music: "THE HILLS ARE A..."

[PJ-Comix]

I'm wondering if stuff like this can happen only on an American police force because of our national eccentricities. Somehow I can't imagine something like this on a Swiss police force.

[BADROTOFINGER]

Wow. Lines and Shadows was my fave by Joe...JFK

[sticker]

We will have to agree to disagree on that one. I was trying to remember, did he write a book on a strange murder case in PA or was that someone else?

[BADROTOFINGER]

Jeez, I dont remember, I picked up a Joe Wambaugh book my mom had lying around, and then went on to just devour every book of his I could find. I read the Choirboys but dont really remember enough about it to comment on this thread. I did name a cat of mine after one of the characters in The Choirboys (I think), Buckmore Phipps. I liked Lines and Shadows because it really highlighted the Law of Unintended Consequences and painted a succinct picture of human desperation (sp?) and human frailties...JFK

[PJ-Comix]

Wow. Lines and Shadows was my fave by Joe...

I know I read it but refresh my memory as to what it is about. Was this the one about a murder at some private school in Pennsylvania?

[SeeRushToldU_So]

I loved this and all of Wambaugh's books, before, during and after my short (3 year) career as a cop.

[WhyisaTexasgirlinPA]

Georgia, you can read? (sorry, just kidding........ )

[dixie sass]

I don't know PJ, I just pick up any book that has his name and start reading. It's not "FLOATER" is it?

[SamAdams76]

When I was a kid, I used to watch shows like Adam-12 and Emergency (remember that show about LA paramedics?). I can still remember the calls of "Rampart, Rampart" or "One-Adam-12, One-Adam-12, Forty Maple Lane, please see the man with the cat up in the tree."

As a kid watching those shows, it was easy to think that those clean-cut characters reflected how every cop was and that being a cop was one of the best jobs in the world to have. So what a shock it was to me, as a 13-year-old kid bicycling through a road work sign to have a big-bellied cop working the detail step in front of me with an ugly expression and bellow "move the hell outta my construction area ya punk or I'll take that bike and shove it up your ass!" while the road crew leaned on their shovels and laughed at my shocked "deer-in-the-headlights" expression. I hightailed it out of there and never looked back.

Of course, not all cops are that way. But that incident was the beginning of my realization that the real world did not resemble in the slightest those antiseptic TV dramas and sitcoms. Speaking of my childhood naivety, as a 10-year-old, I actually wrote a letter to the Partridge Family asking them if they needed somebody to help out with the band - even properly addressed it to "Reuben Kincaid, manager". Yes, one of my childhood fantasies was apparently to be some sort of "roadie" for the Partridge Family! But I digress.

I happen to know a police officer pretty well, he's married to my cousin. I'll have to bring this book up next time I see to him. He's probably familiar with it. He talks to me about police work sometimes and a lot of what he told me about it comes out in the book, such as the impression many officers have that they are sometimes "shoveling crap against the wind." That is to say, dealing with the same drunks and bums night after night, only to see them right back on the streets hours later.

[contessa machiaveli]

the rampart division is more noirish(that seems to be james ellroy territory). wambaugh is gritty is a different way...there's something about LA cop novels, it's a setting like no other (i guess i've seen too many films).
for instance: heat, LA confidential, the limey, and chinatown.

what is it about LA?

[PJ-Comix]

My first experience with a cop that I can remember was when I was in Kindergarten in Cleveland. I missed my school bus ride home so I showed my dogtag ID that the school gave us to a cop as I was instructed to do when lost. The school folks told us the cops would then be happy to take us home but this cop was a cantankerous old guy who was bitching on the whole ride about how I was ruining his lunch hour.

Anyway, since I lived in L.A. for awhile I was very familiar with the locales mentioned in The Choirboys which made the book even more interesting. The best fiction is based strongly on fact. BTW, the next book due, Some Came Running is based on James Jones' hometown and the people in it.

[SamAdams76]

Huh? I think your sentence got cut off. It reminds me of when I do an impression of singing the theme tune of Sound Of Music: "THE HILLS ARE A..."

Huh? Huh? Whaddaya tryin' to say? Whaddaya tryin' to say?

I don't know why that last paragraph cut off. I think I was distracted by the baseball game I was watching at the time I posted it.

I was referring to the part where the Police Doctor, the one who spends most of his time writing puff pieces for the police newsletter, did psychological profiles on the "choir practice" members after the accidental killing of the "park fairy." After much effort to research their backgrounds and to try to come up with an answer why they were the way they were, he chucked the entire report in the trash, knowing that the last thing the brass wanted from him was a report that would do anything to "rock the boat."

I also got a kick out of that idea one of the brass had to have the patrolmen sell whistles on the street for $1 for little old ladies to blow should they ever get assaulted by a street thug. As if police officers patrolling around in their cruisers are ever going to hear, much less respond to, a whistle blowing. Of course, this captain got a nice feather in his cap for this idea - which naturally had zero effect on crime fighting.

[Fawnn]

If you liked "The Choirboys" you'd really like "The Delta Star" Same author about a decade later.

Or Finnegan's Week!

I was dispatching at a medium-sized city PD when The New Centurions came out. In fact, I was working third shift -- and reading that book at work. When I got to the scene about an officer's gunshot wound, I had to set the book aside. Took me awhile before I was able to finish reading the book.

[WHATNEXT?]

Well, here I go again. This book really depressed me. I'd just as soon not know what police think about women, sex, drugs, etc. It is definitely a man's world.

Fortunately, this is not a side of life I have any experience in (as many of you have) and one I wouldn't care to see.

[PJ-Comix]

Well, here I go again. This book really depressed me. I'd just as soon not know what police think about women, sex, drugs, etc. It is definitely a man's world.

It's about cops, NOT Eagle Scouts. Anyway, such a book humanizes the police.