Killings by Calvin Trillin. 231 pp. New York: Ticknor & Fields. $14.95.
In a book by Calvin Trillin on murders and other sudden deaths one might expect to find a woman pole-axing her husband with a leg of lamb or someone suffering hypothermia from snacking too long in the chilly breezes of an open Frigidaire - food-related deaths. Millions know Mr. Trillin from his three witty books about food and his televised discussions of them with the likes of Johnny Carson. But this latest is not about food and is not funny. ''Not funny'' is probably a phrase the publisher cannot use in advertising, but, for the first time in Mr. Trillin's 20 years of writing his 10 books, it's true.
''Killings'' is a collection of 16 pieces about violent deaths that he wrote between 1969 and 1982 for his ''U.S. Journal'' column in The New Yorker. The reader will find little suspense or mystery here, no intricate plots, no gory details or terrifying re-creations of homicides. ''These stories,'' Mr. Trillin says, ''are meant to be more about how Americans live than about how some of them die.''
Mr. Trillin explains that ''reporters love murders,'' and our reporter chased murders from Jeremiah, Ky., where a mountaineer shot the leader of a film crew, to Casa Blanca, Calif., where residents of a Mexican barrio were caught in a vicious cycle of revenge; back across the country to Savannah, Ga., where the son of a society family was murdered; then up to New Hampshire, where a father killed his wife, and his daughter, in return, killed him.
Mr. Trillin lays out his thorough reporting in simple, straightforward fashion, allowing himself only a few jabs and one-liners. For the most part this unornamented style is all to the good, the material being engrossing, even riveting in such cases as ''Melisha Morganna Gibson,'' about child abuse in Cleveland, Tenn., and ''It's Just Too Late,'' about a Knoxville girl who foretells her death in a poem.
Murders unsettle communities, revealing to the keen eye what lies just below the surface. ''When someone dies suddenly shades are drawn up,'' Mr. Trillin says. The trials are also revealing, as processes ''in which the person being asked the question actually has to answer it.'' He writes about the nature of criminal defense lawyers and prosecutors, rules of evidence and jury selection with the savvy of a courthouse reporter. Much is revealed about human nature along the way, and the object lessons are as true where we sit as in these 16 far-flung communities. A murder in the hills of Kentucky is the result of differences in codes of behavior; in Gallup, N.M., it is the result of racial prejudice. A murder trial in West Chester, Pa. explains human reactions to threats to the status quo.
Mr. Trillin explores the collective guilt of an Iowa community after an entire Laotian immigrant family tries to commit suicide. Status-conscious parents in Savannah seem more upset about their loss of respectability than about the murder of their son. In Grundy County, Iowa, residents worry over what went wrong to make a pillar of the community chase a cocktail waitress and murder his wife. Some blame it on the dirt farmer getting into the cattle business, because the buying and selling can cause a man to wind up in cities at night with time on his hands.
As good as the pieces are individually, something is lost in herding them for market - the growing market in murders and murder trials. When suspense should be building in ''It's Just Too Late,'' for example, it cannot because we know that FaNee Cooper is going to die and let's get it over with. Lost is the refreshing randomness of the ''U.S. Journal'' column as it appeared in The New Yorker, where Mr. Trillin delighted us with surprises every three weeks - a day in the life of a Dow Chemical recruiter, a snowmobile derby, a Jaycee convention and then, bang, a murder.As with a box of chocolate creams, you might prefer to devour these one at a time. Either way, you will be rewarded by witnessing that rarity, reportage as art. The least of the pieces is interesting, because Mr. Trillin used murder as one convenient excuse to travel around and write enlightening columns on the diversity of people and places in America. Come to think of it, he was doing the same sort of thing in those books about jambalaya, buffalo chicken wings, alligator tails and other regional delicacies, wasn't he?
In a book by Calvin Trillin on murders and other sudden deaths one might expect to find a woman pole-axing her husband with a leg of lamb or someone suffering hypothermia from snacking too long in the chilly breezes of an open Frigidaire - food-related deaths. Millions know Mr. Trillin from his three witty books about food and his televised discussions of them with the likes of Johnny Carson. But this latest is not about food and is not funny. ''Not funny'' is probably a phrase the publisher cannot use in advertising, but, for the first time in Mr. Trillin's 20 years of writing his 10 books, it's true.
''Killings'' is a collection of 16 pieces about violent deaths that he wrote between 1969 and 1982 for his ''U.S. Journal'' column in The New Yorker. The reader will find little suspense or mystery here, no intricate plots, no gory details or terrifying re-creations of homicides. ''These stories,'' Mr. Trillin says, ''are meant to be more about how Americans live than about how some of them die.''
Mr. Trillin explains that ''reporters love murders,'' and our reporter chased murders from Jeremiah, Ky., where a mountaineer shot the leader of a film crew, to Casa Blanca, Calif., where residents of a Mexican barrio were caught in a vicious cycle of revenge; back across the country to Savannah, Ga., where the son of a society family was murdered; then up to New Hampshire, where a father killed his wife, and his daughter, in return, killed him.
Mr. Trillin lays out his thorough reporting in simple, straightforward fashion, allowing himself only a few jabs and one-liners. For the most part this unornamented style is all to the good, the material being engrossing, even riveting in such cases as ''Melisha Morganna Gibson,'' about child abuse in Cleveland, Tenn., and ''It's Just Too Late,'' about a Knoxville girl who foretells her death in a poem.
Murders unsettle communities, revealing to the keen eye what lies just below the surface. ''When someone dies suddenly shades are drawn up,'' Mr. Trillin says. The trials are also revealing, as processes ''in which the person being asked the question actually has to answer it.'' He writes about the nature of criminal defense lawyers and prosecutors, rules of evidence and jury selection with the savvy of a courthouse reporter. Much is revealed about human nature along the way, and the object lessons are as true where we sit as in these 16 far-flung communities. A murder in the hills of Kentucky is the result of differences in codes of behavior; in Gallup, N.M., it is the result of racial prejudice. A murder trial in West Chester, Pa. explains human reactions to threats to the status quo.
Mr. Trillin explores the collective guilt of an Iowa community after an entire Laotian immigrant family tries to commit suicide. Status-conscious parents in Savannah seem more upset about their loss of respectability than about the murder of their son. In Grundy County, Iowa, residents worry over what went wrong to make a pillar of the community chase a cocktail waitress and murder his wife. Some blame it on the dirt farmer getting into the cattle business, because the buying and selling can cause a man to wind up in cities at night with time on his hands.
As good as the pieces are individually, something is lost in herding them for market - the growing market in murders and murder trials. When suspense should be building in ''It's Just Too Late,'' for example, it cannot because we know that FaNee Cooper is going to die and let's get it over with. Lost is the refreshing randomness of the ''U.S. Journal'' column as it appeared in The New Yorker, where Mr. Trillin delighted us with surprises every three weeks - a day in the life of a Dow Chemical recruiter, a snowmobile derby, a Jaycee convention and then, bang, a murder.As with a box of chocolate creams, you might prefer to devour these one at a time. Either way, you will be rewarded by witnessing that rarity, reportage as art. The least of the pieces is interesting, because Mr. Trillin used murder as one convenient excuse to travel around and write enlightening columns on the diversity of people and places in America. Come to think of it, he was doing the same sort of thing in those books about jambalaya, buffalo chicken wings, alligator tails and other regional delicacies, wasn't he?