The Bitch (1979)

My advice to those interested in the writing life is now down to four words: read widely, write daily. An example of wide reading could include Elfriede Jelinek at one end of the shelf, Jackie Collins at the other. 

A couple weeks ago I picked up a never before cracked Jackie Collins paperback published in the relatively debauched year of 1979. The book is called The Bitch.

Collins is at her best with chapters that begin with the names of her characters. In The Bitch, it is not the bitch we first meet (Fontaine Khaled), but the "gentleman" (Nico Constantine) who uses her as a unwitting mule to smuggle a fabulously large and "borrowed" diamond ring into London to sell before his return to Las Vegas, where he can pay off his gambling debt.

I am only on Page 141 of this 253 page cartoon, so I don't know how it turns out. Not that it matters, for as I said, it's portraiture, not plot, that is Jackie Collins's strong suit. Which is not to say (so far) that the Bitch is well drawn, with complexities that lead us to sympathize with her, forgive her bitchiness as a symptom of some childhood injury, and thus love her for what she isn't. My problem is that the Bitch isn't bitchy enough.

Like Nico the Gentleman, Fontaine the Bitch goes through lovers -- young lovers -- like seltzer water. The difference is that Nico (a widower) sets a time limit of four weeks on his love affairs, after which he gives his exes a diamond trinket and a speech that makes it sound like it is the dumped lover who is breaking up with him. For Fontaine (the divorcee), a lover rarely lasts a week, and is assessed entirely on the size of his bank account (we're still in the era of the millionaire) and penis ("eight or nine inches").

Why Nico is considered a gentleman and Fontaine a bitch is the difference between the lies of a confidence man and the honesty of a woman who, though fickle, is at least up front about what she wants. Fontaine's bitch is a mere shadow when compared to the ferocious recklessness of today's bitch. As for Nico, his gentlemanly ways would only leave him vulnerable, serve as an admission of guilt, and he would, like Tennessee Williams's Sebastian Venable, be torn to pieces by an unforgiving mob.