Eddie Valient will work for a Toon if his cash supply is low enough. So he reluctantly agrees when Roger Rabbit, a Toon who plays straight man (or should that be straight rabbit) in the Baby Herman cartoon series, asks him to find out who’s been trying – unsuccessfully – to buy his contract from the DeGreasy Brothers syndicate. Then Rocco DeGreasy is murdered – and Roger is the prime suspect! Goodreads
There will be moderate spoilers in this review. Not the ending, but if you’re coming to this book review only knowing the movie, there will be surprises!
I listened to the audiobook for this one. The reader is L.J. Ganser who, if know it, also did The Science Fiction Hall of Fame audiobooks. I thought he was perfect for the majority of roles, but actually it was the voice of Roger Rabbit I bumped on. I guess I can’t shake the Disney treatment on that one!
Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
If you’re like me, your first experience with this story was with the 1988 Disney adaption Who Framed Roger Rabbit? That movie holds a special place in my heart – whenever I’m ill, it’s the first thing I put on and it cheers me up every time. As with all Disney adaptations, the book is a vastly separate affair.
During a heated discussion between Valiant and Roger, one of Rogers speech bubbles ends up stuck behind a sofa and Valiant has to fish it out with a coat hanger to find out what he said. These are physical manifestations to the point people can pluck them out of the air and scrunching them up.
It’s a classic private detective, noir story, complete with the Sam Spade/Philip Marlow mould detective. Valiant accepts toons as people, but can’t stand them. Unlike in the movie, it’s never really explained why, other than just racism. Racism and segregation is a powerful theme in this novel. There are human only bars and toon only bars and its clear toons are second-class citizens.
But the important difference from the movie to the book is the fact that all toons can create doppelgangers. These are mental, physical projections of themselves which can act as they do but have a limited lifespan. The toons use them as body doubles for action scenes, or simply to run errands. They don’t consider them any more part of themselves than a discarded nail clipping.
Plot Twist
Ready for a plot twist? Here we go. In Who Censored Roger Rabbit? Roger dies in the first act. Seriously. When Valiant goes to Roger’s house to report the entire case has been a snipe hunt, he finds Roger shot in the chest, dead. It turns out that Rocco DeGreasy was also shot and Roger is the prime suspect.
A short story, you might think. But here’s where the doppelgangers come into play. It turns out before Roger was shot, he created one of these doppelgangers and sent him on his errand. This Roger approaches Valiant to solve his murder and Valiant, out of a sense of injured pride for having misjudged the case, agrees to take on the case.
Style
This author clearly knows his private detective fiction. I appreciate that – I’m a massive fan of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler myself. There’s a lot of in-jokes, blatant homages and pure P.I. goodness.
And, as with most Private Detectives, Valiant is not a particularly nice guy. He’s clearly a racist, he’s massively misogynistic and frankly, a bit of a dick. Drunk, broody and sarcastic. And unfortunately, he does all these things without the benefit of being Humphrey Bogart or Bob Hoskins.
This is a book written in the early 80s and in the style of the 40s, so a perfect storm of big dick energy. If that’s an annoyance for you, it’s probably not your thing!
Gary K. Wolf
It’s rare to find an author who appreciates the Hollywood treatment of their works. However, it seems Gary Wolf liked the version of the world they created in their books. After the movie, he wrote Who P-P-P-Plugged Roger Rabbit? and Who Wacked Roger Rabbit? Neither are canonical with the original book and have more inline with the movie. In fact, the original book is actually retconned as a dream of Jessica, in chapter 12 of Who P-P-P-Plugged Roger Rabbit?
On the other hand, Wolf did sue Disney for cheating him out of a lot of the revenue he was owed. But frankly, that’s just par for the course when working with Disney.
Rating
Five Stars. This is one of those beautiful occasions where it’s easy to love the movie and the book for very different reasons. As I said, I did this one on audiobook, but this is one I’ll likely end up buying the book too.
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