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What may be less appreciated, but is what I keep returning to, is his crime fiction.
It was funny, witty, and had zinging prose.
But crime fiction had a broader draw for him, too: Crime as work appeals to me …
The guy who gets up in the morning and makes his living by crime.
Then cameConfidentialand accompanying stardom, and it wasnt clear if Bourdain would gift us with more fiction.
But he did, with my own favorite of his books,The Bobby Gold Stories.
Its publication history was somewhat curious, arriving in Britain first, in 2001, asBobby Gold.
(The U.S. edition published two years later.)
Its not that writing with humor means you cant be serious.
But the stories contained inBobby Goldcarried more purpose, somehow.
They augured something bigger for Bourdain in fiction, if he chose to keep on with it.
He didnt, though.
The something bigger manifested itself in a myriad of other media.
Two more things stick with me about Bourdain.
The store was packed with the crime-fiction hoi polloi.
I worked the register.
At some point, I got hungry and noticed a tray of canapes moving around the store.
