Andrew Vachss

Andrew Henry Vachss ( VAX; October 19, 1942 – November 23, 2021) was an American crime fiction author, child protection consultant, and attorney exclusively representing children and youths.

Early life and career

Vachss grew up in Manhattan on the Lower West Side. Before becoming a lawyer, Vachss held many front-line positions in child protection. He was a federal investigator in sexually transmitted diseases, and a New York City social-services caseworker. He worked in Biafra, entering the war zone just before the fall of the country. There he worked to find a land route to bring donated food and medical supplies across the border after the seaports were blocked and Red Cross airlifts banned by the Nigerian government; however, all attempts ultimately failed, resulting in rampant starvation.

After he returned and recovered from his injuries, including malaria and malnutrition, Vachss studied community organizing in 1970 under Saul Alinsky. He worked as a labor organizer and ran a self-help center for urban migrants in Chicago. He then managed a re-entry program for ex-convicts in Massachusetts, and finally directed a maximum-security prison for violent juvenile offenders.

As an attorney, Vachss represented only children and adolescents. In addition to his private practice, he served as a law guardian in New York state. In every child abuse or neglect case, state law requires the appointment of a law guardian, a lawyer who represents the child's interests during the legal proceedings.

Writings

Andrew Vachss was the author of 33 novels and three collections of short stories, as well as poetry, plays, song lyrics, and graphic novels.

As a novelist, he was perhaps best known for his Burke series of hardboiled mysteries; Another Life constituted the finale to the series.

After completing the Burke novels, Vachss began two new series. Vachss released the first novel in the Dell & Dolly trilogy, entitled Aftershock, in 2013. The second novel, Shockwave, was released in 2014, and Signwave, the final book, was published in June 2015. Departing from Vachss' familiar urban settings, the trilogy focuses on Dell, a former soldier and assassin, and Dolly, a former nurse with Doctors Without Borders and the love of Dell's life. While living in the Pacific Northwest, Dell and Dolly use their war-honed skills to maintain a "heads on stakes" barrier against the predators who use their everyday positions in the community as camouflage to attack the vulnerable.

The Cross series uses distinctive supernatural aspects to further explore Vachss' argument that society's failure to protect its children is the greatest threat to the human species. In 2012, Vachss' published Blackjack: A Cross Novel, featuring the mercenary Cross Crew, introduced in earlier Vachss short stories as Chicago's most-feared criminal gang. Urban Renewal, the second novel in the Cross series, came out in 2014. The third in the series, Drawing Dead, was released in 2016.

In addition to the Aftershock, Burke, and Cross series, Vachss wrote several stand-alone works. The first novel he published outside the Burke series was Shella. Released in 1993, Shella was the most polarizing of his works in terms of critical response. Vachss often referred to Shella as his "beloved orphan" until the 2004 release of The Getaway Man, a tribute to the Gold Medal paperback originals of the 1960s. In 2005, Vachss released the epic Two Trains Running, a novel which takes place entirely during a two-week span in 1959, a critical period in American history. In form, Two Trains Running presents as a work composed entirely of transcribed surveillance tapes, akin to a collage film constructed only of footage from a single source. His 2009 novel, Haiku, focuses on the troubled lives of a band of homeless men in New York City, struggling to connect with and protect each other. In 2010, Vachss published two books: his novel The Weight, is a noir romance involving a professional thief and a young widow in hiding. Heart Transplant, an illustrated novel in an experimental design, tells the story of an abused and bullied young boy who finds his inner strength with the help of an unexpected mentor. That's How I Roll, released in 2012, chronicles the death-row narrative of a hired killer as he reveals the secrets of his past, both horrifying and tender.

Vachss collaborated on works with authors Jim Colbert (Cross, 1995) and Joe R. Lansdale (Veil's Visit, 1999). He also created illustrated works with artists Frank Caruso (Heart Transplant, 2010) and Geof Darrow (Another Chance to Get It Right, 1993; The Shaolin Cowboy Adventure Magazine, 2014). Vachss' graphic novel, Underground, was released in November 2014.

Vachss also wrote non-fiction, including numerous articles and essays on child protection and a book on juvenile criminology. His books have been translated into 20 languages, and his shorter works have appeared in many publications, including Parade, Antaeus, Esquire, Playboy, and The New York Times. Vachss' literary awards include the Grand Prix de Littérature Policière for Strega [as La Sorcière de Brooklyn]; the Falcon Award, Maltese Falcon Society of Japan, for Strega; the Deutscher Krimi Preis for Flood [as Kata]; and the Raymond Chandler Award for his body of work.

Andrew Vachss was a member of PEN and the Writers Guild of America. His autobiographical essay was added by invitation to Contemporary Authors in 2003.

Child protection

Many of Vachss' novels feature the shadowy, unlicensed investigator Burke, an ex-con, career criminal, and deeply conflicted character. About his protagonist, Vachss said:

If you look at Burke closely, you'll see the prototypical abused child: hypervigilant, distrustful. He's so committed to his family of choice—not his DNA-biological family, which tortured him, or the state which raised him, but the family that he chose—that homicide is a natural consequence of injuring any of that family. He's not a hit man. But he shares the same religion I do, which is revenge.