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The New Centurions (novel)
Encyclopedia
The New Centurions, written by Joseph Wambaugh
, is a novel depicting the stresses of police
work in Los Angeles, California
in the early 1960s. The author wrote the novel, his first, while a working member of the Los Angeles Police Department
. The novel became a film
starring George C. Scott
and Stacy Keach
.
es of police work, and particularly police work in minority communities
of Los Angeles. The three officers—Serge Duran, Gus Plebesly, and Roy Fehler—are classmates at the police academy
in the summer of 1960, and the novel examines their lives each August of succeeding years, culminating in their on-the-job reunion during the Watts Riot of August 1965.
The New Centurions is likely the most autobiographical of Wambaugh's novels and is a straight-forward narration of events with little use of flashback
. Each chapter is written third-person from the point of view
of one of the three protagonists, who realistically have no contact with each other once they graduate from the academy but whose paths are at once both parallel and converging. Like Wambaugh, his protagonists move from a few years of uniformed patrol in minority districts to plain clothes assignments in juvenile and vice
work, experiences which so impacted Wambaugh that they appear repeatedly in all his fiction.
The significance of this structure is that while Wambaugh began his career writing entirely about police officers, he experimented with method until in his fourth book, The Choirboys
, he "found his voice," using satirical
black humor
in a style he openly attributed to the influence of Joseph Heller
but which is entirely absent in The New Centurions, The Blue Knight (first-person fiction), and The Onion Field
(non-fiction in a novelistic style).
Many of the characters of The New Centurions are the first appearances of police officer character types repeatedly found in Wambaugh's LAPD novels. The atavistic
beat officers Andy Kilvinsky and Whitey Duncan can be seen again in Bumper Morgan (The Blue Knight), Spermwhale Whalen (The Choirboys), and Rumpled Ronald (The Delta Star
). Serge Duran is Detective Sergeant Mario Villalobos (The Delta Star) as a rookie, and Gus Plebesley working Wilshire Vice is indistinguishable from Harold Bloomguard (The Choirboys) working Wilshire Vice. Roy Fehler has much in common with Baxter Slate (The Choirboys), Sgt. A.M. Valnikov (The Black Marble), and Sgt. Al Mackey (The Glitter Dome).
A character type not portrayed in The New Centurions is the brutal street cop. Known in the LAPD vernacular as a "black-glove cop" and epitomized by Roscoe Rules in The Choirboys and The Bad Czech of The Delta Star, Wambaugh only hints at the type in several vignettes. Wambaugh's apparent reluctance to portray police brutality
in his first work is balanced however by his frankness in depicting adultery
, alcoholism
, racism
and suicide
as rampant in the ranks of the LAPD. Police officer suicide in particular is a theme Wambaugh explores in nearly all of his books.
A major theme explored throughout the book is what traits characterize a veteran officer, and how a rookie acquires them. Wambaugh consistently compares the attitudes of the new officers (one is not considered a veteran in the LAPD until one's fifth anniversary on the job) to those of the older entrenched men.
, he has the fair features and tall stature of an Anglo
(unlike the Erik Estrada
portrayal in the film version) and speaks little Spanish
. His first assignment is uniformed patrol in Hollenbeck Division in East LA
, and he resentfully notices that all the Chicanos in his class have been sent there.
Duran is soon forced to confront his ethnicity, which he has hidden since leaving Chino
to join the Marines. At first he easily rationalizes to himself why he does not want to be considered Hispanic, but is increasingly uncomfortable with his self-denial. Then, working Hollywood Division for a few months in 1962 before returning to Hollenbeck, Duran begins to see East LA in a new light, as a comfortable place where people are actually what they seem to be. Teamed with an older but passive and unambitious officer after his return, Duran is pleasantly surprised to find that his patrol partner recommended him for a detective
position investigating felonies
in the Chicano division.
Duran settles into a routine in Hollenbeck, goes through some pleasant but meaningless personal relationships, and becomes a Juvenile detective to avoid a transfer and to improve his resumé
. Wambaugh places much of the narrative around Duran in Mexican restaurants
, and in his favorite diner Duran falls in love with the young Mexican waitress Mariana Paloma, who finally maneuvers him into coming to grips with his ethnicity.
Of the three central characters, Duran is the least complex and well-delineated, possibly reflecting Wambaugh's difficulty in conveying ethnicity, but Duran also has the most vivid episodes in the novel's climax. Despite the fact that Duran is Chicano, he appears to be the character Wambaugh chose to re-enact events Wambaugh himself experienced.
and suburban in upbringing, from the Los Angeles suburb of Azusa
. He married young and at 22 already has two children. He worked in a bank
before joining the LAPD, has a few college credits earned, but sought a job with higher status and better pay. Short and slim, Plebesly just passed the height and weight minimums required of applicants, but is a natural athlete and an endurance runner.
His first assignment tests his hidden fear that he is a coward. Although he performed well in both physical training and defensive tactics
at the academy, Plebesly is doubtful of his own ability to defeat an opponent in a physical confrontation. His assignment to University Division (now LAPD's "Southwest Area") intensifies his fears. University is over 90% black in population and a high-crime area, both unfamiliar to Plebesly's experience.
Plebesly is fortunate in that his first partner is the thoughtful but pragmatic
veteran Andy Kilvinsky. Unlike in the film version, which focused on the role as a starring vehicle for George C. Scott
, Kilvinsky's appearance in the novel is brief but crucial. He is close to retirement (which he refers to as "pulling the pin") and takes Plebesly under his wing to make into an extension of himself. Kilvinsky gives Plebesly a cram
course in being a good cop, overcoming his self-doubts, and trusting his innate common sense. He warns Plebesly that the intensity of crime in University makes a year there the equivalent of ten years in any other. Always offering insights from his personal philosophy, it is Kilvinsky who likens the role of LAPD cops to that of centurion
s in the early decline of the Roman Empire
. But Kilvinsky is as much a warning sign
as a mentor
, because his only life is his work, long-divorced not just from his wife but his family as well.
After just two years Plebesly has become a veteran, breaking in new rookies using the words and examples of Kilvinsky, now retired and living alone in Oregon
. University Division has become more tense and dangerous than ever and the center of Black Muslim challenges to white authority. Plebesly has observed decent young officers like Rantlee becoming racist, appalled at the changes in themselves but helpless to stop it. But Plebesly is absorbing what he sees and hears, gaining understanding rather than becoming what he beholds.
He knows he married at far too young an age and now feels trapped in his marriage. The frequency of divorce among his peers bothers him, however, and when he finally does take an interest in another woman, his female partner in Juvenile Division, fate intervenes in the form of Kilvinsky's suicide—which Plebesly doesn't learn about firsthand, but only through probate
of his old partner's will
.
of criminology
but had grown tired of college studies and joined the LAPD on the pretext of gaining several years' firsthand experience about crime
and criminals. With little interest in the semi-military aspects of the police environment, firearms, or physical training, Fehler from the outset views himself as intellectually superior to his fellow cadets and later the officers he works with.
Assigned to Newton Division (now called Southeast Area), the poorest all-black division in the department, Fehler like Plebesly is also paired with a veteran officer nearing retirement, but the two experiences seemingly could not be more unalike. Whitey Duncan is an alcoholic
, and as Fehler soon discovers, drinks on the job from bottles concealed inside police callbox
es. Yet he exhibits an unpretentious street wisdom that Fehler in his conceit and scorn for Whitey misses entirely. Roy, who has considered himself reasonable and thoughtful in all respects that his peers are not, develops a negative attitude toward the department's bureaucratic indifference that rivals that of any twenty-year veteran.
Fehler experiences a mutual but mild dislike with all his partners, who vary from night to night, and his marriage quickly disintegrates after the birth of his daughter Becky, who becomes the one brightness in an otherwise bleak existence. After two years in Newton he seemingly escapes to work Vice in downtown Central Division but it is only a reprieve. He is sent to Seventy-Seventh Division (Watts
), considered a virtual war zone in the LAPD, and in Fehler's mind, ten times as bad as Newton. The transfer only deepens his cynicism and resentment. Distracted by a psychologically traumatic
call concerning an abused infant, Fehler and his partner interrupt the robbery
of a liquor store
in the immediate aftermath of the call. Fehler is careless and is shot in the stomach by a blast from a sawed-off shotgun
.
He survives, but his long, painful recovery is as traumatizing as the injury. The wound is slow to heal, Fehler endures a colostomy
, and he is forced to live with his parents, where his job and injury are scorned and ridiculed. Worst of all, when he finally returns to full duty, it is back to patrol in Seventy-Seventh. Deluding himself that he had avoided a dependency on drugs, Fehler begins drinking, hiding bottles in both the trunk of his car and in callboxes. Just twenty-six years of age, Roy Fehler has devolved into Whitey Duncan. Returning to college studies has become all but forgotten, and he reaches bottom when he is suspended
for sixty days without pay for drinking on duty.
Fehler's redemption begins when he takes a burglary
report from a young black dental technician
, Laura Hunt, and becomes infatuated with her. They fall in love and he moves in with her during his suspension, where she "dries him out." Rid of his arrogance and conceit, Roy believes he is finally "finding peace" with himself.
In the first chapter, the longest, the riot is revealed through the anxiety of Serge Duran, being held over at Hollenbeck waiting to be thrown into it, and when he finally is, through the nervous conversations of three officers, strangers to each other, thrown together in a radio car having no idea where they are or what they should be doing. Leaderless, they finally fall in with a small collection of officers gathered by a sergeant and put down the looting in just one store on one block. They are stunned to learn that the show of authority is enough to "quell" the vast majority of the "rioters", who turn out to be just residents of the local neighborhood, many small children. On his way home that night Duran stops to eat, and almost on a whim orders menudo
, which has always represented for him the Chicano background he has been trying to escape, and finally considers himself Hispanic.
In the second chapter, the shortest, Gus Plebesly and his temporary partners arrive at the same decision. Plebesly's fears have come to a head in the back seat of the police car they're in. But suddenly they confront a crowd of arson
ists trying to set fire to a grocery, and in the ensuing foot chase, Plebesly runs down not just one but three rioters, arresting them one at a time until he confronts the last, who is much larger and more muscular, but whom he subdues with a convincing force of will. Afterwards Plebesly is still as afraid and sometimes almost panic-stricken as before, but he knows now he can endure, and is satisfied with the discovery.
For Roy Fehler, in the third and next-to-last chapter, he does little but observe. For half the chapter he is pinned down behind a fire engine
by a sniper
, protecting his stomach from further injury and reflecting that even in the chaos of south central Los Angeles, he has found peace in his life from being with Laura. Again a lone sergeant galvanizes the disorganized police remnants into action, but the night ends with an ugly incident. Roy's crew gets into a vehicle pursuit
of looters, are almost machine-gunned by a National Guard
roadblock
, and the looters escape when their car crashes. One of Roy's temporary partners shoots up the recovered car in his frustration, then sets it afire. Soon after Roy goes home to Laura and rejects a drink she offers him, and also her apology to him about the riot (because she's black). Roy soaks in a hot bath, and finally relaxed, asks Laura to marry him.
released by Columbia Pictures
, starring George C. Scott
as Andy Kilvinsky and Stacy Keach
as Roy Fehler. Columbia's paid Wambaugh a bonus of $1,250.00 for each week the novel remained on the New York Times Best Seller list
. Ultimately the novel, which first appeared on the list on February 21, 1971, remained on it for 32 weeks.
Joseph Wambaugh
Joseph Aloysius Wambaugh, Jr. is a bestselling American writer known for his fictional and non-fictional accounts of police work in the United States...
, is a novel depicting the stresses of police
Police
The police is a personification of the state designated to put in practice the enforced law, protect property and reduce civil disorder in civilian matters. Their powers include the legitimized use of force...
work in Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
in the early 1960s. The author wrote the novel, his first, while a working member of the Los Angeles Police Department
Los Angeles Police Department
The Los Angeles Police Department is the police department of the city of Los Angeles, California. With just under 10,000 officers and more than 3,000 civilian staff, covering an area of with a population of more than 4.1 million people, it is the third largest local law enforcement agency in...
. The novel became a film
The New Centurions
The New Centurions is a 1972 crime drama film based on the novel by policeman turned author Joseph Wambaugh.It stars George C. Scott, Stacy Keach, Scott Wilson, Jane Alexander, Erik Estrada and James Sikking and was directed by Richard Fleischer....
starring George C. Scott
George C. Scott
George Campbell Scott was an American stage and film actor, director and producer. He was best known for his stage work, as well as his portrayal of General George S. Patton in the film Patton, and as General Buck Turgidson in Stanley Kubrick's Dr...
and Stacy Keach
Stacy Keach
Stacy Keach is an American actor and narrator. He is most famous for his dramatic roles; however, he has done narration work in educational programming on PBS and the Discovery Channel, as well as some comedy and musical...
.
Plot summary
The novel is basically without plot, instead episodically depicting the psychological changes in three LAPD officers caused by the stressStress (medicine)
Stress is a term in psychology and biology, borrowed from physics and engineering and first used in the biological context in the 1930s, which has in more recent decades become commonly used in popular parlance...
es of police work, and particularly police work in minority communities
Ghetto
A ghetto is a section of a city predominantly occupied by a group who live there, especially because of social, economic, or legal issues.The term was originally used in Venice to describe the area where Jews were compelled to live. The term now refers to an overcrowded urban area often associated...
of Los Angeles. The three officers—Serge Duran, Gus Plebesly, and Roy Fehler—are classmates at the police academy
Police academy
A police academy is a training school for new police recruits, also known as a law enforcement academy.-Australia:Larger police departments usually run their own academies. States often run a centralised academy for training of personnel of law enforcement agencies within the state.Police...
in the summer of 1960, and the novel examines their lives each August of succeeding years, culminating in their on-the-job reunion during the Watts Riot of August 1965.
The New Centurions is likely the most autobiographical of Wambaugh's novels and is a straight-forward narration of events with little use of flashback
Flashback (narrative)
Flashback is an interjected scene that takes the narrative back in time from the current point the story has reached. Flashbacks are often used to recount events that happened before the story’s primary sequence of events or to fill in crucial backstory...
. Each chapter is written third-person from the point of view
Point of view (literature)
The narrative mode is the set of methods the author of a literary, theatrical, cinematic, or musical story uses to convey the plot to the audience. Narration, the process of presenting the narrative, occurs because of the narrative mode...
of one of the three protagonists, who realistically have no contact with each other once they graduate from the academy but whose paths are at once both parallel and converging. Like Wambaugh, his protagonists move from a few years of uniformed patrol in minority districts to plain clothes assignments in juvenile and vice
Vice
Vice is a practice or a behavior or habit considered immoral, depraved, or degrading in the associated society. In more minor usage, vice can refer to a fault, a defect, an infirmity, or merely a bad habit. Synonyms for vice include fault, depravity, sin, iniquity, wickedness, and corruption...
work, experiences which so impacted Wambaugh that they appear repeatedly in all his fiction.
The significance of this structure is that while Wambaugh began his career writing entirely about police officers, he experimented with method until in his fourth book, The Choirboys
The Choirboys (book)
The Choirboys , a novel is a controversial 1975 work of fiction written by Los Angeles Police Department officer-turned-novelist Joseph Wambaugh...
, he "found his voice," using satirical
Satire
Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...
black humor
Black comedy
A black comedy, or dark comedy, is a comic work that employs black humor or gallows humor. The definition of black humor is problematic; it has been argued that it corresponds to the earlier concept of gallows humor; and that, as humor has been defined since Freud as a comedic act that anesthetizes...
in a style he openly attributed to the influence of Joseph Heller
Joseph Heller
Joseph Heller was a US satirical novelist, short story writer, and playwright. His best known work is Catch-22, a novel about US servicemen during World War II...
but which is entirely absent in The New Centurions, The Blue Knight (first-person fiction), and The Onion Field
The Onion Field
The Onion Field is a 1973 nonfiction book by Joseph Wambaugh, a sergeant for the Los Angeles Police Department, chronicling the kidnapping of two plainclothes LAPD officers by a pair of criminals during an evening traffic stop and the subsequent murder of Officer Ian James Campbell.- Crime :On the...
(non-fiction in a novelistic style).
Many of the characters of The New Centurions are the first appearances of police officer character types repeatedly found in Wambaugh's LAPD novels. The atavistic
Atavism
Atavism is the tendency to revert to ancestral type. In biology, an atavism is an evolutionary throwback, such as traits reappearing which had disappeared generations before. Atavisms can occur in several ways...
beat officers Andy Kilvinsky and Whitey Duncan can be seen again in Bumper Morgan (The Blue Knight), Spermwhale Whalen (The Choirboys), and Rumpled Ronald (The Delta Star
The Delta Star
The Delta Star is a novel by author Joseph Wambaugh first published in 1983. The book tells several stories of a group of police in the Rampart Division of the Los Angeles Police Department. The main characters include Detective Mario Villalobos and The Bad Czech.An excerpt of the first published...
). Serge Duran is Detective Sergeant Mario Villalobos (The Delta Star) as a rookie, and Gus Plebesley working Wilshire Vice is indistinguishable from Harold Bloomguard (The Choirboys) working Wilshire Vice. Roy Fehler has much in common with Baxter Slate (The Choirboys), Sgt. A.M. Valnikov (The Black Marble), and Sgt. Al Mackey (The Glitter Dome).
A character type not portrayed in The New Centurions is the brutal street cop. Known in the LAPD vernacular as a "black-glove cop" and epitomized by Roscoe Rules in The Choirboys and The Bad Czech of The Delta Star, Wambaugh only hints at the type in several vignettes. Wambaugh's apparent reluctance to portray police brutality
Police brutality
Police brutality is the intentional use of excessive force, usually physical, but potentially also in the form of verbal attacks and psychological intimidation, by a police officer....
in his first work is balanced however by his frankness in depicting adultery
Adultery
Adultery is sexual infidelity to one's spouse, and is a form of extramarital sex. It originally referred only to sex between a woman who was married and a person other than her spouse. Even in cases of separation from one's spouse, an extramarital affair is still considered adultery.Adultery is...
, alcoholism
Alcoholism
Alcoholism is a broad term for problems with alcohol, and is generally used to mean compulsive and uncontrolled consumption of alcoholic beverages, usually to the detriment of the drinker's health, personal relationships, and social standing...
, racism
Racism
Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...
and suicide
Suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...
as rampant in the ranks of the LAPD. Police officer suicide in particular is a theme Wambaugh explores in nearly all of his books.
A major theme explored throughout the book is what traits characterize a veteran officer, and how a rookie acquires them. Wambaugh consistently compares the attitudes of the new officers (one is not considered a veteran in the LAPD until one's fifth anniversary on the job) to those of the older entrenched men.
Serge Duran
Like Wambaugh, Duran came to the LAPD from the U.S. Marines, joining in 1954 right out of high school. Although Duran is a ChicanoChicano
The terms "Chicano" and "Chicana" are used in reference to U.S. citizens of Mexican descent. However, those terms have a wide range of meanings in various parts of the world. The term began to be widely used during the Chicano Movement, mainly among Mexican Americans, especially in the movement's...
, he has the fair features and tall stature of an Anglo
Anglo
Anglo is a prefix indicating a relation to the Angles, England or the English people, as in the terms Anglo-Saxon, Anglo-American, Anglo-Celtic, Anglo-African and Anglo-Indian. It is often used alone, somewhat loosely, to refer to people of British Isles descent in The Americas, Australia and...
(unlike the Erik Estrada
Erik Estrada
Henry Enrique "Erik" Estrada is an American police officer and actor, known for his co-starring lead role in the 1977–1983 United States police television series CHiPs...
portrayal in the film version) and speaks little Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
. His first assignment is uniformed patrol in Hollenbeck Division in East LA
East Los Angeles (region)
East Los Angeles is the portion of the City of Los Angeles that lies east of Downtown Los Angeles, the Los Angeles River and the unincorporated areas of Lincoln Heights, west of the San Gabriel Valley, East Los Angeles and City Terrace, south of Cypress Park, and north of Vernon, California and...
, and he resentfully notices that all the Chicanos in his class have been sent there.
Duran is soon forced to confront his ethnicity, which he has hidden since leaving Chino
Chino, California
Chino is a city in San Bernardino County, California, United States. It is located in the western end of the Riverside-San Bernardino Area and it is easily accessible via the Chino Valley and Pomona freeways....
to join the Marines. At first he easily rationalizes to himself why he does not want to be considered Hispanic, but is increasingly uncomfortable with his self-denial. Then, working Hollywood Division for a few months in 1962 before returning to Hollenbeck, Duran begins to see East LA in a new light, as a comfortable place where people are actually what they seem to be. Teamed with an older but passive and unambitious officer after his return, Duran is pleasantly surprised to find that his patrol partner recommended him for a detective
Detective
A detective is an investigator, either a member of a police agency or a private person. The latter may be known as private investigators or "private eyes"...
position investigating felonies
Felony
A felony is a serious crime in the common law countries. The term originates from English common law where felonies were originally crimes which involved the confiscation of a convicted person's land and goods; other crimes were called misdemeanors...
in the Chicano division.
Duran settles into a routine in Hollenbeck, goes through some pleasant but meaningless personal relationships, and becomes a Juvenile detective to avoid a transfer and to improve his resumé
Résumé
A résumé is a document used by individuals to present their background and skillsets. Résumés can be used for a variety of reasons but most often to secure new employment. A typical résumé contains a summary of relevant job experience and education...
. Wambaugh places much of the narrative around Duran in Mexican restaurants
Mexican cuisine
Mexican cuisine, a style of food that originates in Mexico, is known for its varied flavors, colourful decoration and variety of spices and ingredients, most of which are native to the country. The cuisine of Mexico has evolved through thousands of years of blending indigenous cultures, with later...
, and in his favorite diner Duran falls in love with the young Mexican waitress Mariana Paloma, who finally maneuvers him into coming to grips with his ethnicity.
Of the three central characters, Duran is the least complex and well-delineated, possibly reflecting Wambaugh's difficulty in conveying ethnicity, but Duran also has the most vivid episodes in the novel's climax. Despite the fact that Duran is Chicano, he appears to be the character Wambaugh chose to re-enact events Wambaugh himself experienced.
Gus Plebesly
Plebesly is solidly middle classMiddle class
The middle class is any class of people in the middle of a societal hierarchy. In Weberian socio-economic terms, the middle class is the broad group of people in contemporary society who fall socio-economically between the working class and upper class....
and suburban in upbringing, from the Los Angeles suburb of Azusa
Azusa, California
Azusa is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. The population was 46,361 at the 2010 census, up from 44,712 at the 2000 census. Though sometimes assumed to be a compaction of the phrase "everything from A to Z in the USA" from an old Jack Benny joke, the place name "Azusa"...
. He married young and at 22 already has two children. He worked in a bank
Bank
A bank is a financial institution that serves as a financial intermediary. The term "bank" may refer to one of several related types of entities:...
before joining the LAPD, has a few college credits earned, but sought a job with higher status and better pay. Short and slim, Plebesly just passed the height and weight minimums required of applicants, but is a natural athlete and an endurance runner.
His first assignment tests his hidden fear that he is a coward. Although he performed well in both physical training and defensive tactics
Takedown (grappling)
A takedown is a martial arts and combat sports term for a technique that involves off-balancing an opponent and bringing him or her to the ground, typically with the combatant performing the takedown landing on top. The process of quickly advancing on an opponent and attempting a takedown is known...
at the academy, Plebesly is doubtful of his own ability to defeat an opponent in a physical confrontation. His assignment to University Division (now LAPD's "Southwest Area") intensifies his fears. University is over 90% black in population and a high-crime area, both unfamiliar to Plebesly's experience.
Plebesly is fortunate in that his first partner is the thoughtful but pragmatic
Pragmatism
Pragmatism is a philosophical tradition centered on the linking of practice and theory. It describes a process where theory is extracted from practice, and applied back to practice to form what is called intelligent practice...
veteran Andy Kilvinsky. Unlike in the film version, which focused on the role as a starring vehicle for George C. Scott
George C. Scott
George Campbell Scott was an American stage and film actor, director and producer. He was best known for his stage work, as well as his portrayal of General George S. Patton in the film Patton, and as General Buck Turgidson in Stanley Kubrick's Dr...
, Kilvinsky's appearance in the novel is brief but crucial. He is close to retirement (which he refers to as "pulling the pin") and takes Plebesly under his wing to make into an extension of himself. Kilvinsky gives Plebesly a cram
Study Skills
Study skills or study strategies are approaches applied to learning. They are generally critical to success in school, are considered essential for acquiring good grades, and are useful for learning throughout one's life....
course in being a good cop, overcoming his self-doubts, and trusting his innate common sense. He warns Plebesly that the intensity of crime in University makes a year there the equivalent of ten years in any other. Always offering insights from his personal philosophy, it is Kilvinsky who likens the role of LAPD cops to that of centurion
Centurion (Roman army)
A centurion , also hekatontarch in Greek sources, or, in Byzantine times, kentarch was a professional officer of the Roman army after the Marian reforms of 107 BC...
s in the early decline of the Roman Empire
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
. But Kilvinsky is as much a warning sign
Warning sign
A traffic warning sign is a type of traffic sign that indicates a hazard ahead on the road that may not be readily apparent to a driver.In most countries, they usually take the shape of an equilateral triangle with a white background and a thick red border...
as a mentor
Mentor
In Greek mythology, Mentor was the son of Alcimus or Anchialus. In his old age Mentor was a friend of Odysseus who placed Mentor and Odysseus' foster-brother Eumaeus in charge of his son Telemachus, and of Odysseus' palace, when Odysseus left for the Trojan War.When Athena visited Telemachus she...
, because his only life is his work, long-divorced not just from his wife but his family as well.
After just two years Plebesly has become a veteran, breaking in new rookies using the words and examples of Kilvinsky, now retired and living alone in Oregon
Oregon
Oregon is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is located on the Pacific coast, with Washington to the north, California to the south, Nevada on the southeast and Idaho to the east. The Columbia and Snake rivers delineate much of Oregon's northern and eastern...
. University Division has become more tense and dangerous than ever and the center of Black Muslim challenges to white authority. Plebesly has observed decent young officers like Rantlee becoming racist, appalled at the changes in themselves but helpless to stop it. But Plebesly is absorbing what he sees and hears, gaining understanding rather than becoming what he beholds.
He knows he married at far too young an age and now feels trapped in his marriage. The frequency of divorce among his peers bothers him, however, and when he finally does take an interest in another woman, his female partner in Juvenile Division, fate intervenes in the form of Kilvinsky's suicide—which Plebesly doesn't learn about firsthand, but only through probate
Probate
Probate is the legal process of administering the estate of a deceased person by resolving all claims and distributing the deceased person's property under the valid will. A probate court decides the validity of a testator's will...
of his old partner's will
Will (law)
A will or testament is a legal declaration by which a person, the testator, names one or more persons to manage his/her estate and provides for the transfer of his/her property at death...
.
Roy Fehler
Fehler, also married, dropped out of college out of boredom. Fehler had wandered into an academic majorAcademic major
In the United States and Canada, an academic major or major concentration is the academic discipline to which an undergraduate student formally commits....
of criminology
Criminology
Criminology is the scientific study of the nature, extent, causes, and control of criminal behavior in both the individual and in society...
but had grown tired of college studies and joined the LAPD on the pretext of gaining several years' firsthand experience about crime
Crime
Crime is the breach of rules or laws for which some governing authority can ultimately prescribe a conviction...
and criminals. With little interest in the semi-military aspects of the police environment, firearms, or physical training, Fehler from the outset views himself as intellectually superior to his fellow cadets and later the officers he works with.
Assigned to Newton Division (now called Southeast Area), the poorest all-black division in the department, Fehler like Plebesly is also paired with a veteran officer nearing retirement, but the two experiences seemingly could not be more unalike. Whitey Duncan is an alcoholic
Alcoholism
Alcoholism is a broad term for problems with alcohol, and is generally used to mean compulsive and uncontrolled consumption of alcoholic beverages, usually to the detriment of the drinker's health, personal relationships, and social standing...
, and as Fehler soon discovers, drinks on the job from bottles concealed inside police callbox
Callbox
A call box or callbox is a box containing a special-purpose direct line telephone or other telecommunications device, which has been used by various industries and institutions as a way for employees or clients at a remote location to contact a central dispatch office.- Police and taxicab...
es. Yet he exhibits an unpretentious street wisdom that Fehler in his conceit and scorn for Whitey misses entirely. Roy, who has considered himself reasonable and thoughtful in all respects that his peers are not, develops a negative attitude toward the department's bureaucratic indifference that rivals that of any twenty-year veteran.
Fehler experiences a mutual but mild dislike with all his partners, who vary from night to night, and his marriage quickly disintegrates after the birth of his daughter Becky, who becomes the one brightness in an otherwise bleak existence. After two years in Newton he seemingly escapes to work Vice in downtown Central Division but it is only a reprieve. He is sent to Seventy-Seventh Division (Watts
Watts, Los Angeles, California
Watts is a mostly residential neighborhood in South Los Angeles, California.-History:The area now known as Watts is located on the Rancho La Tajauta Mexican land grant...
), considered a virtual war zone in the LAPD, and in Fehler's mind, ten times as bad as Newton. The transfer only deepens his cynicism and resentment. Distracted by a psychologically traumatic
Psychological trauma
Psychological trauma is a type of damage to the psyche that occurs as a result of a traumatic event...
call concerning an abused infant, Fehler and his partner interrupt the robbery
Robbery
Robbery is the crime of taking or attempting to take something of value by force or threat of force or by putting the victim in fear. At common law, robbery is defined as taking the property of another, with the intent to permanently deprive the person of that property, by means of force or fear....
of a liquor store
Liquor store
In the United States, Australia and Canada, a liquor store is a type of store that specializes in the sale of alcoholic beverages. In South Africa and Namibia these stores are generally called bottle stores....
in the immediate aftermath of the call. Fehler is careless and is shot in the stomach by a blast from a sawed-off shotgun
Sawed-off shotgun
A sawed-off shotgun also called a sawn-off shotgun and a short-barreled shotgun , is a type of shotgun with a shorter gun barrel and often a shorter or absent stock....
.
He survives, but his long, painful recovery is as traumatizing as the injury. The wound is slow to heal, Fehler endures a colostomy
Colostomy
A colostomy is a surgical procedure in which a stoma is formed by drawing the healthy end of the large intestine or colon through an incision in the anterior abdominal wall and suturing it into place. This opening, in conjunction with the attached stoma appliance, provides an alternative channel...
, and he is forced to live with his parents, where his job and injury are scorned and ridiculed. Worst of all, when he finally returns to full duty, it is back to patrol in Seventy-Seventh. Deluding himself that he had avoided a dependency on drugs, Fehler begins drinking, hiding bottles in both the trunk of his car and in callboxes. Just twenty-six years of age, Roy Fehler has devolved into Whitey Duncan. Returning to college studies has become all but forgotten, and he reaches bottom when he is suspended
Suspension (punishment)
Suspension is a form of punishment that people receive for violating rules and regulations.- Workplace :Suspension is a common practice in the workplace for being in violation of an organization's policy...
for sixty days without pay for drinking on duty.
Fehler's redemption begins when he takes a burglary
Burglary
Burglary is a crime, the essence of which is illicit entry into a building for the purposes of committing an offense. Usually that offense will be theft, but most jurisdictions specify others which fall within the ambit of burglary...
report from a young black dental technician
Dental technician
A dental technologist is a member of the dental team who, upon presciption from a dental clinician, constructs custom made restorative and dental appliances.There are four major disciplines within dental technology...
, Laura Hunt, and becomes infatuated with her. They fall in love and he moves in with her during his suspension, where she "dries him out." Rid of his arrogance and conceit, Roy believes he is finally "finding peace" with himself.
The Watts Riot
Wambaugh tightly controls his narrative of the Watts Riot, which provides the backdrop for the novel's 6th and final part, although it was an historical disaster of epic scale which engulfed Wambaugh personally. He never succumbs to the temptation of trying to describe the "big picture;" nevertheless he gives a harrowing account from three perspectives of the horror that chaos and fear produce in the human psyche. At the end, however, it is not violence on a large scale that has the most impact on the lives of the three officers, but an unexpected act of personal violence small-scale by comparison.In the first chapter, the longest, the riot is revealed through the anxiety of Serge Duran, being held over at Hollenbeck waiting to be thrown into it, and when he finally is, through the nervous conversations of three officers, strangers to each other, thrown together in a radio car having no idea where they are or what they should be doing. Leaderless, they finally fall in with a small collection of officers gathered by a sergeant and put down the looting in just one store on one block. They are stunned to learn that the show of authority is enough to "quell" the vast majority of the "rioters", who turn out to be just residents of the local neighborhood, many small children. On his way home that night Duran stops to eat, and almost on a whim orders menudo
Menudo (soup)
The soup Menudo is a traditional Mexican dish, made with beef stomach in a clear broth or with a red chili base . Usually, lime, chopped onions, and chopped cilantro are added, as well as crushed oregano and crushed red chili peppers...
, which has always represented for him the Chicano background he has been trying to escape, and finally considers himself Hispanic.
In the second chapter, the shortest, Gus Plebesly and his temporary partners arrive at the same decision. Plebesly's fears have come to a head in the back seat of the police car they're in. But suddenly they confront a crowd of arson
Arson
Arson is the crime of intentionally or maliciously setting fire to structures or wildland areas. It may be distinguished from other causes such as spontaneous combustion and natural wildfires...
ists trying to set fire to a grocery, and in the ensuing foot chase, Plebesly runs down not just one but three rioters, arresting them one at a time until he confronts the last, who is much larger and more muscular, but whom he subdues with a convincing force of will. Afterwards Plebesly is still as afraid and sometimes almost panic-stricken as before, but he knows now he can endure, and is satisfied with the discovery.
For Roy Fehler, in the third and next-to-last chapter, he does little but observe. For half the chapter he is pinned down behind a fire engine
Fire apparatus
A fire apparatus, fire engine, fire truck, or fire appliance is a vehicle designed to assist in fighting fires by transporting firefighters to the scene and providing them with access to the fire, along with water or other equipment...
by a sniper
Sniper
A sniper is a marksman who shoots targets from concealed positions or distances exceeding the capabilities of regular personnel. Snipers typically have specialized training and distinct high-precision rifles....
, protecting his stomach from further injury and reflecting that even in the chaos of south central Los Angeles, he has found peace in his life from being with Laura. Again a lone sergeant galvanizes the disorganized police remnants into action, but the night ends with an ugly incident. Roy's crew gets into a vehicle pursuit
Car chase
A car chase is the vehicular pursuit of a suspect by law enforcement officers. Car chases are often captured on film and broadcast due to the availability of video footage recorded by police cars and police and media helicopters participating in the chase...
of looters, are almost machine-gunned by a National Guard
United States National Guard
The National Guard of the United States is a reserve military force composed of state National Guard militia members or units under federally recognized active or inactive armed force service for the United States. Militia members are citizen soldiers, meaning they work part time for the National...
roadblock
Roadblock
A roadblock is a temporary installation set up to control or block traffic along a road. The reasons for one could be:*Roadworks*Temporary road closure during special events*Police chase*Robbery*Sobriety checkpoint...
, and the looters escape when their car crashes. One of Roy's temporary partners shoots up the recovered car in his frustration, then sets it afire. Soon after Roy goes home to Laura and rejects a drink she offers him, and also her apology to him about the riot (because she's black). Roy soaks in a hot bath, and finally relaxed, asks Laura to marry him.
Adaptations
In 1972 The New Centurions was adapted as a feature filmThe New Centurions
The New Centurions is a 1972 crime drama film based on the novel by policeman turned author Joseph Wambaugh.It stars George C. Scott, Stacy Keach, Scott Wilson, Jane Alexander, Erik Estrada and James Sikking and was directed by Richard Fleischer....
released by Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production and distribution company. Columbia Pictures now forms part of the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment, a subsidiary of the Japanese conglomerate Sony. It is one of the leading film companies...
, starring George C. Scott
George C. Scott
George Campbell Scott was an American stage and film actor, director and producer. He was best known for his stage work, as well as his portrayal of General George S. Patton in the film Patton, and as General Buck Turgidson in Stanley Kubrick's Dr...
as Andy Kilvinsky and Stacy Keach
Stacy Keach
Stacy Keach is an American actor and narrator. He is most famous for his dramatic roles; however, he has done narration work in educational programming on PBS and the Discovery Channel, as well as some comedy and musical...
as Roy Fehler. Columbia's paid Wambaugh a bonus of $1,250.00 for each week the novel remained on the New York Times Best Seller list
New York Times Best Seller list
The New York Times Best Seller list is widely considered the preeminent list of best-selling books in the United States. It is published weekly in The New York Times Book Review magazine, which is published in the Sunday edition of The New York Times and as a stand-alone publication...
. Ultimately the novel, which first appeared on the list on February 21, 1971, remained on it for 32 weeks.