It is, quite simply, out of the question. You aspire not merely to murder but to Art, and in any work of art the choice of background is of critical importance. The background, in addition to having some intrinsic charm or interest of its own, should subtly echo those qualities of the main subject which the artist wishes to emphasize; it should supply those literary and historical allusions which are so essential to depth and resonance; but above all it should provide contrast, so that the main subject stands out against it as something striking and unusual. If one is painting a portrait of a beautiful young woman, one does not paint her as one of a group of similar young women. I should be sorry to offend your patriotic sensibilities—but you do see, don’t you, that the United States simply will not do? In a country where the homicides of a single day are too numerous to be fully reported on the television news—where every schoolchild expects a firearm for the next Christmas or birthday present—where minor disagreements between motorists are commonly resolved by an exchange of bullets—in such a country any murder, however interesting or bizarre its incidental features, is doomed to be essentially commonplace.
