30-odd metaphors from Ross Macdonald

If you enjoyed sipping a word like brandy with Doris Lessing, then get comfortable for a bumper pack of similes and metaphors courtesy of Ross Macdonald and his story collection The Archer Files (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard, 2015), edited by Tom Nolan. The book title refers to Macdonald’s protagonist Lew Archer, a private detective in California. While reading it I took a notion to jot down metaphors that caught my eye (so to speak). Many centre on people’s appearance or draw on animals for inspiration. The figure of 30 is a loose count, hence -odd – though some examples are also pleasingly odd – but it serves as a convenient referencing system. There are 30 excerpts, several of which contain multiple metaphors. Or none. Some people place similes (comparisons that use ‘like’ or ‘as’) in a category distinct from metaphors, albeit a related one. Others consider them a subset. To compare the types side by side, see excerpts 8, 16, 18, 20, 28, and 30. It depends on how you categorize…