After a good review of his debut novel, Pike
, by friend Marko, I'd been meaning to read it myself, and Sunday noon-ish I Kindled up a copy......and didn't put it down 'til I finished that evening, feeling like I'd just taken a good shot to the jaw. Wow.
Was No Country For Old Men too relentlessly cheerful and bubbly for your tastes? Dirty White Boys too morally unambiguous? Then this is your feel-good family hit of the summer, right here.
Words like "bleak" and "gritty" don't really do it justice. At the same time, it is beautifully written and deftly paced. There are times when he paints a picture with words right on you, so real that you want to go and shower it off, but you have to stay and turn the page, as stuck in the story as the characters are in their lives, drawn on by the faint hope that maybe there'll be a happy ending to this mess after all.
Be aware that the book is rated R for... well, pretty much everything for which you can get an R rating.
Well, the Amazon description certainly looks cheerful!
ReplyDeleteIncidentally, having read the book now, the innocuous-sounding title of his blog will forever more have the same effect on me that hearing "Stuck In The Middle With You" does after the first time I saw Reservoir Dogs.
ReplyDelete...added to my Amazon wish list
ReplyDeleteNot to be taken out of context, but I'm actually rather fond of Dirt White Boys (the book by Stephen Hunter) not the white trash that live around the corner in the trailer park), given Robert Parker's passing I'll be looking for more authors and will have to check this out.
ReplyDeleteThank you so much, ma'am, you made my day. And I haven't read Dirty White Boys, but I'll rectify that soonly.
ReplyDeleteWhat Ben said, Tam, except for the part about not having read Dirty White Boys.
ReplyDeleteWV: piris---the reader's digest version of piri reis?
Oh great, a shooty writer, and another Blog to add to my GunLiterati blog-folder o' bookmarks.
ReplyDeleteDirty White Boys - Read and enjoyed, if enjoyed is the proper word...
ReplyDeleteNo Country For Old Men...watched, no opinion, would watch again though.
"Pike" have it some where, maybe need to read now...
On it's way to my Kindle.....
ReplyDelete"Infranoir"
ReplyDeleteMy initial "WTF?" has been replaced with a hearty "heh!".
Sounds like a good read. I'll have to pick up a copy as soon as I whittle away a bit at the current ginormous pile-o-books stacked inside the nightstand.
ReplyDeleteThat's had to be my new rule for books. Similar to my gun rule - if I can't fit it in the safe I have to sell something to make room before acquiring something new.
You've sold 4 paperbacks since you posted. 13 available this morning. 9 now.
ReplyDeleteKindled it right after Marko's post went up.
ReplyDelete"Infranoir" is a brilliant description.
Just purchased to read on the kindle app.
ReplyDeleteThat right there. That's a killer book review.
ReplyDeleteGoogle made my comment go away. I will try again.
ReplyDeleteThis ain't my previous comment. Dang, that ethanol is hard on the recent memory formation and recollection!
ReplyDeleteThat might be my kinda book. It's not necessary to my nasty grumpiness right now, as I am already grumped out by the FL Repubican primary, especially in my county, in which Mittens got 57% of the vote. Being registered "L", I did not get to vote.
I'm not sure I can handle that much bubbly cheerfulness. My wife was so worried about me after I read 'On the Beach' and 'The Road' back to back that she donated my copies so I couldn't re-read them.
ReplyDelete