Blackburn: A Novel [Paperback]

Bradley Denton (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 15, 1995

Jimmy Blackburn grows up in the Midwest believing the things that adults tell him. He questions his teachers and they lie to him. He questions his parents and his father beats him. He questions the world and it hurts him.

And so Jimmy Blackburn becomes a killer.

In this novel we meet many of Blackburn's twenty-one victims. They include law enforcers, writers, adulterers, auto mechanics, and other liars.

This is an exceptional novel, at once riotously funny and searingly potent: a vision of America through the eyes of the central bogeyman of our culture.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Denton's third novel (after Buddy Holly Is Alive and Well on Ganymede ) takes the overworked serial-killer concept and wrings from it a striking depiction of middle-American despair, betrayed innocence, and transcendent hope. Jimmy Blackburn is a roaming murderer with an idiosyncratic moral code: he kills only those he feels deserve to die. His victims include cheating auto mechanics, bullying bosses and a thieving encyclopedia salesman. In intervening chapters, Denton traces Blackburn's childhood in small-minded small-town Kansas, in a home haunted by an abusive father, a world prescribed by casual cruelties and repressive, untrustworthy authority. Denton doesn't settle for facile connections between Blackburn's early years and his criminal turn, playing his life off against some Norman Rockwell vision of an America that never was. He portrays Blackburn's childhood not as unusually bleak or cruel, but as an all-too-common experience, so it's the reality of a mundane world--not some exceptional horror--that produces Blackburn the killer. And Blackburn himself is no simplistic figure of evil; he retains a sympathetic innocence, a stubborn hope, throughout his doomed journey, and his end yields a surprising sense of redemption. Denton's hand never falters as he shows us an America of petty injustices and vanished dreams, where a sensitive Kansas boy can grow into a killer.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Abused and unloved, Blackburn is a true victim of circumstance who devises his own strict moral code to guide him in all matters including whom and what to kill. On his 17th birthday, Blackburn shoots a cop who has just killed a dog in the town church. He then embarks on a career as a one-man eliminator of those who mistreat and prey upon others. Using stark, unadorned prose, Denton ( Buddy Holly Is Alive and Well on Ganymede , Morrow, 1991) has created a modern-day parable illustrating the shades of good and evil and the meanings of life. Sometimes humorous but more often heart-wrenching, Blackburn delivers a knockout punch to rigid, self-satisfied thinking everywhere. Excellent.
- Jo Ann Vicarel, Cleveland Heights-University Heights P.L., Ohio
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Picador; 1st, First Edition, First Printing edition (March 15, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312130295
• ISBN-13: 978-0312130299
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,482,273 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A moral killer? A modern classic!, May 3, 2000

By 

Gary Jonas "author of Modern Sorcery" (Denver, CO United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Blackburn: A Novel (Paperback)

BLACKBURN is one of those books that will change you. Once you've read it, you will never see the world the same way again. There are no convenient blacks and whites in this brilliant novel. Blackburn is a man we understand and sympathize with. EVEN WHEN HE KILLS PEOPLE! We laugh and cheer. EVEN WHEN HE KILLS PEOPLE! And when we think about that, we shudder because we know that what he's doing is WRONG, but it feels so right and that, my friends, is a very disturbing thing to think. This is one of those books you will never forget. Bradley Denton has turned out a modern classic that deserves a much wider audience. The question remains, though, and you can take this as a challenge if you like: Do you have what it takes to read this book? If so, you will never be the same.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A brave, intelligent, thrilling, moving novel, December 27, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Blackburn: A Novel (Paperback)

A brave, intelligent, thrilling, moving novel about a young man who takes action against what he deems to be wrong -- through violence. Funny, chilling, possibly a serial killer book, and very possibly not, it's a story that actually manages to challenge your moral sense, but not because it is particularly violent (although it is), rather because you end up sympathizing with the main character to the point where you accept his actions as valid, and you must sit down and ask yourself what all this means. I never did that with any book or film before, but I did with this one: It makes you think. Really. This is no wishy-washy criticism of society, but a harrowing, highly personal journey to the proverbial heart of darkness, whose themes include righteousness, responsibility, freedom (all sorts), and the consequences of one's actions -- implicit (as in the social implications of a failed upbringing) as well explicit (as in physical violence).

It's refreshing to find that the word "media" rarely (if ever) appears in the novel; it simply doesn't seek to blame the violence of a nation on the media. Being an often deadpan, deeply ironic satire, this is a very, very funny book; but you'll cry as much as you will laugh. Jimmy Blackburn is a memorable character -- up there with the best of them -- and this is a book I could quote endlessly. Even though this is Important Literature it's immensely readable as well (usually a good combination).

While Denton does not indulge in preaching (although there absolutely is a "modern society made me" theme) -- I believe the answer to the question of the righteousness of Blackburn's actions can only be found in your own moral stance. It should be an eye-opener even to the most jaded reader. As such, I heartily recommend this book to any citizen of the modern world.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I'm unable to forget this book, September 15, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Blackburn: A Novel (Paperback)

I read this book about 5 years ago and scenes from it still crop up in my mind out of the blue for no reason. I can't explain this. I guess it's one of the best books I've ever read.