Customer Reviews

Cassidy's Girl

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4 star:		(1)
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Long after Hollywood had abandoned David Goodis and left him washed up and unaapreciated living above his parents garage in urban Philly, French filmmakers (dassin & truffaut) were inspired by the black hearted passion and off beat noir that was more concerned with the peicemeal, poetic destruction of his characters than formulaic plots of his American counterparts. For Goodis it is all about obsession and failed redemption. And Cassidy's Girl stands alongside THE STREET of NO RETURN and THE BLONDE on the STREET CORNER as one of his masterpieces. David Cassidy is caught between two women. One woman, an alcoholic lost soul emanating good represents a second shot at former greatness. The other woman, voluptuous and iron willed drives his dark lusts, offers him bodily bliss and inevitable doom. Of course, the usual array of bums, losers, rummy philosophers and tender-hearted whores populate this work, giving the book that dreary, broken bottle, rainy sky, desolate and realistic feel of forlorn hope. Goodis is to NOIR what Poe was to horror, that is to say that Goodis transcends genre, concerning himself less with plot and stereotypes of stupid cops, sadistic killers and tough guy PIs but more about revealing the alchemy of the dark desires that drive the human spirit away from happiness and towards self-destruction.

Jim Cassidy is a bus driver by day and a drunk by night. He becomes convinced that if he leaves his voluptuous tramp of a wife, Mildred, and takes up with the waif-like, angelic Doris, he will at long last be able to escape his hellish existence. But he soon discovers that redemption is not that simple.
Cassidy's Girl is about the dark, depressing lives of a group of alcoholics inhabiting a rundown neighborhood bordering the Philadelphia waterfront. It is a no holds barred study of people whose lives are simultaneously fueled and poisoned by alcohol. Goodis describes how this community, of sorts, functions. Acts of friendship alternate with acts of violence. Love and affection coexist side by side with hate and betrayal.
Goodis' portrayal of the frustratingly hopeless environment in which the characters find themselves is vivid and expertly drawn. The plot, however, is not as compelling as it might have been. Instead of flowing smoothly, the narrative has a herky-jerky quality with events occurring seemingly at random. That is to say the motivation behind the actions of key characters is many times unclear.
Cassidy's plan to rescue Doris and himself is, as you would expect, eventually ruined. But the cause of this ruination is not just fate or inevitability. Cassidy himself makes conscious choices which directly lead to his own defeat.
Cassidy's Girl is classic noir. Unapologetically downbeat, it fearlessly explores the ugly, hopeless side of life. Proceed at your own risk.

This one is easily worth the price of admission. Another pulp classic by David Goodis, one of the few writers who can transcend the mundane and make tales of ordinary fallen heroes seem so intense, so poignant, that you are immediately taken in by their story and made a part of their lives. Acclaimed noir photographer and director Ed Holub (holubfilm@gmail.com) is planning to make a film of this novel, and it's easy to see why--startling opening, astonishing characterizations, and the familiar Goodis touch of angst, eerily appealing violence, and poetic narrative to bring you in and never let go. Buy this book.

This book is a tough call for me. On the one hand, the plot depends on a 1 in 1 million event that occurs twice (with slight variation). That's a bit much for me to swallow, especially in a genre where a big part of the illusion is the gritty "realism" of the story. On the other hand, I happen to like this kind of writing:

"He could see the bottle rising to her lips, and then her lips meeting the lips of the bottle, as though the bottle were something alive, making love to her. . . he saw the bottle as a loathsome, grotesque creature that had lured Doris and captured her and pleasured itself with her, draining the sweet life from her body as it poured its rottenness into her."

If this kind of writing is not quite your style, then this is a book to skip. If this leaves you wanting more, then the improbability of the plot should not stop you from diving in.