8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Early Block, January 6, 2008
This review is from: A Diet of Treacle (Hard Case Crime) (Mass Market Paperback)
Lawrence Block has been writing for around fifty years, primarily mysteries. In his early days, he churned out novels quickly, more interested in making a little money and establishing himself than trying to produce material of real quality. That would come later. A Diet of Treacle is one of his earliest works, originally published in 1961, and while it definitely has a feel of a cheap, throwaway paperback, it also is a Lawrence Block book, and that means it is good.
A Diet of Treacle focuses on the lives of three characters in New York's Beat culture, where you're either Hip or Square. Joe Milani is an ex-soldier who after Korea, has come back to the States disillusioned and gone from Square to Hip, spending his days getting stoned on pot and not doing much else. Shank is his drug-dealing roommate, a sociopath who has little regard for most people but who likes Joe and allows him to live off of Shank's drug profits. Anita is a nice girl who goes slumming and falls quickly for Joe; she wants to shed her Square life and become Hip, but she finds it hard to completely shed her Squareness.
The three will wind up sharing the same apartment, a recipe for potential disaster, especially considering that Shank views women as mere objects that he has no qualms about raping if they don't willing give in to his attentions. When Shank goes from dealing pot to the more profitable heroin, things will get them tangled up with the law and the unplanned complications that result.
This novel is good but not without its problems, most notably with Joe, the story's nominal hero who is such a willing loser that he's hard to really sympathize with. Anita has her own self-destructive streak, leaving the reprehensible Shank as the dominant character. I think this is what Block intended as he is somewhat critical of the Beat Generation (although he is never condescending and also sees the flaws of the Squares); still, it makes it harder to really embrace anyone in this book. Nonetheless, for fans of Block - or of these old pulpish novels - this is worth reading.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
A fun, dated, and odd little book, May 25, 2011
One of Lawrence Block's early pseudonymous books. Very short; I finished in about 3 hours. It was originally marketed in 1961 as a soft-core "smut" paperback, which is odd since there is very little sex, and the few scenes barely rise to a PG13 level. It was re-released in 2008 under the Hard Case Crime imprint, which is also odd since the murder subplot doesn't occur until the final 50 pages.
It feels like an experimental work by a young but obvously talented author who was testing his chops and finding his voice. And, some 50 years after its initial release, it is most interesting for its social satire of the beatnik movement of the 50's and the emerging hippie drug culture of the 60's.
Recommended for Block fans, obviously, but not necessarily on its own merits as a very good book.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Worth re-reading --- or discovering for the very first time, February 7, 2008
This review is from: A Diet of Treacle (Hard Case Crime) (Mass Market Paperback)
It's really too early to tell, but it appears that one of my favorite books of 2008 is one that was originally published in 1961. Re-released by Hard Case Crime, A DIET OF TREACLE by Lawrence Block is a title worth re-reading --- or discovering for the very first time.
The novel is set in mid-20th century Greenwich Village during what has been called the "Beat" era. Glamorized by the mainstream media, the reality for most was far darker and seedier than the down-at-the-heels glamour that was imputed to it. Block focuses on that dark side with a laser-like aim, injecting a set of characters into a web of excess of sex, drugs and violence with a subtle undercurrent of world-weary nihilism.
There are three principals in A DIET OF TREACLE, somewhat different people whose lives intersect with dire results. Joe Milani is a Korean War veteran who is attending college in New York on the G.I. Bill, and doing well, when he abruptly terminates his studies and sinks into the idle Beat lifestyle. He is living with, and supported by, Leon "Shank" Maston, a quietly sociopathic marijuana dealer who is content with the living arrangement for reasons never quite made clear (there are some mild, though not overt, homosexual overtones to their relationship).
The dynamic between the two men changes when Milani meets Anita Carbone, a college student living in "wop Harlem" with her grandmother. Carbone is the stereotypical good girl (she agonizes about smoking on a public street), and her life appears to be all planned out. She is on her way to getting a degree and is in some state of pre-engagement to a man on the fast track to success. However, she is bored and, as a result, is attracted to Milani, who is everything her boyfriend is not. Carbone abruptly moves in with Milani and Maston, embracing the Beat lifestyle wholeheartedly and without reservation. Interestingly enough, it is Maston, not Milani, who changes, and not for the good.
Maston begins dealing heroin, in addition to the marijuana he previously had been selling, and his psychopathic tendencies move even farther to the forefront of his personality, culminating in an angry and shocking encounter that will have lasting repercussions for the three of them. His impulsive actions put the trio suddenly on the run, involving them in a dilemma from which there seems to be no escape --- until Milani and Carbone find one that is as obvious as it is unexpected.
Block has appeared to be incapable of writing badly, yet A DIET OF TREACLE is stunning on so many levels --- its characterization, its setting, its plotting --- as to exist in a class all by itself. It is hard to believe that this work did not remain in print since its initial publication. So it is a tribute to Hard Case Crime that it's available again, hopefully for good this time.
--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub
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