Customer Reviews

Expiration Date

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

If you haven't heard of Duane Swierczynski, you're in for a treat. This guy's one of the best writers I've read in years.

It's not straight up pulp noir, no, it's better than that. Pulp noir with a sci-fi/fantasy twist. Expiration Date is the story of a down on his luck guy who happens upon a means of going back in time, and then happens upon his father's murderer. The story is one of the few time travel stories I've ever read that doesn't fall into a time travel plot hole.

You will find this book especially entertaining if you're from Philadelphia. The gritty detail brings some familiar locales to life.

Get it, read it, love it, and then check out his other books: The Blonde, The Wheelman, Severance Package, or Secret Dead Men.

I've been a huge fan of Swierczynski since reading SECRET DEAD MEN and THE BLONDE. He's a writer who gives you something new and surprising with every book. Things I especially loved about EXPIRATION DATE were the feeling of childhood nostalgia and the vivid sense of time and place. The artwork by 2000 AD and Marvel artist Laurence Campbell was an added joy!

The opening sentences are a great hook into this story:
"See that body sprawled on the hardwood floor, marinating in a pool of his own blood?
"That's me."
After getting that far, I couldn't put the book down. And my high expectations weren't disappointed with this original - and often touching - thriller about a down-on-his-luck journalist, Mickey Wade, who takes four Tylenol and travels back in time. Trapped in a wraithlike and disempowered state, Mickey must unravel a murder mystery from the past. Cue twists and turns that will keep you guessing until the end.

Another reviewer has compared Swierczynski to Charles Bukowski - a great way of describing his supremely readable prose, which combines human warmth with unpredictable quirkiness. I've been on a Swierczynski jag since I picked up THE BLONDE and I highly recommend this particular brand of awesome noir kool-aid. If you're already a fan, pick up EXPIRATION DATE for your next fix. And if you've not discovered him yet, just buy the bunch and treat yourself!

Mickey Wade loses his job as a journalist and moves into his grandfather's unoccupied apartment in a run down section of Philadelphia. He takes some pills that he thinks are Tylenol, but which end up transporting his spirit back into the 1970's. Once he figures out the connection with the pills, Mickey starts to make repeated trips into the past, and starts to learn more about his family history and the murder of his father. His spirit can only interact with the world in limited ways, but Mickey starts looking for a way to save his father.

This is a good story with a number of twists, but it never really pulled me in. The story never really built up much suspense, and most of the interesting revelations are crammed into the end of the book. I didn't care that much for the character of Mickey so I wasn't too concerned about what happened to him. Expiration Date is interesting for a slightly different look at time travel, but not a must-read.

As a fan of Duane Swierczynski, I couldn't wait to read Expiration Date. Now that I have read it, I'd love to see the movie! It was engaging and just a good read. Hubby read it too, and says, "It's a fantastical romp," and "Unexpected and fun." More!

Great read. Loved it! Although it's a bit weird having your history exposed around the globe. I have always enjoyed my son's writing, even as a kid he had an imagination that could spin a good yarn. He paints a picture that has me believing
I'm sitting in a movie theater. Keep up the good work, I'm proud of you....Dad

Expiration Date is a weird blend of science fiction and noir that would have struggled to find a home with New York publishers. I've read it and enjoyed it, but I'm tempted to call it a literary novel as well because the story does so much with characters and fate and an overall view of the writer's world.

Duane Swierczynski explains the books conceptual origins in the editorial matter in the book, and I found that to be pretty fascinating reading as well. In the beginning, the story was slated to be a magazine serial for the New York Times, which would have been awesome. Then they went and cut those pages and the author was left with an orphan that truly wasn't animal, mineral, or vegetable.

What Expiration Date is, bottom line, is an engrossing read that had me flipping through the Kindle "pages" pretty darn quick. I got caught up in Mickey Wade's story. I mean, the guy just got fired and basically had his family turn their backs on him. The only thing he's got going for him is his grandfather's old apartment, and the place is pretty much a dump.

Oh yeah, Mickey has one other thing going for him, too: his well-to-do girlfriend who sticks by him even when his prospects zero out. After they get him moved into his "new" apartment, they celebrate with a little drinking. The hangover the next morning leads Mickey to find some old aspirin in his grandfather's medicine cabinet.

Only it turns out that the "aspirin" isn't really aspirin. They're cutting-edge biochemical, out-of-body time travel pills. Or something like that. They aren't ever really given a name, and their origins are pretty much left unexplored. But the past gets explored pretty thoroughly.

See, Mickey has a dead dad, too. A musician that died shortly after Mickey was born, his father left a void that was never filled in Mickey's life. While he's back in the past trying to figure out what's going on/what was going on, Mickey gets involved in the life of the man who turns out to be his father's murderer. Only when he meets the guy, Mickey fills sorry for him. Then he finds out the kid grows up to kill his dad.

That's only one of the twists that Swierczynski pulls out along the way in this novel. The pacing and characterization is on par with everything I've seen from the writer, and I've read a lot of his stuff, but the twists and turns he has in the plot this time are a lot different than what he's shown before.

I really enjoyed this novel because it was different, and I'm waiting to see what other tricks Swierczynski has in his writer's bag now that he's getting the attention he deserves.

Interesting premise that could have been a mess in less capable hands, but the author manages to weave a compelling and thought-provoking story that had me turning pages way past my bedtime. If you're familiar with the author's work, Expiration Date is more like his earliest book (Secret Dead Men) with the science fiction aspect than his later ones, but they're all worth reading. I finished reading this one with a smile on my face and the thought "How on earth does he come up with this stuff?" running through my brain.

Duane Swiercznski has emerged as one of the best pulp noir thilller writers out there today. Each of his four novels has been vastly different in subject and focus yet each has been innovative, creative, and provocative. His work can be characterized as adrenaline fueled E-ticket rides through nightmarish circumstances. Read one, and you'll want to read them all.

In "Expiration Date", Mickey Wade has lost his job as a writer with a Philadelphia newspaper, and down on his luck, moves into his grandfather's apartment in the run down neighborhood where he grew up. Taking what appears to be out-of-date Tylenol from his grandfather's medicine cabinet for his headache, Mickey awakens in the apartment and neighborhood as it was 30 years earlier. Quickly he is thrust into a time travel paradox that totally devours his consciousness and soon that of his girlfriend, Meghen.

Realizing that the 12 year old boy living beneath his apartment will grow up to murder Mickey's father, Mickey begins plotting to change history. Can Mickey affect history in his ethereal form where only a very few can see him yet where he is subject to terribly unforgiving rules like having to stay out of the sunlight etc.? Where did these "magical" pills come from? What does his hospitalized grandfather know about the pills and Mickey's past? Swiercznski creates a breathtaking thriller that examines those questions and others that tickle our imaginations about time travel and out-of-body experiences.

"Expiration Date" is well plotted with believable characters and credible dialogue. Swiercznski does a fine job of recreating the sights and sounds of neighborhoods in Philadelphia. But as always, the joy is in reading his innovative outside-the-box portrayals of everyman caught in circumstances that seem beyond his control. This is a highly recommended read as is all Swiercznski's work.

I read this when it first came out.....got into it so much that I looked up the actual case that the book was talking about....this is the first book of the authors that I have read, and I am looking forward to reading more from this author for sure....neat premise....interesting storyline....quick read!

I'd never heard of Duane Swierzynski before I saw Expiration Date as one of the Early Reviewer books on LibraryThing. I didn't win a copy, so I purchased one based on the summary of the title and the enthusiastic responses I found to the author's previous novels.

Expiration Date is a fast-paced, twisty time-travel mystery written in a first-person hardboiled crime pulp style, and featuring occasional B&W ink illustrations by comic book artist Lawrence Campbell (this is a novel, not a graphic novel). Mickey Wade lost his job and his grandfather is comatose in the hospital, so Mickey moves into his grandfather's apartment and accidentally discovers that the pills in the old Tylenol bottle from his grandfather's medicine cabinet aren't meant for headaches. Oh, and they also happen to cause him to travel back to around the year of his birth in 1972. Now, this could present some interesting opportunities...if Mickey wasn't invisible and allergic to light while in the past.

I'd hate to give too much away, but Wade is juggling problems in both times, trying to piece together family mysteries in the past while convincing his best friend that all that time he spends passed out on the floor has nothing to do with being a drug addict. The crux of time travel stories is usually how the past affects the future and the question of how will a particular author or movie treat the consequences of actions in the past.

Suffice it to say that I consider myself a new fan of Duane Swierczynski and look forward to reading his other novels (already picked up Severance Package and just got The Blonde from the library). The only complaint anyone should have is that it's only about 235 pages, and will be over before you know it. To be fair on the length, though, I should mention that the story was conceived as a weekly serial for New York Times Sunday Magazine, and you'll probably want to read it again anyway.

I'll leave you with part of the prologue:

Time's arrow only seems to fly straight when you're alive. Dead is something else. Once you cross that invisible line, you see things how they really are. You see that every moment seems to happen at once.

Which makes telling this story - or the most important parts of it, anyway - difficult. Usually, you start at the beginning. Or the middle, so the audience doesn't get bored.

Problem is, I'm very hazy on the beginning and the middle, as I came in at the end. I can speculate, but it'd be nothing more than a wild guess. I guess I should start with the day I moved into the apartment and went back in time.