Customer Reviews

Fresh Kills

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

Fresh Kills is marketed as a murder mystery, but it really isn't. It's really about an abused son coming to grips with the damage his father has done to him, with the father's death the critical juncture in the life of John Sanders, Jr.

The story opens with John Sanders, Junior being informed that his father has been murdered in what looks like a gang hit on the streets of New York. From that point on we learn about the physical and mental abuse John Sanders, Senior put his son through, as well as his mother. Most of the novel we find a rather unlikable, volatile, young man careening aimlessly from one aggressive, angry encounter to another. Ostensibly he tells himself his motivation for his confrontations with friends, family, high school enemies, ex-girlfriends, and his aggressive demeanor toward strangers is all an attempt to find the murderer of his father and find some kind of justice for him, even though he hated him. In fact, Sanders is a loser, a loner, and has a very negative outlook on life and people, mostly as a result of the abuse he suffered as a child. His sister Julia, who escaped but was a witness to this abuse, acts as a ballast to him throughout the novel, keeping him from going over the edge. The novel culminates at the father's funeral, where John Sander's, Junior eulogizes his father and has to make a choice between continuing a life of bitter internal acrimony or something better.

This novel is very well written and I really enjoyed the acerbic wit the author displays throughout. The novel draws you in very quickly and as a character sketch it works quite well. The problem is the novel gets very tedious about half way through, as all we see is Sanders is drinking, smoking, fighting, and moving from one bad move after another. His hyper negative attitude and frentic actions become very, very tiresome for the reader, very quickly. In fact, about two-thirds of the way through the book his sister Julia tells him his antics are getting "very tiresome." I laughed out loud at this because she was right!

While this novel has a lot of strong points I found it at least one-third of it boring and unnecessary. The same story could have been told in 200 pages instead of 300. I'm not sure I would recommend it but it does have some very strong qualities that make it a worthwhile read.

This book starts out as an almost run-of-the-mill "tough guy out to find the truth about his father's violent murder" thriller, in which the protagonist (who we learn to admire) will wreak revenge in a satisfying ending that leaves us with no doubt that justice was somehow served. Nothing wrong with that; but that is not what this book is. The story quickly takes a surprising turn to become an amazing psychological drama centered upon two siblings who are desperately trying to survive their father's murder: one with love and compassion and the other with hatred and self-destructiveness.

John Sanders, Jr. thinks he doesn't care that his father was executed, "gangland style"; he even says that it saved him the trouble of doing it himself. Feeling that the police are botching the investigation, he engages in his own half-hearted, alcohol-fueled inquiries, telling himself he needs to find justice for his sister, Julia, who has returned from art school in Boston to try to re-connect with her brother and to show respect for her deceased mother. We learn that the Sanders family was a deeply dysfunctional family on many levels, with no one left unscarred. John's childhood was marred by the terrible physical abuse he suffered at the hands of his violent father, as well as having to witness the beatings his father ministered to his mother. Julia escaped the beatings for the most part, but she is also deeply affected by growing up amidst the violence. While John and his mother (deceased some years before), were grateful that Julia was not the subject of her father's wrath, this fact only convinced the young John that he was truly a "bad" child. You feel John's pain when, as he recalls the one tiime his father hit his sister, his mother screamed "not my baby!" As John reflected, he had never heard his mother scream "not my son!" The troubled relationship between father and son continued on into John's young adulthood, leaving him with obvious and at times soul-shattering wounds. It is central to all that happens in this tale of survival.

The author goes on to explore the psychological and emotional process John stumbles through as he struggles to make sense of his world without his father. It makes for wonderful reading, but it is not for the faint of heart. The characters are compelling; for the most part, whether you love or hate them, they are very real and understandable. The struggles of each one help to illustrate what seems to become a theme for John: we don't get to decide everything about our lives, but we need to own and be careful with the decisions we are able to make.

The descriptions of growing up and living on Staten Island seem uncannily accurate. The tribute to the World Trade Center disaster and its victims was incorporated beautifully into the main story line. You just want to thank the author for marking that event and doing it in a way that illustrates how so many lives have been changed forever.

It is hard to believe that we have only been taken through a few days in the lives of these remarkable people. Through the device of John's reminiscences we are taken through a lifetime. It is a wonderfully moving, if sometimes painful, journey. I am quite happy to have taken it, and look forward to more of Mr. Loehfelm's novels.

I'm not sure what all the fuss is about with this book, particularly since one of my favorite writers (John Sandford) has given such a glowing endorsement. To be succinct, this book tired me out almost immediately. I think that's because this writer seems to believe that spewing obscenities and venom from just about word one is a synonym for deep introspection and psychological insight. Nothing could be further from the truth. Granted, this book has a great first line, terrific first couple of paragraphs, but it wears out its welcome very quickly. I found myself bored after the first fifty pages and have since put this book down with no desire to pick it up again.
Do yourself a favor. Check this out of the library first before shelling out money. I'm glad I did.

I must read the summaries a little better. I was expecting a thrilling murder mystery. Instead the story is about how what remains of a dysfunctional family, reacts to the murder of their abusive father. Actually if this is the type of story you are looking for it is very well written. But if you are looking for a good murder mystery with characters you can care about, you better pass.

When Staten Island bartender John Sanders, Jr. learned that his father senior was executed mob style by an unknown culprit, he reacts with mixed feelings; on the one hand he is indifferent to the death of his cruel father while on the other he figures he got what he deserved. Senior physically and mentally abused him as a child.

However his sister Julia reacts differently to the death of their odious dad. She comes from Boston to arrange the funeral, but also wants to connect on a sibling level for the first time outside of avoiding their father with her brother. Perhaps it is Julia's presence, but Junior feels a need to know the truth about his father's death so he makes some tentative inquiries angrily hoping senior suffered.

The relationships between the dysfunctional Sanders family even after the abusive patriarch is dead is the prime story line superseding the whodunit. The fully developed cast is powerful even the deceased and the location Staten Island's Fresh Kills symbolizes human decay and misery as the world's largest garbage dump (higher than the Statue of Liberty). Bill Loehfelm provides a vivid look at the aftermath of parental abuse that clings like fungus to the victims; even years later as adults who cannot relate very well.

Harriet Klausner

Chick lit in a crusty man package. The dead body is just a prop, there is no real investigation or clues, just the main character going around angry, drunk and rowdy and working through his FEELINGS. Like all good chick lit, the plot points all hinge on the emotions of the main character, not discoveries outside the main character, as in a mystery.

That said, I was compelled and had a hard time putting it down. I cared about these people and I laughed at Junior's black humor like I was there with him. I give it four stars because I couldn't put it down. I withold the fifth star because I didn't know what any place or person looked like and because there was no discernible mystery. The solution was a deus ex machina, but that was okay, just don't call it a mystery.

I waited for months for the opportunity to read the REST of Bill Loehfelm's "Fresh Kills" and now I must say that if you're looking for an excellent grown-up story, you must do the same.

Bill's story centers around John Sanders, Jr., who is an antagonistic protagonist. If THAT sounds like a balancing act, it is, and I marvel at Mr. Loehfelm's ability to use words to create a gritty universe I can almost see and touch and smell. Junior finds out in the beginning of the book about the murder of his Dad, who was a friend to no one. Because Junior was last seen in a fight with his Dad it follows that he is a suspect, but this story takes you not on a police procedural but, rather, a character's soul-searching. It's a great ride. If this story were told with the most elementary words it would be a fun summer thrill-ride of a read. But Loehfelm's prose makes this hard-boiled tale something so much more. Back in the contest I quoted this sentence from the first page, and to avoid spoilers I'll use it again: "Every five or six months a new junkie moved into the neighborhood, marked my comings and goings, and figured I was easily rattled out of a few bucks by a skin and bones wraith that held his fighting weight eating the cheese out of rat traps."

I couldn't write a sentence like that with a nine millimeter pointed at my sweaty temple. (See?)

The story and the language are not for children, but I think it's safe to say it isn't aimed at them either. If you're easily offended by disreputable characters using street language, just move along. But if you're looking for a great story told with an elegant, graceful, gritty style, look no further.

Well done, William.

If you live long enough, or read enough books, you will experience the poorly understood and extraordinarily complicated interpersonal relationships that define most families. Many authors have attempted to explore this unfathomable topic with varying degrees of success. Although this particular author writes well, he adds no additional insights into this complex topic; the characters are fairly straight forward, idiomatic, offer no real depth of emotions and are very predictable in their actions. The actual plot and the characters reminded me of a very nice painting of a still life or a picturesque landscape: an unimaginative representation of something that we see everyday without any challenge to make the viewer push his perceptive and observational powers to any extremes. No effort to push the boundaries; no edginess to the resolution of the character's evolution (the book actually has a happy ending!!).
This certainly was not a mystery, as the actual murder and its subsequent solution add very little to the substance of the plot; the title offers little to the essence of the book, as the fresh kills are alluded to only in passing without any real effort to add its relevance to the plot (for that matter, the book could easily been titled "Ferry"). The references to 9/11 seemed a gratuitous attempt at "using 9/11".
Igor Dumbadze

I wanted to like this book -- both from the reviews and prior experience with the author, I expected to enjoy it. I listen to Audio books in my car, and I saved this one for a long trip, expecting to savor it. MISTAKE! The reader -- no other word but "terrible." He has a sing-song delivery. His pacing is so bad that I had to listen to some paragraphs several times to figure out where the sentences began and ended (and hence what the author meant -- not a wise move during a long car trip. Any high school sophomore with basic reading skills could have done as well -- or better.

Will I buy the print or Kindle copy and try again? NO. After 3 hours of listening, I really do not care about any of the characters or plot. The failure, I'm willing to believe, is the reader. But that's the risk for a writer and a publisher when they issue an audio book.

For this audio version, my rating would be lower than one star if that were possible.

Starts out OK but by the fifth chapter I find myself thinking his father didn't beat him enough, by the ninth chapter, I am wondering if the hit man did the wrong family member and by the fourteenth I am wondering what a hit man costs these days.

The "character" whines throughout the first fifteen chapters constantly about his abused childhood all while drinking heavily, smoking constantly and looking for (or talking about) getting into a fight. No review past the fifteenth chapter because, and this is extremely rare for me, I quit reading it. If you buy this book start reading there; it might be interesting, but I doubt it.