Customer Reviews

Haiku: A Novel

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4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

Vachss is a master of the dark side of humanity, with an affinity for society's underbelly, whether writing about crimes against the helpless or documenting the lives of the disenfranchised. In Haiku, a master sensei is set upon atonement for the crime of "humble arrogance" and its consequences, abandoning a lucrative career in the United States, forging a new identity among the homeless, the invisible. Ho- as he is called by the eccentric individuals who gravitate to him as though to a magnetized field- has become a listener, the hubris of his past life no longer acceptable. Yet these men are drawn to Ho, Michael, Lamont, Ranger, Target and Brewster, because he helps them to remain calm in a dangerous environment. Each man carries his own burden, speaks his own language and seeks to survive below the city's radar.

When the emotional security of one of them is threatened, this odd band of brothers gathers to seek a solution, Ho their putative guide. It is in their exchanges that Vachss reveals his profound understanding of human nature and the various ways men can be broken, yet survive. This is a group that has formed for safety and has become attached, one to another however they might, a family of individuals. As Ho progresses on his journey and the others toward some resolution of their life directions, the city is laid bare, the traps laid for the helpless, the dangers of the streets, existence without identity. Each character is explored, strengths and weaknesses, the nobility of their cause and the violence that occurs as the plan goes forward. This is a view of a world most are unaware of, the subterranean levels of subsistence that exist in every city. Vachss leaves his reader with much to ponder, his work always moving and provocative, a mirror of the world that reflects the invisible, at least for a moment before they fade once more into the night. Luan Gaines/2009.

Some of the people who have commented on this book clearly don't get it. If you were expecting a re-hash of the Burke novels, you don't really know Vachss. He's a real writer. In other words, he's not just pounding out pulp novels simply to keep the publishers and the people who want another Burke story happy or to keep his wallet fat. He's constantly perfecting his art, and evolving as both a warrior against child abuse and as a writer. Even at this stage in his career, he's not simply resting on his laurels. I loved the Burke novels, but Burke's story, if it believably follows the natural course of the characters' lives, has run its course. Haiku represents not just a new voice, but a new level of Vachss's writing. And, after reading it, I am highly charged by it.

The voice Vachss speaks through in Ho is very different from Burke's, but it is equally well-crafted, authentic, gripping, and believable. This story is as exciting, entertaining, gripping, frightening, and deep as anything that Vachss has ever written. But it is also, in some ways, more powerful -- at least to me. I say that because of the personal connection I made with this book on the first page. The main character is a warrior. Honor is everything to him. But as the book progresses, he also reveals himself to be an amazing therapist, seeking to fulfill his need to live, and ultimately die, honorably by helping others to empower themselves against their overwhelming demons and discover lives worth living. And the "supporting" characters that Ho is helping to transform in their own journeys are each as unique, engaging, well-formed, and fascinating as Ho. As a former Army Ranger and a child therapist, such a book comes with high expectations and hopes. Haiku has met them in spades.

This is an immensely inspiring book to me, and renews my love of writing not just as entertainment, but as teaching, and as spiritual food. It inspires me to become both a better therapist and live up to the warrior ideal. And I believe it is exactly Vachss's mission to express the spiritual connection between those concepts in this story. Ho is the perfect voice for this message, as his life story is the living embodiment of that message. Burke transmitting this message would have rung false. Burke is neither a warrior nor a therapist. He's a criminal.

In Haiku, Vachss continues to demonstrate his mastery of the art of writing, his dedication to telling truths that most people never see (but need to), and his knowledge of that about which he writes. As with all true masters, Vachss never stops striving for perfection. Look forward to his next one.

Andrew Vachss has done it again. He has captured life on the streets - - the homeless, the dispossessed, the mentally ill - - and has made these disenfranchised people the true heroes of the world. Vachss's vision is a unique one, with a theme that is pervasive throughout his books. He reframes miscreants into heroes and shows real evil where one least expects to find it - - in the ordinary citizen parading as Mr. Good or Mr. Show-off. It is those that we turn away from or that we find invisible or repulsive that Mr. Vachss turns into the super-heroes or saviors of the day. He writes about a cultural underground that many of us have never been privy to, and underground that has its own codes of morality and rule of law, where cities exist in tunnels underneath slums and cultures form based on an unspoken law belonging only to the dispossessed.

HAIKU, Vachss's newest book, fits nicely into his thematic repertoire. Here we find Ho (a nickname short for HO CHI MINH), the leader of a group of homeless me. Ho was once a famous and wealthy marshal arts teacher and dispenser of wisdom. He found himself becoming too grandiose, giving vacuous advice to others and his ego taking over for what should have been a life of humility and learning from others. Because of this, he is responsible for the death of Chica, a young woman who he is mentoring. At first, he is consumed by what he thinks is shame and guilt but later realizes is self-pity. "That same night, I walked away. From the dojo, from my living quarters behind it, from my life." Penniless and alone, Ho makes his way among the tenements and slums of the city, building a secret living area of tunnels below the ground. "The priests had taught us that each man has a personal haiku, a haiku that must emerge from within A master of haiku might be commissioned to produce thousands in his lifetime. But only one could truly express his own spirit." Ho walks alone among others searching for his one true haiku which can bring hime back to his true self.

Accompanying Ho on his journey is Michael, once a rising star in the world of stocks and trading. Michael became consumed with gambling and lost everything including his money, his family, and his job. He is still a gambler a heart as the book opens, not having learned from what his addiction has already wrought. Then there is Lamont, once the leader of a gang. While in jail he taught himself to read, got a GED, and finished college by correspondence. Some people in the literati set noticed him and helped him get a book of poetry published. When he gets out of jail, he enjoys being the center of attention, attending parties and salons. "But then I snapped that I wasn't a star; I was an exhibit in a traveling circus. A petting zoo. "Literary circle" my ass. I was never one of them - - I was just the entertainment. They held me that high up just for the fun of stepping away and watching me crash." Lamont's character reminded me of a protege of Normal Mailer's and Mailer's book about him. Target is also part of this entourage. Mentally ill, he only speaks in rhyme, called clanging. His 'sentences' are always four rhyming words such as 'knife, life, wife, strife.' His clanging may have some covert meaning if one listens closely enough. Brewster, a schizophrenic, and the fourth member of the group has a library of noir mysteries which he stores on the top floor of an abandoned building. "Brewster's every word isw some sort of reenactment of the books to which he is addicted." Then there is Ranger, a Vietnam Vet with post-traumatic stress disorder who straddles both worlds - the world of a soldier in Vietnam and the world of a man living on the streets.

The group is looking for some way to make money. Initially, Michael sees a woman get out of a white Rolls Royce and dump something into the river. He tries to convince the group that blackmailing her might be the way to go because what she threw into the river is likely a body. This is where the plot falls apart a bit because this aspect of the books is dropped midway and is not returned to in a cohesive manner.

We find out that Brewster's building is scheduled for demolition and the group tries to find a way to save Brewster's library. They know that without his library, Brewster will not a reason to live. Together, they come up with a plan to salvage Brewster's books by moving them to another location.

This novel's underlying theme is about what truly makes a good and honest man. Vachss sees honesty, loyalty, commitment and connection in places that other won't look, taking for granted that it can't exist among the homeless, the mentally ill and the disenfranchised. For Vachss, that is where these qualities are most likely to be found. Lamont asks, in this book, "Are the only truly honest people on this earth those others regard as insane?" For Vachss, the answer is probably 'yes'.

Andrew Vachss' novels are hard to classify, because they aren't *like* anything else. In contrast, the bozos who write "reviews" to prevent readers from discovering Vachss are as transparent as jellyfish. (One of these geniuses labels the writer "disappointingly formulaic," but states that not only has he read "every book" by Vachss, but "own[s] them all." Really -- he owns 30 books by the same "disappointing" author? That must be some masochistic collection!)

Well, I bought this book, and I read this book, and it's haunting me still. The characters are introduced as broken men, fending off want and danger by beginning a loose association. The dangers of the street dog their every step. But without falling into preaching or stereotypes, the story presents a meditation on friendship, on people who build up strength by serving each other, and on their rebirth. The book thoroughly roots itself in the cold fog of a New York City night, but it offers a universal story. HAIKU is a difficult book, and a moving one.

I'm glad Amazon has made it easy to verify that someone actually bought what they're reviewing. Not that that will prevent some pinhead from discussing his psychic ability to predict the outcome of books he hasn't read yet, (maybe because he's too far down on the wait list at the library?)

Vachss has created a new classic, or should be eventually a classic, with his look at the homeless culture. As usual, he pulls no punches and yet evokes an understanding of people we are inclined to dismiss. Homelessness isn't glorified here, but it is examined and this is a book which should be read by all those who are inclined to think of advocates for the homeless as "bleeding hearts". There's no preaching here and there are no solutions suggested. It's all about understanding where these people come from and why.

Clean and brilliant. Treats its homeless characters with enormous dignity and interest. I'm no literary critic, but I do write, and this is the kind of novel that makes aspiring writers want to throw in the towel.

This is a book about redemption.

The narrator, "Ho" (not the name he was born with), once a successful and respected sensei, left everything behind and hit the streets after the death of a favored student forced his gaze starkly inward. Seeing his own faults and flaws writ large, and ashamed that he'd overlooked them at the time when it would have mattered, Ho sentences himself to atonement -- at the book's beginning, he's not yet aspiring to redemption, believing it's too late for that.

Living like a monk isn't so much a conscious spiritual choice as a return to old habits for Ho, who spent much of his early life in a temple in Japan, in the years leading up to WWII. That's where he learned the scriptures, as well as the realities of monastic existence -- sometimes the fine words mean something important, and other times they're simply pretty cloaks to cover ugly reality. For it to mean anything ultimately, one must *be* the Sutra. It's not a world most of us are familiar with, and Ho's memories of childhood and adolescence fascinate, serving as an exotic veneer over such recurrent Vachss themes as family and kinship.

Ho's path to redemption starts when he finds himself part of a clan of sorts, a group of homeless American men with their own stories, their own mistakes and failures and kicks when they were down. As with all Vachss novels, these side characters are fleshed out and realistic, and their various journeys to the place they're at today are all (too) believable. As Ho gets to know these men's hearts and minds, he sees more than their knocks and failures, he sees their hopes and aspirations as well, and that's when his own path switches from mere atonement to true redemption. Not only Ho, but each of the book's characters, is seeking redemption of his own.

Each of them finds it, in his way, by the book's conclusion. A happy ending? In a way, though a bittersweet one. It has to be bittersweet, being a book about redemption.

If you have a hit, of any kind, the easiest and most tempting thing to do would probably be to stick with it. This would especially be true if your audience regularly begged you to do it.

The braver - and thus, more painful - path to take would involve change. Honesty. Introspection.

Andrew Vachss, the author, could easily have done the former. But he's never depended on only one weapon while waging his holy war, and frankly he's too good at writing to confine himself to one popular character or series.

So what does one do when they've been entrusted with the loyalty of a group in need of leadership? Perhaps an especially vulnerable group, where the slightest misstep can have a disproportionately high cost?

This is the question facing Ho, the narrator, as he begins a journey of what he hopes will be redemption for one such misstep. Despite his protestations, Ho is constantly drawn into a leadership role, his wisdom and knowledge merely assumed in most cases.

No one is more aware of this than Ho himself; his constant self-examination is full of disdain and frustration at how easily he meets the very low expectations of those seeking his guidance. But bad habits cannot simply be willed away; and Ho is forced into action in a bid to finally achieve the true atonement he desires.

Through Ho, Vachss employs a gentle, almost formal tone. Its surprisingly effective at conveying the pain and despair of Ho and his fellow wanderers. The depiction of Ho's companions is deceptively simple, but the layers are there, from the seemingly random exclamations of Target to the connection between Michael and Ranger.

Two things seem to be true of Vachss: that he has been routinely underestimated throughout his career; and that he has always proven his detractors wrong. The same, no doubt, will be true with this excellent book.

I've been reading Andrew Vachss since forever, and outside of a few short stories, he's always used one voice. For this book, he has developed a very different voice. It's first person, so it is told with a single voice, but it's not one you'll recognize. What you will recognize are the deeper meanings he buries into his stories. Great to read as plain ol' escapist fiction, but there's a lot more there if you choose to scratch that surface. And it's well worth scratching.

Even though Mr Vachss has considerable experience with the dark side of life in this universe, I felt like I was somewhere else when reading this book. And that's a good thing because, as my Metro stop drew closer, I found myself hoping the train would slow down (I do quite a bit of reading on my commute) so I could spend more time in a universe that felt like it was a minor frequency apart from reality.

For those of you who are familiar with the Burke series, you will not be disappointed.

Now let me hit a couple of sore points.

I would like to see a black man who doesn't feel the need to rhyme when he speaks and a deadly martial artist who is not oriental in a Vachss book.

I would have liked Lamont a lot better if he spoke in a more scholarly manner.

And one of the toughest martial artists I have ever met was a kid who looked like a MidWest farm boy but had a kick that could topple a freakin' bulldozer. And he could deliver it while smiling like Betsy May had just accepted his invite to the prom.

I've read all the Vachss books (I have had to tell parents that Batman: The Ultimate Evil is not an appropriate gift for a 10-year-old) and think that this is his finest non-Burke (and non-Batman) book.