Customer Reviews

It Happened in Boston? (20th Century Rediscoveries)

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I just finished reading the new Modern Library edition of "It Happened in Boston?", which I had first read 35 years ago. It still seems as startling as it was then; all these strange characters, and the mad protagonist. What a feat of imagination! I had actually expected it to feel somewhat dated but it didn't - quite the contrary, it seemed completely of the moment. I think this edition should find a new audience, among readers who did not exist when it was first published.

In spite of its literary brilliance and its narrative genius, there will be people who won't like Boston?. I don't say this as a lofty proclamation or to cast aspersions on those folks. Consider a five-star restaurant's most expensive and well-touted fresh salmon entree. It may, in fact, be a meal of the highest quality and finest ingredients, but, hey, some people just don't like fish.

This book is populated by intriguing characters (our artistically brilliant and unnamed protagonist's goal is to assassinate God, if that tells you anything) with curious and delicate lives that flirt with the fringes of madness before plunging in headlong. It is really pointless to try to explain the basic plot, since it holds no more prominence than the philosophical inquiries and didactic ponderings that motivate it. These underlying ideas never drag the story down, as one might suspect, although they are probably at fault when it comes to why some might like this meal and some might flat out reject.

In kind, the ending does leave something to be desired, since it is a resolution of the ambiguous kind. Greenan doesn't kowtow to fortune cookie solutions, and he leaves the point of the book (as well as the answer to those inquiries and ponderings) in the hands of the reader, who may either be delighted to answer, or disgusted with the presumption. Again, it's a matter of taste.

I, for one, was licking my fingers when I was done.

I first discovered this book when living in Boston in the late sixties--and I was fortunate to meet the author at the same time. I found him to be a very quiet, shy, and introspective man, someone you would never expect to have written such a compelling novel. "It Happened In Boston?" is, to me, a true original. The reader is taken on a journey of murder, almost against one's will. The events that unfold are horrifying and surprising at the same time. And yet there is a kind of humor in this novel, in the protagonist's perspective on the world. Novels on serial killers are a dime a dozen these days--just read the copy on the dust jackets of contemporary novels. It seems every detective in fiction is on the trail of a serial killer. Endless movies are made on this theme. Yet, Russell Greenan may not have set out to make serial killing the most important element in his book. I believe he was merely trying to show how one man might defy society's stranglehold on the individual. On the other hand, perhaps Greenan was doing no such thing. Perhaps he was just weaving an extraordinary tale without a thought about oppression or society. Whatever his reasoning, this book has been at the forefront of my mind for over 30 years. Were I to come up with a list of my favorite books in the non-fiction genre, this book would be in the first ten. Russell, if you are still alive, and perhaps reading this review, I would love to hear from you. That would be as much a thrill as having read the book. Okay, enough kudos for this writer--except to say that I hope one day to find "It Happened In Boston?" rediscovered and reread, this time by the general public. As I said before, Russell Greenan was a very quiet man--certainly not someone to hawk his own work. It is unbelievable that his publisher didn't do it for him, and that the terrific reviews Russell got at the time this book appeared didn't create a major stir in the literary world. If there's anything I can do to help make people take notice of this novel, I certainly will. Actually, since '68, I have told anyone who would listen about this book--but since it has been out of print so many years, I doubt others could get a copy. I don't believe Russell ever wrote another book--if anyone knows of another, would you please let me know? One last thing: since reading this book, I have been very wary of open sugar bowls.

I can't say enogh about this book. It's been a favorite of mine for more than 30 years. The Random House reissue is very welcome but his other works including The Birc-a-brac Man, The Secret Life of Algernon Pendleton, Heart of Gold and Nightmare and Keepers are also worthy of reissue.
Yes, this is a veiled plea to seek them out and read them all. They all deserve attention.
A brilliant author, we're not talking Byron or Shakespear here, let's face it, we're working with another genre. In his class, he's in a class by himself!
Read this book!
Read this book!
You won't be sorry!

This little murder mystery is unlike any other I have read. It combines an insider's view of Renaissance art (and modern forgery) with an all too reasonable psychopathic killer. The fellow you bumped into at the coffee shop section of that bookstore you were browsing last week, perhaps; unremarkable at the time, but perhaps someone who is a genius-a genius in painting or in off-hand, random executions. Aside from the high level lessons in Renaissance painting Greenan provides, readers will find themselves also appreciating the humor, the logic, and the casual finesse with which the protagonist takes on some serial killings. His attitude and affable charm are so convincing as to make us look at ourselves more honestly, and even more warily, than we usually do. I'm not a mystery fan, but this book has the ability to make points which transcend the genre. Few novels are as truly haunting as this one; the kindred spirit of the killer which lurks in our own hearts is frighteningly familiar. This is an unheralded and out of print gem, but well worth the effort in getting a copy

Imagine my surprise to see that at least 11 other people have even read "It Happened in Boston?", let alone reacted to it as strongly and positively as I did. I read it as a teenager when it first came out - my father had ordered it from his book club - and I was completely hooked. It had never dawned on me that the hero of a novel could in fact be the villain as well (I later read "Crime and Punishment" and found that it was a fairly well-established literary convention). I remember filming this book in my mind over the next few years, always with different leading men and women, depending on who was most popular at the time, and frequently changing the plot to make it more "cinematic" - and I haven't read the book in about thirty years, although I still have it, so I'm interested to see how my mental movie compares with the incomparable original. It also compelled me to read all of Greenan's subsequent books, all of which are only slightly more conventional thrillers, and some of which (particularly "Heart of Gold" and "The Secret Life of Algernon Pendleton") are quite unique. Most of them are set in Boston, which is where I've been living since reading "It Happened in Boston?" (not entirely a matter of cause and effect), and his feel for the atmosphere of the city - at least as it was in the seventies - is flawless. Greenan's books all deserve to be reprinted.

It Happened in Boston?...by Russell H. Greenan -- best art forgery mystery I've ever read (among its other virtures). The narrator of this peculiar masterpiece is a lunatic who is attempting to assassinate God and take his place, because he thinks he can run the world better. He is also the best artist since Leonardo; herein comes the art forgery plot. The characters are bizarre and funny. The writing is beautiful and witty. The vocabulary is impressive. Written in 1968, but hard to find (Bantam issued a paperback of this and a couple of other books by the author in the late 1980's: A Can of Worms and The Secret Life of Algernon Pendleton also display his eccentric wit and weird fancies.) Keep an eye out in the used book stores for anything by this unique author (well, in some ways Michael Dibden is similar).

The first mistake the publisher of It Happened in Boston made was to continue to market it only as a mystery novel; the second was to let it fall out of print. Greenan's book is one of the funniest, cruelest, most audacious, and most moving books I remember reading when I was a teenager. Already out of print then, the book had attained cult status in Boston. I received a battered copy from a friend in Cambridge and read it cover to cover in a couple of days. Reading established literary classics, you always have to wonder how many other masterpieces are lost to time. It Happened in Boston is one such masterpiece. If Russell Greenan is still alive (I hope he is), he should know what a following he has and how much his books are still appreciated

[...]. Fans of IHIB? and other Greenan novels (and of such dark comedies as Nathanael West's The Day of the Locust) will not be disappointed. It's a great satire, following America's 21st century terrorist paranoias to their logical, nightmarish ends. In its rigid, rigorous structure, in which almost every action is symmetrical, and in the extremity of its vision, it reminded me of Heinrich von Kleist's "The Earthquake in Chile" and "Michael Kohlhaas." In other words, its artistry is of the highest order.

Above all, and both in spite of and due to its darkness, it's a marvelous entertainment. Chills, thrills, and darkly comic mayhem abound. Nary a "good" character to be found here, but none deserve the horrors that befall them, and along the way, most of them deal with the horrific threat they face (I'm trying to avoid spoilers here) about as well as any of us would. Except for one stoically cynical former anarchist, they want love, money, position, and security; what they get . . . well, let's say the dread in the title is all too apt.

Greenan, now 84 and "still working" (as the bio note says), is truly a rara avis. Few writers have created such brilliantly complex and complete fictional worlds as his. Even fewer have the vision, bravery, and audacity to take readers into narratives whose eccentricity can challenge, disturb, and delight so profoundly. At his best, I rank him with Gogol, Kleist, Nabokov, and a few other masters.

IHIB? has held on to a strong and well-deserved following since its publication in 1968. I hope his other great works (especially The Secret Life of Algernon Pendleton, Nightmare, and The Bric-a-Brac Man) will one day get their due. (Writer and critic Tom Whalen has written a limited edition monograph on Greenan that is well worth seeking out. Whalen is, after Greenan's daughter Althea, his greatest and most perceptive champion.) I also hope--fervently!--that the novels that have not been released in English, much less the US (Doomsnight and Glamourdoom, both available only in French translation), will one day find their way into print in his native land and language.

If you're reading this, I hope you will order Dread of Night; and if you haven't read It Happened in Boston?, do so as soon as you can. With either of them, you'll be in the hands of an artist who wishes us all the very best while imagining and acknowledging the very direst.

This is the story of an extremely talented artist and basically good person who goes insane and commits murder. It is told from the point of view of the artist, and the narration is perfect. It is worthy of comparison to Nabakov's "Lolita." This is definitely a book worth reading. Warning: there is one of those excruciatingly annoying book club guides in the back, with a list of the stupidest questions you can imagine. Just tear that out.

An interesting point about this new release is that when it was written in 1968 there was a popular notion that madness was somehow connected to artistic talent and even perhaps necessary for it. The whole idea of a fine madness was very popular. This would have affected the impression made by the book. Perhaps there was some ambiguity about what was going on. It is really a heart rending story and I think when people were more apt to romanticize mental illness as some kind of special sensitivity, the actual power of the poor narrator's descent would have been lost.