The House of Whacks: A Novel [Paperback]

Matthew Branton (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 15, 1999

Chicago, 1950. An S&M supermodel, a visionary mafioso; a dying editress of pulp fiction, a legendary horror novelist; a screenwriter stuck in a war zone, a crippled stunt woman; a McCarthy blacklisted cinematographer-turned-pornographer; two warring godfathers; and a heap of Nazi gold. Three perfect heists--same day, same place. The House of Whacks--it'll knock you sideways.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

If you like brainy dames, feuding hoods, and sharp-tongued hacks all heading for the heist to end all heists against a noir-as-night backdrop in 1950s Chicago, then The House of Whacks is for you. Young British writer Matthew Branton can do graceful epic prose; he just chooses not to. He spreads out his talent for convincing, meaty motivations among smart-girl Susan who's an S&M model in the eponymous House; Ben, her ticket to mollhood; Misty, a tough cookie who's dying of cancer and closing up her pulp-fiction outfit; and Lucky, a screenwriter playing soldier for "field detail" in Korea. But the biggest character is America itself--its slang, pop culture, and the casualties of its dream machine. It is also about writers, those squeezed out by McCarthy or sexism and now by TV, which is forcing career rethinks as fast as IT has done in the '90s. Each character fears becoming part of "America's real invention--a mass of undignified poor, who're never going to learn to tolerate anyone because they despise themselves." Although Branton uses the story-within-a-story device once too often, and his pace is a little jerky, he injects his gritty, idiomatic prose with fresh, perky humor. His climax, too, pops full of surprises. --Cherry Smyth, Amazon.co.uk

About the Author

Matthew Branton is twenty-eight and is already at work on his next novel, The Princess--a tale of too much money and revenge, also to be published by Bloomsbury. Having worked as a publicist for a leading publisher, he now writes full time whilst doing freelance editing and journalism. He lives in London, England.

Product Details

• Paperback: 260 pages
• Publisher: Bloomsbury USA (April 15, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1582340242
• ISBN-13: 978-1582340241
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,917,737 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Branton Whacks it Home, December 14, 1999

By 

"svid" - See all my reviews

This review is from: The House of Whacks: A Novel (Paperback)

Branton Whacks it Home Reviewer: Shawn M. Vidmar from Pueblo, Colorado Matthew Branton's ingenious novel, *House of Whacks*, brings the pulp detective novel into the 90's. His characters are intriguing and interesting. He introduces them so completely, and yet subtly that the reader finds herself not only caring about their story, but able to tell them apart without the tale-tell dialog tag lines. Each one is developed so carefully throughout the book that I never had to go back and remind myself who was who and why they were there.

In this post McCarthy hearing time frame, he develops heroes and heroines that are brassy, bold and resolute. They have separate and definable motives of survival.

Through vigilant structure and brilliant story telling, Branton is able to craft a book similar in detail and stylishness to the Academy Award Winning *LA Confidential*. The flash bulbs pop and crackle. The pornographic camera whirs and chunks. Wayward women find themselves in the thick of an underground studio, which is in turn involved in some other seedy business threatening everyone's life. And yet, through the dark humor and active bumblings of some characters, all threads of the story culminate in a dazzling resolution that will whack your socks off.

He brings the film noir detective fiction to light, a lost art in my opinion. A great read for any fan of noir.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A blast of a book, July 13, 2008

By 

Handee Books, LLC (Santa Clara, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The House of Whacks: A Novel (Paperback)

I don't buy the maxim, "never judge a book by its cover". The House of Whacks by Matthew Branton has a great one, and Bettie Page's presence on it is the reason I picked the book up in the first place.

Branton's also chosen a great setting for his multiple plot thread caper novel: Chicago in 1950.

One story involves Susan, a Bettie Page composite posing for soft core bondage shots at a "studio" called the House of Whacks. The place is owned by Giotto, one of the city's two mob bosses, and the one who's trying to go legit. Susan quickly falls in love with Ben Kahane, Giotto's right-hand man. Meanwhile, Misty, soon to be ex-editor of a dying horror pulp magazine, herself dying of cancer, cooks up a plot to rob Giotto's mob of a shipment of Nazi gold being trucked in from who-knows-where for distribution around the country. Misty enlists the aid of the best men she knows: her stable of hack writers who've cooked up thousands of heist plots for the pulps over the years. The third storyline involves Lucky, hack screenwriter who, after his stuntwoman girlfriend Lucy's career-ending accident, loads them both into his car and drives to Chicago to give their mob-connected producer a piece of his mind.

Aside from some anachronistic expressions (I doubt "tech-head" was in use in 1950) and some poorly researched geography this is a blast of a book. It's closer in spirit to one of Donald E. Westlake's caper novels than it is to a James Ellroy book (to which it's been compared). The dialogue rings true and the sleazy setting of the House of Whacks is convincingly portrayed.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing Muddle, May 6, 2001

By 

A. Ross (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The House of Whacks: A Novel (Paperback)

This is a book whose premise I liked better than the actual execution. The idea of 1950s Chicago, an actress turned S&M model (think Betty Page), mobsters, a dying tough-girl editor, hack pulp writers, a struggling screenwriter, and a heist of Nazi gold, sounds great, but fails to hold together in the end. Branton expends so much effort on recreating the hard-boiled setting and slang that the plot zigs and zags all over the place with annoying time shifts and a disappointing denouement. It might have been more compelling had Branton stuck with one or two main characters and went a little deeper into their lives, and paid a little more attention to plot (for example, the various heist plans are bafflingly stupid). While comparisons with LA Confidential aren't totally off base, Leonard's book is big league material, and this is strictly wanna-be. The 1950s dialogue is occasionally marred by 1990s expressions, and more irritatingly, by Anglicisms that the editor should have easily caught.