Lennie & Vance & Benji (Toby Crime) [Paperback]

I. I. Magdalen (Author)

Book Description

Series: Toby Crime | Publication Date: August 2002

II Magdalen's third novel is loosely based on a true case of homosexual rape in a small Arkansas town. Lennie and Vance, drifters and grifters, hairdressers by avocation, lovers perhaps, employ the thirteen-year-old Benji to help out in their Salon, Hair Today (Gone Tomorrow), and slowly, systematically and fatally seduce him. Henning Forsell, who visits Sapphire, Texas two years after the events, unravels their three life and death stories against the background of small-town America.

Magdalen's characters - Benji's feckless, ex-hippy mother, Mary Kay, her current lover, the disturbed Viet Nam veteran, Craig, the fat pedophile biker who calls himself "Captain" Ron, the "bouffant in hair and spirit" Ms. Pal Baldwin, the Nava County Prosecutor - will be impressed indelibly in readers' memories.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

Critics have said that Magdalen "writes like an angel". In this case, like an avenging angel. Not for the squeamish, the book touches on some deep and troubling issues: the nature of childhood sexuality, adolescent "innocence", violence and voyeurism. Brief, provocative, troubling. A must read for amateurs of the genre.

Product Details

• Paperback: 190 pages
• Publisher: Toby Press; First Edition edition (August 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 190288146X
• ISBN-13: 978-1902881461
• Product Dimensions: 7.4 x 5.1 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #8,277,698 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Narrative & Lyricism, January 23, 2004

By 

Christopher Harris (Amherst, MA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lennie & Vance & Benji (Toby Crime) (Paperback)

I enjoyed this book by Keith Botsford tremendously. It's, well, a bit *twisted*, but that suits my tastes. And I must say (if I may say without sounding presumptuous): Botsford really can write. I find I'm getting more and more turned off by the contemporary unctuous artistes who write fine sentences but wouldn't know a story if it bit their privates; I find myself rolling my eyes at faux-Faulknerists who revel in "stopping time" and never letting it get started again; in short, I'm sick to damn death of stories where *nothing happens*. L&V&B is a terrific *story*...it moves, it chills, it frankly freaks me out at times...and of course it's also lovely in spots: "Towards the back in those days you would have seen Benji slight and dancing like Lennie, but shorter, an assiduous listener like Vance, blond too, sweeping up the hair that gathered in hassocks like lumps of prairie grass, supplying the towels that lay across the customers' shoulders or taking them out to the laundry bin." It's no-nonsense, but lyrical, stuff. This book is not for the faint of heart, but it's a tough and crunchy read.