Customer Reviews

The Moon in the Gutter (Midnight Classics)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This guy is the Knut Hamsun of Noir. Grit, realism served up filthy-delphia style. His characters speak in the harsh dialect of wasted lives, guts, soul and all other essentials of the True Predecessor of Bukow, Selby, Fante, and Leonard Gardner...the beauty of ugliness is the religion of Goodis and his brash honesty and no-holds barred grappling prose style make him one of the greats.

David Goodis is the champion of the down-and-outs, druggies, boozers and misfits. In 'The Moon in the Gutter' we have an interesting story about a stevedore (dock worker) and his utterly miserable existence. He has difficulty in coming to grips with the grisly death of his sister, his home life is a disaster, and his future looks bleak. But then he meets a blonde from the other side of the tracks and ....

While I won't give any spoilers here let me just say I felt very let down by the ending of this novel. David Goodis brings the reader into the life of this poor soul and shows us his world without compassion. Towards the end the tension builds (..again no spoilers) but the author fails miserably in tying it all together at the end. Very disappointing.

Bottom line: a missed opportunity by Goodis. Intriguing, but best left to Goodis fans only.

Seven months ago, Bill Kerrigan's beloved sister committed suicide rather than lives with the memory of the assault on her body by an unknown assailant. Bill remains in shock, visiting the alley off of Philadelphia's Vernon Street where his sibling died.

After spending some time in the alley, for some reason known only to him, Bill decides he needs a beer so he goes to the nearby Dugan's Den bar. At the dive, Bill meets Newton Channing, a slumming wealthy uptowner. When Newton's classy sister Loretta comes to take him home, an immediate bond forms between her and Bill. However, he is a stevedore, residing in the slums while she is class personified. Even if Bill can put aside his ghastly obsession of finding the culprit behind his sister's death, this couple has no chance of making it.

THE MOON IN THE GUTTER is a reprint of a great urban Noir. The characterization is deep and very intriguing because of David Goodis' insight into the Vernon Street dwellers. The story line is haunting as its serves up to prove that the author was exceptionally good at his craft. Readers who give this novel a chance will search the second hhandbook stores for more works by Mr. Goodis.

Harriet Klausner

This is was my second Goodis movel (see Blonde on Streetcorner). I'm really attracted to this genre (which I don't consider noir as much as working class fiction). And being a Philly kinda guy, I realize that Goodis' books are set in a fictional Philadelphia. The street names have been changed but this book probably takes place down in the Southwark and Two Street section (now more & more gentrified) when it was the home of dockworkers and poor working class. Praise for the working class existentialism of the anti-heros who endure their fate (freedom that Sartre might question as authentic freedom, yet his notion that we are "condemed to be free" is the essential notion even for our guy Kerrigan who always seems to be on the edge of escaping his environs). I think this book was much more literary than "Blonde" in its reach for descriptive symbolism. Goodis is always dealing with stock characters and their cliches, but then, do we really expect any other kind of realism from pulp fiction?

Now this is the David Goodis we've all come to know and love. Not only is there no happy ending, Goodis doesn't even acknowledge the possibility that anything approaching happiness could ever be achieved. The Moon in the Gutter is thoroughly and unapologetically gritty and depressingly hopeless. In other words, it accurately reflects the way the author viewed life.

The third person narrative starts off with protagonist Bill Kerrigan, a poor dockworker, visiting the rat infested alley where his kid sister, Catherine, died. Catherine committed suicide by slitting her own throat with a rusty knife. Now, seven months later, the bloodstains on the ground are still visible. That opening scene sets the stage for the depressing story that is about to unfold.

Kerrigan's world consists of overcrowded tenements, rundown shacks and two-bit bars populated by has beens, never will bes, winos, hookers and derelicts of every description. This is a world completely bereft of hope, a world from which there can be no escape. Kerrigan catches a glimpse of the outside when an uptown girl named Lorretta Channing doing a bit of slumming takes a liking to him. But who are we kidding? That relationship is doomed before it even begins.

The Moon in the Gutter is a fantastic read if you don't mind fiction where there isn't a single character who is any better off at the end than they were at the beginning. It's a short book and the plotting is a little thin. But Goodis does not flinch once in setting forth a narrative that drips with despair and utter hopelessness. Recommended to readers ready to embrace the unremitting darkness David Goodis saw as part and parcel of being alive.

David Goodis has written some very good hardboiled fiction, particularly "Down There," which was adapted into the classic French film, "Shoot the Piano Player." Unfortunately, "The Moon in the Gutter" is not of the same quality. The book starts well as we're introduced to Bill Kerrigan, a down-on-his-luck (or more properly never-had-any-luck) dock worker. Kerrigan lives with his family on Vernon Street - an epicenter for lowlifes and drunks. Kerrigan is tough but is basically a good person who looks out for his family, even though they give back nothing. The only other "good" member of his family was his sister, Catherine. Seven months earlier, Catherine was raped and left in a seedy Vernon Street alley, where overcome by shame and grief she took her own life. Kerrigan often visits this alleyway to ruminate and plot revenge against the perpetrator who defiled Catherine.

The main bulk of this short novel concerns his search for his sister's rapist. However, it's a rather passive search that doesn't propel the plot very far. Although the plot is rather dull, Goodis populates the book with some interesting characters, including the vamp from "uptown" who tries to steal Kerrigan's heart. The final chapter also is stellar - almost poetic in nature - as Kerrigan resolves the mystery in an insightful epiphany. However, this chapter comes too abruptly to fully satisfy. Instead, it feels almost as though Goodis grew tired of the plot and decided to call it quits. "The Moon in the Gutter" has some positive qualities - I was relatively entertained throughout, and I think many other hardboiled fans will be as well. However, it ended up being a mild disappointment. I'm looking forward, though, to reading more Goodis novels and seeing where this book stands in his oeuvre.

A very moving story of characters caught in the grip of their pasts and surroundings, particularly the main character, William Kerrigan. Unforgettable.