Customer Reviews

Pain Killers: A Novel

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

I want to like Pain Killers, I really do. Jerry Stahl's style is dark, sharp, caustic and amusing and in Pain Killers he flashes some moments of brilliance. Unfortunately those high moments are eclipsed by a near fetish obsession with the politics of the Holocaust and most specifically Josef Mengele.

With a solid set up, extraordinarily strong main character and pitch perfect first act Pain Killers seems like it could be an absolute break out book. The book takes an extreme left turn about mid way through that completely derails the initial momentum and narrative. Stahl seemed to have a choice, either follow the arch of Manny Rupert or go for Mengele. He chose the latter and the final act of the book is so absurd and ridiculous that it decimates everything before it.

Stahl's writing peaks early on with descriptions that leap off the page, but as the book goes on he loses touch with the world he's created in order to revisit the theme of the politics of the Holocaust and how maybe human experiments aren't such a 'bad' thing. To most this theme will be distasteful enough to completely skip this book, I found it pretty hard to stomach. The real audience for this book are Stahl fans, perhaps people who've already read Plainclothes Naked, otherwise readers looking for something edgy would do much better with Chuck Palahniuk or Bret Easton Ellis.

In a style similar to Rant: The Oral Biography of Buster Casey, Stahl takes us on a roller coaster ride into San Quentin prison with ex cop Manny Rubert where he is working uncover to prove that one of the prisoners is indeed Josef Mengele, the supposed dead Nazi Angel of Death.

A recovering polydrug addict, Manny (who is also Jewish) is pretending to lead a drug addiction recovery group that includes Mengele. Just why was he hired for this operation, and what do those in charge actually want him to do with the proof that Mengele lives? And what will they actually do with Mengele? Bring him to trial? Kill him in prison? What does Mengele deserve once he's revealed as the monster of the Holocaust? Was he a brilliant scientist or an evil instrument of death?

These questions and the ensuing encounters with a score of bizarre characters take the reader on a trip through the past and into the present with a resounding jolt. The revelations of what Mengele did in the death camps are not particularly new, but the excuses and reasoning that he offers to his audience on a hair raising van excursion, are both shocking and repellant.

I have never read a book quite like this and found it difficult to write a review of it. I can't honestly say I "liked" it, but wow, what an incredible tale this author weaves. The motley crew of associates and characters in the novel look like a circus freak show. The chapter titles read like a sociopathic menu - nothing is left untouched from drugs, sex and torture to animal -- human organ transplants and big pharma conspiracies. Each page brought a new astonishment - what imagination and what a deviant mind this ingeniously demented author has! The style made me zip through the pages, turning them to see what in the world would be offered up for my digestion on the next one.
It was quite a book - took me from laugh out loud to the brink of nausea.

If you like to step out of your comfort zone and be transported into the strangest prison book you've ever read - take a chance. I guarantee you'll spend most of your reading time with your mouth hanging open and your brain forming the word -- WHAT!?!?!?!?

I'm re-writing because I've decided that my first review wasn't exactly clear:

This is probably not a book that I would have selected on my own - having hated the movie "Permanent Midnight." In the end it was an enjoyable read - if not a bit preposterous.

The Good Guy - Manny Rupert: an Ex-cop, on again off again junkie with a bad liver, who married a woman he met after she killed her husband and he responded to the police call. He's down on his luck, and not doing himself much good - then a strange old Jewish man shows up in his house, beats him with a walker and hires him to go undercover in San Quentin

The Good Girl - Manny's ex-wife, soon to be ex-ex-wife he hopes, is a neurotic bulimic on again off again junkie/prostitute/opportunist. Her morality is questionable but somewhere under all that sex and junk - there's a heart of gold (at least we're told)

The Bad Guys - Oh there are so many of them, but to keep from giving too much away I'll only list our target, the 90 year old blond German man in San Quentin who swears that he's Dr. Joseph Mengele (Nazi Death Camp Doctor at Auschwitz).

So, crazy Jewish man with walker hires Rupert to go undercover as a drug councilor at San Quentin to determine if the crazy old German actually IS Mengele. Things go bad quickly as Rupert's ex-wife shows up with an Aryan Brotherhood leader who also happens to be Jewish. The people on Rupert's side might actually be more dangerous then the convicts.

The writing is verbally simplistic, a lot of people rant and rave about how grotesque this is - but as a horror fan, I've got to say - it's not that bad. Most of the disgusting parts are simply people recounting what Mengele had done - which IS gross, but it's not extremely explicit in that respect. There is a lot of sex, drugs, racial slurs, anti-government garbage, and a whole lot of the German guy arguing about the good he did in the death camps - like slaughtering babies to cure cancer... that part gets old fast.

To be honest, this isn't the best or worse book I've read. The characters are all fairly despicable in one way or another and the plot only holds together loosely. At times you will find yourself shaking your head trying to figure out just how you're supposed to buy all of what's being sold to you here. If you are looking for something comparable - try Tim Dorsey- ADHD writing, spastic plot, and a lot of material to make your average reader cringe.


Rated R - Do not hand to the kiddies.

There's a quote from the mighty Anthony Bourdain on the cover of my review copy of Pain Killers, Jerry Stahl's latest novel, that says: "Jerry Stahl should either get the Pulitzer Prize or be shot down in the street like a dog." I'd suggest that Stahl hope for a third option, because he's certainly not going to win the Pulitzer with this effort (and frankly, were I Bourdain, I'd want any implication of an endorsement of Pain Killers quashed immediately).

I ordered Pain Killers because of some solid reviews, and because the plot sounded suitably off-the-wall and fun: on-again-off-again drug addict Manuel (Manny) Rupert gets hired to pose as a drug counselor in San Quentin to figure out if someone incarcerated there is actually who he claims to be: the uber-evil Nazi Josef Mengele. Along the way he crosses paths with a crazy television producer, a Jewish member of the Aryan Brotherhood, a prison guard that wants a sex change operation, and more than a few other oddballs. Now, I'll admit that the plot sounds a little contrived (o.k., a LOT contrived), but I thought that if the author could pull it off, it could be a fun read.

No such luck.

Pain Killers comes across as nothing so much as an attempt to channel Chuck Palahniuk (using characters you might find in an Elmore Leonard novel), and it fails miserably. The first-person narrative, written in Manny's voice, feels incredibly forced; the author seems far more concerned with thinking up wacky characters and finding quirky ways to phrase things than with writing a good story. The plot falls apart almost instantaneously, with absurd twists and character behavior that require superhuman suspension of disbelief. And Stahl begins more than a few plot lines that he simply walks away from. I don't want to post any spoilers (though if you're smart you'll avoid the book, so it wouldn't matter) but I can think of at least half a dozen events in the book that are major issues to Manny, none of which are ever resolved; Stahl appears to simply forget that they were ever brought up. And then there's Mengele's past: perhaps to make the book "edgy" Stahl also includes copious descriptions of hideous Nazi experiments. But, more often than not, they just feel like fascinated voyeurism rather than devices designed to advance plot or character development. Look, I'm not squeamish in the least, but I do expect passages of any sort to serve the story rather than give the impression of an author simply trying to gross me out or build a reputation.

Finally, there's Manny, whom I found completely unlikeable. I don't have a problem with flawed characters: let them shoot dope, let them have weird quirks, the more the merrier - but that's not the problem with Manny. Because while Stahl seems to be trying to give us a fallible tough guy, maybe Hammer or Marlowe with a dope problem, that's not what we get. Manny is neither a tough-guy nor a man driven by doing the right thing, he's just a creep. Stahl seems to be trying for oddball black humor and satire (both of which I love), but has no skills in either. Pain Killers is neither funny nor satirical, it's just bad.

So to sum it up: forced narrative + poorly drawn and unbelievable characters + ridiculous plot developments + Nazi medical experiments + forgotten plot points + unlikeable protagonist = too many hours that would have been better spent doing almost anything other than reading Pain Killers.

Jerry Stahl's "Pain Killers" is dark, funny, disturbing, nauseating, and entertaining. The main character, Manny Rubert, is a stereotypical ex-undercover cop recovering junkie, but somehow that works. Manny and the other characters are well defined and interesting, if not particularly likable. The modern-day plot is coherent, compelling, and possibly even plausible. The story delves deeply into morality, but cleverly and without lectures, holding a mirror up for the reader to examine his own soul and potential behavior. The story also shines a light on history and the modern perceptions of history, reminding us that history books are written by the victors and to truly understand history, it is necessary to understand the context of events and delve deeply enough into historical events to truly understand what happened. Yes, the losers may have been evil, but that does not mean the victors were innocent angels.

Manny Rupert is a P.I. with a drug problem. He's got a money problem too, he'd got none and he's about to lose his home. Then he's accosted by a man in a walker who turns out be a wacked out crazy millionaire named Harry Zell. Zell believes the Angel of Death, you know the guy they made the BOYS FROM BRAZIL movie about, isn't dead. He believe Josef Mengele is alive and maybe not so well, but still breathing at a ripe old age of Ninety-seven in San Quentin.

Zell want's Harry to go undercover as a drug counselor and head up a prisoner recover group, sort of like the blind leading the blind, but Harry's got no choice, he's broke and Zell's offering him ten grand in addition to clearing up his mortgage problem.

So why does Zell want to know if Mengele is alive? What's he planning? Is Mengele Alive? If so, what's he doing in San Quention? Then there's the problem of Manny's ex-wife, she'd killed her first husband by lacing his Lucky Charms with the glass from broken light bulbs and drano, what's she doing having conjugal visits with one of the inmates? And who knew Jews could join the Aryan Brotherhood? And who knew someone could write a mystery that was so dark and twisted and funny and oh so good that you'd hang on every word.

I've been trying to think of what to write for this review for almost two weeks now. I liked Pain Killers, but I thought it could have been better, perhaps more noirish, perhaps more weird like Ellis' Crooked Little Vein, which is also a detective story with some freakish element (here, it's Mengele still being alive, but in prison).

Stahl writes extremely well, but for this type of story, a detective story with a near femme fatale and just one weird thing happening after another, he just doesn't hit the mark. I get the impression, reading this novel, that he wanted to go all the way, be weird, wild and crazy, but just didn't do it for some reason.

While an interesting read (I read it from beginning to end, that's a good sign), it just wasn't what I'd hoped it would be.

Pain Killers by Jerry Stahl is certainly not for the faint-hearted as it dives into the world of drug addicts, prison and Nazis. This novel is creative and witty but also disturbing and brutally graphic. It involves Manny Rupert who is an ex-cop, but not ex-drug addict is hired to find out if an inmate is the real Josef Mengele or a just a nut. From there he gets weirder. This is certainly not a book for everyone, myself included.

I received this book free through the LibraryThing Early Readers Program.

Manny Rupert, an addict, a cop kicked off the force, an the ex-husband of a murderer, is back for round two. This time he's been hired to go undercover in San Quentin and determine whether a sick old man in for vehicular manslaughter is really who he claims to be--the infamous Nazi Doctor of Death, Joseph Mengele.

That's where Pain Killers starts, but where it goes is on an insane, gritty, noir venture through the darkest parts of society. Pain Killers is a humorous black romp if by humorous you mean "Oh my God they went there" and by romp you mean going by limo from prison snail back love shack to Christian porn sets to meth houses and mansions and back again. This novel is, to steal a line, truly, truly outrageous.

Stahl's humor is not for everyone, possibly not for anyone that possesses an iota of sensitivity about religion, psychology, the human condition, addiction, sex, or just about any subject. But there's a sort of victorious feel to seeing character so truly messed up still intelligent and stubborn and taking on the face of human evil. There's more talking than action, so the pace is not forceful or fast. At times the conversations while interesting and amusing come off as off topic, when the point is to solve a mystery. And the WTF factor is, at times, very high. But it's a wild ride, different from everything else out there which certainly has an audience in today's marketplace.

Stahl is a good writer. Perv was uproarious and brilliant. Pain Killers, well, I just didn't get it. I've come to terms with the fact that I just don't get gonzo satire. Pain Killers didn't do it for me.