Customer Reviews

Prime: A Novel

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I finished Prime this afternoon, and not three hours later I found myself re-reading it. The night that I began reading it, I dreamed about it all night. So, I suppose you could say that this book has endeared itself to my soul. Much better than Liquor (even though I loved that one too), I found the characters I already knew to be fleshed out even more, and the ones I didn't know were fascinating. Oscar and Woofer deserve stories of their own. Just a suggestion: possibly a story of Oscar's bid for D.A.? At any rate, my desire to learn more about these characters will expedite the process of reading some of the older stories they appear in.

I've been hearing a lot of talk about the friendship that was struck up between G-man and Dirty King, and how it seemed like a weak plot point, and at first I was inclined to agree. After thinking about it, I changed my mind. I know first hand that when you treat someone special in a restaurant, especially when family is involved, strong bonds can be formed. Just as Rickey thought, extreme, yes, but not impossible. After all, a restaurant can be a great place to network.

Given the fact that Chris is a restaurant veteran, and Poppy is a restaurant fan (for lack of a better term), I still find it amazing how dead on she is with the culture. Having worked in restaurants for thirteen years, I can truly say that she nails it every time. I would read books about these characters even if they were about the everyday nonsense. I would even venture to say that the scenes in the restaurant are some of my favorites.

My only hope, and I admit that it is somewhat selfish, is that someday G-man will be the driving character in this saga. Rickey is great and I see why Liquor and Prime feature him as the main character, but a future story with a strong G-man influence would be awesome. G-man ponders that he may not be where he is without Rickey, but I submit that the reverse may also be true. Prime made me appreciate G-man so much and I can only think that a story with him in the driver's seat is in order. I found it very interesting that while Rickey battled with his attraction and ultimately would not even think of cheating in any way, G-man realized that whoring himself out a bit might help his partner. I know the situations were different, and G-man was never really in a real position to cheat, nor did he have any desire. The fact that he was dedicated enough to do something that he perceived as wrong, even for the greater good, warrants a G-man fueled tale. Not only that, his struggle with his faith surely deserves further investigation.

Above all, I think that these characters can and surely will go on for some time. Mysteries aside, I can see many possible futures for these characters. Honestly, in my opinion, the mystery was the back story. I've found both Liquor and Prime to be well thought out, character driven stories. The back drop that is New Orleans and the restaurant world are far more interesting. Even though I'm dying for a G-man story, I could enjoy a tale about Liquor, the restaurant, as mundane as having to deal with a day that the produce forgot to be ordered. Then again, we know how that would play out. Rickey would freak, and G-man's cool composure would save the day. Unsung heroes keep the world turning. I may be the first member of the G-man fan club.

All I know for sure is that all the Doubting Thomases about Poppy should get over it. We can all appreciate the past, but Prime seals the deal. Further discussion of old work vs. new work is no longer valid, and I, for one, couldn't be happier.

Poppy Z. Brite paints an awesome picture of kitchen life. You'd think she had been cooking in restaurants for 20 or 30 years. (I know her husband has, but hey, my wife is a lawyer and I haven't written the great legal thriller yet.) It's amazing the little details she get right. When I heard there was a sequel to Liquor, I thought 'The restaurant's open. What else can she do - write about the daily specials?' She does write about the daily specials, but the plot twists and turns keep Prime just as exciting as Liquor. I'd love to cook for her someday! (Oh, and the chick who didn't like it because of 'too much foie gras' can bite me. Foie gras rocks.)

The latest installment of the fortunes of Rickey and G-man is a delight. I had never read any of Ms. Brite's work until a friend sent me a copy of Liquor last year, as a cheering-up present when I was down about MY kitchen job. I fell in love with her characters, her dead-on description of kitchen life, and the way that she made larger-than-life thriller elements seem plausible and natural. I've been eagerly awaiting Prime ever since.

It doesn't disappoint. Rickey and G-man are as appealing as ever, and she manages to make me identify with both of them, despite their very different personalities. The dialogue was perfect; I could hear every word in the voices of my colleagues. I especially loved the bit where Rickey was trying to write the letter to Firestone about the consulting job; it's no mean feat for a writer as talented as Ms. Brite to capture the style of a man who isn't comfortable writing at all.

I bought the book right before I started a dinner shift, and didn't start reading it until I was home at around midnight. I found myself staying up and reading it straight through until 4 or 5 AM. Not only couldn't I stop turning pages, but in some spots, I was laughing so hard that I was afraid I'd wake up my husband.

If you're at all interested in the restaurant world, or even if you're not, but just like a well-plotted story with wonderful characters and elements of intrigue, give Prime a look. You won't regret it.

I picked this up thinking it was going to be a mystery story. You could call it one, but it's really more a behind the scenes look at the world of restaurant chefs and cooks. I didn't realize until after I finished "Prime" that it was a sequel to an earlier Brite book, "Liquor." Great job of making the books stand alone, but I plan to read "Liquor" next because I want more Rickey and G-Man. They're wonderful. I give this book my highest stamp of approval: It's Terry-iffic!

I actually liked her previous book, Liquor better, but only because the newness of the characters and landscape was so refreshing (and I had just been on a visit to Covington). What I did really enjoy about this book is Poppy's extensive knowledge and ability to paint a picture of the New Orleans without pretension and with an insider's eye. And of course, the delectable descriptions of food preparation (and mispreparation) would leave any foodie hungry. I really enjoyed the continuation of her loyalty in trying to let us all in on the secrets of what New Orleans is really like beyond the beads and booze. Plus the relationship with G-man and Rickey is really fantastic. It just seems like far too often gay is another character in a book (in addition to the actual physical characters). Their relationship is loving and genuine in an everyday way that is at the same time not everyday at all.

All in all, a definite recommendation!

Oh my god, I LOVE these characters!
This time around, Lenny gets in a spot of trouble with the bitter, aging DA and Liquor gets drawn into the mess.
To seperate Liquor from the scandle, Ricky takes a consulting gig in Dallas. A full blown (but not unbelievable) mystery ensues, with lots of sexual tension.
I loved Ricky's reaction to the differences between Dallas and New Orleans. The dialog was, as expected, dead on. And G-Man.... Anybody who isn't in love with this character has a screw loose!
Though I would have liked to see a bit more of the Lenny character, Prime is an absolute delight!
Another winner from my favorite local fiction writer!

I've always felt that the best writers (or, at least, the most interesting ones to read) are those whose books seem less like books and more like warp zones to other universes, writers who create worlds that live and breathe and seem just as alive as this world we're so familiar with. Some writers are better at this then others: H.P. Lovecraft in particular had it down cold. I've always thought Poppy Z. Brite was good at this kind of world-building: First the whole Missing Miles mythos of "Lost Souls" & "Drawing Blood", and now the New Orleans-Ricky/G-Man saga, begun in "The Value of X" and now continued in Mrs. Brite's latest book, "Prime", a sequel to "Liquor". These books introduce a pantheon of people in everyday New Orleans, but there's still a lot off oddness going on here: As noted comic book writer Harvey Pekar so astutely observed, "Ordinary life is pretty complex stuff!" I can't quite say why I like these books so much, other then the fact that I appreciate the author's ouerve... I mean to say I've never even been to New Orleans and my idea of fine cusine is chicken flavor Rice-a-Roni. Yet still, the contents of these works never fails to fascinate me, but then again it's human nature to take an interest in topics one knows nothing about... Often times such things seem so exotic to us.
I liked "Liquor" very much, but I'd have to say that "Prime" is a vast improvement. "Liquor" felt very stripped down and streamlined, and at certain places slightly awkward to me: Of course this was understandable as Brite was trying something new and thus trying to get comfortable (I feel the same way about "Lost Souls", which seems a little less assured then "Drawing Blood", probably my favorite Poppy Z. Brite book). One thing I always enjoyed about Mrs. Brite's books was the nearly poetic descriptions of even the most banal things, her eye for extracting the magic from the ordinary. I didn't get that feeling so much in "Liquor", but I got a lot of it in "Prime", which abounds with some really great descriptions (my favorite being the images we get at Saffron with it's industrial spider webs) and metaphors (my favorite also taking place at Saffron: "They studied the menu with the absorption of Biblical scholars coming upon some previously unknown Gnostic text"). I guess what I'm trying to say here is that where "Liquor" merely whistled, "Prime" sings: It's obvious from reading this book that the writer has a love for words (any writer who uses words like "pusillanimous pustule" clearly does) and it's good to see more of this in "Prime". I have no time for books that are mostly just dialogue (unless it's really good dialogue) and little description: Words are to writers what paint is to the artist, after all. "Prime" is also perhaps Brite's most tightly plotted book since "Drawing Blood", and maybe that's why it's only 283 pages: It seems less rambling then some of her other books, though I wouldn't have minded if it had been a little longer. Also I was glad to see there were barely any typos at all, which means that the editor or whoever was doing their job (nothing's more distracting then typos, but that's nit-picking).
Regarding G-Man and Rickey: I still prefer Rickey of the two, though G-Man is starting to grow on me a little. Rickey still strikes me as the main character. Perhaps this is due to the fact that he was a more dominant personality, or maybe just because the plots of both books revolve around him: He's the one who sets up the restaurant in "Liquor", and in "Prime" he gets most of the page time. G-Man has a few individual scenes, but it still seems more like Rickey's story (then again, I felt that "Value of X" was G-Man's story, at least until Rickey went to the CIA). Though many writers put bits of themselves into their characters I imagine that Rickey is the one most like the author in this case.... Certainly Rickey's thoughts that "He was happy to leave the written word behind" is something that many writers have felt at one point in their life.
As for the supporting cast: Lenny's back, and he's still a favorite of mine: Probably one of my favorite characters that Brite's written, actually (when I read books I sometimes mentally cast actors in parts... I imagine Lenny to look like a hybrid of Emeril and Saul Rubinek). The scene where Lenny and Ricky "fight" is probably the comic highlight of the book. Lenny is a little less prominent in this book then he was in "Liquor", but it's good he's still around. Oscar De La Cerda, a minor character in the first one, takes on a bigger role here, and he's got some good lines, like when he says he's the "Bermuda Triangle of pens" (I should say here that the dialogue is quite witty in this book). Woofer is an good addition and hopefully he'll do more in future novels (I always have a soft spot for hyper intellectuals who manage to sprinkle their conversations with words like "ecdysiasts"). Dirty King, the rap mogul, was another cool new character. The "Liquor" crew (Terrance, Tanker, and two new additions, Marquis and Shade... I like Marquis the best of `em) don't have as much to do. A few characters from "Liquor" make small guest spots: the humorous Sid Scwartz, and NuShawn, for example, and G-Man's parents make an appearance after being MIA in "Liquor" (I like Elmer... Mary Rose, not so much). Ricky's mom doesn't appear in this one, nor do a few other prominent "Liquor" characters, such as Anthony Bonvillano.
As for the villains: Well, I feel that "bad guys" have never really been one of Mrs. Brite's strengths (of course, the line between "good" and "bad" in her books has always been a little fuzzy as it is). It just seems that the protagonists are inevitably more interesting, and with the exception of maybe Christian in "Lost Souls" and the serial killers in "Exquisite Corpse", her villains have never been very vivid (unless you're one of those old schoolers who think that Zillah is a good example of a well-fleshed out antagonist). "Liquor" suffered this same problem: Mike Mouton practically could have been wearing a t-shirt with the words "I'm the bad guy" on it, and everything about his character screamed "antagonist": His unattractiveness, his temper, his drug habit, and so on. He was there to add a bit of excitement to the story but he seemed more like a device then a character: He was very sketchy and didn't feel fully-formed (I wonder is Mrs. Brite feels the same way: Woofer's thoughts on the book "Dark Kitchen", for example, in which the writer of that book makes Rickey sound like a super hero while Mouton is just a "word sketch"). Fortunately, the foes in "Prime" are a little more solid. Frank Firestone is the mysterious Texas businessman with many secrets, Placide Treat is funny (and ultimately sad) as the flamboyant DA, but the real standout is the return of Coop Stark from "The Value of X". He was one of the more interesting characters in that book and I was glad to see him back (it also appears that he lost most of the creepy pedophile tendencies he seemed to harbor in that one). Coop is a very flawed character, and perhaps the most tragic of Brite's antagonists. At least Rickey feels some emotion towards him, unlike Mouton, who he just despised (also, Coop has a back story, so he seems a bit more flesh and blood). This adds a lot of drama to the story.
The only real minus I could find was, once again like in "Liquor" there is a dearth of interesting female characters. This doesn't necessarily make a book bad (let's face it, William S. Burroughs' literary output pretty much focused on just the male gender), but it is discouraging to see such a small female presence in a large cast that is otherwise young and old, black and white, straight and gay. This time we get Tanker's girlfriend Mo (who doesn't even get a line of dialogue), G-Man's mother Mary Rose, Terabitha Evans (who only has 2 pages of screen time), Dirty King's mother, Sugar, Teresa Trepagnier, and a variety of nameless hostesses, waitresses, and what not, but most of the above are just bit players and none of them really stand out, except for Sugar and the lesbian cop Linda Getty, one of the more interesting bit characters from "Crow: The Lazarus Heart" (too bad she only gets a small appearance here). Even Dr. Brite doesn't show up (yeah, I know, the gender of Dr. Brite isn't a given, but Dr. Brite's described as a woman by both Ricky, G-Man and the Narrator in "Liquor", so in my mind, she's a woman). Let's just say I don't think Eddy from "Drawing Blood" has to worry about being dethroned as Brite's most interesting female character anytime soon. But this is just a minor complaint.
I really need to check out "The Confederacy of Dunces" one day. Usually when an artist/musician/writer name checks another work as inspiration I go out of my way to investigate that inspiration, but I haven't got around to reading that particular one yet.

A while ago Poppy Z Brite moved away from goth/horror and on to just damned good storytelling. For this, the only thing to say is THANK YOU.

Prime follows Liquor and continues the story of Rickey and G-man. The characters are so real that you'll wish you could be friends with them (or in the case of one or two of them, maybe you'll want punch them in the face). Even minor characters and background people have distinct personalities and "voices" that add layers and depth and make even the smallest, shortest scenes very alive. You may find yourself remembering it later and realise you're unsure if you're remembering something you read, saw on television, or possibly overheard.

A word of warning, however. If you're easily influenced, you might find yourself getting hungry reading the descriptions of the foods cooked and served. It was almost enough to make me give up my vegetarian ways.

Prime is the second in a series of books revolving around the lives of two young chefs who through talent, determination, and serendipity become able to realise their dream of opening a resturaunt in their hometown of New Orleans. The resturant, called Liqour, opened to rave critical review after a series of roadblocks and frustruations in the first book of the same name. Prime picks up two years after Liquor - the book - ends. The two chefs, Rickey and G-man, have enjoyed two years of success and are slowly finding themselves immersed in a new series of adventures - both hopeful and disconcerting.

Prime, like Liqour, is an Epicurians wet dream. For those who love to indulge in the sensory delights of wonderful food, the numerous descriptions of meals made and eaten throughout the book will whet the appitite and cause the stomach to sit up and beg. One wonderful thing about this book is the Poppy Z. Brite does not underestimate the readers sense of smell, or their sense of taste. Granted - my experience reading liturature that revolves so heavily around eating, the life of resturaunteurs, and "Foodies" is limited to these two books, but I would like to assume that another author would be hard-pressed to come as close to setting such splendid meals in front of us with words, as Brite does. I have been reading Mrs. Brite's work for twelve years now, and that is the very reason that I have been a faithful reader since day one: regardless of what emotion, idea, or sensation she is trying to get across, she has the knack of writing it in the most intoxicating, convincing way.

But Prime's true strength, as far as I am concerned, is the characters, and the characters in this series have more depth to them than any she has created before. It was such a pleasure to come into Ricky and G-man's world once more, as well as Lenny Deuveteax's - (one of my all time favorite characters from any series - Lenny's personality is multi-layered and, - despite his sneakiness, tough exterior, and distrust of almost everyone around him - he is great fun and easy to love.)I was also tickled to see Linda Getty - a charchter from Brite's Crow: The Lazerus Heart, make a cameo. Prime is wonderful because the characters and their personalities are so visceral, their reactions so utterly human, that the reader needs expend no effort at all immersing themselves in their world.

I highly reccomend this book, as well as Liqour. If you are a fan of Poppy's earlier novels (Lost Souls, Drawing Blood, and Exquisite Corpse), rush to pick these up, for she has evolved her voice into something much better. With this series of books, we get to see Poppy finally comming into her own.

I absolutely loved Prime! Rickey and G-Man are two of the most interesting characters I've read in fiction in a long time. It was really hard for me to put this book down. My only complaint is that there wasn't more of it! I am going to reread it again this weekend. I highly recommend Prime, as well as the other two G-Man and Rickey novels; Liquor, and The Value of X.