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18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Amazing, funny, moving, literate--and depicts such graphic sadism in a few places I almost quit reading (4.5 stars), March 17, 2010
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I loved so much about this novel--its wonderful and witty narrative voice, the laugh-out-loud humor, the many entertaining asides about writers and writing, and perhaps most of all, its heart. The main character is a likable hack who pens pulp fiction and kids' term papers while dreaming about publishing successful novels under his own name. His chance at fame (if not acclaim) comes with an invitation to tell the tale of the infamous, soon-to-be-executed Photo Killer.
With one of his cute blond teenage tutorees as business manager--the totally delightful, razor-witted Claire--our hero takes the challenge and steps right into it: an apparent set-up where he gets framed. Three incredibly grisly murders committed in the unmistakable style of his serial murderer ensue. That's where I almost couldn't keep reading. Gordon is such a powerful writer that he describes this mutilation in a way most genre writers don't. The victims are all women the protagonist has just interviewed, and their deaths seem too nauseatingly close and real, unlike the deaths in so much mystery fiction. In a story that had been primarily light-hearted with funny references to porn and S & M before this point, it was a shocking change of tone for me and made some of the later sexist remarks and sexual jokes seem off-key.
The book IS a wonderfully original blend of genres, which was both a major delight and also perhaps the source of this occasional incongruity. For the most part I simply enjoyed what the author was doing and how beautifully he pulled it off, crafting a novel that's alternately hilarious, moving, horrible, suspenseful, trashy, literary, thought-provoking, self-reflective, engrossing, and an ode to storytelling all in one job. The only `misteps' came with a few implausibilities in the mystery-solving and the aforementioned tension between parody and reality. Those aspects may well have been intentional since so many mysteries ARE in fact riddled with implausibility, and murder really IS horrible and sickening rather than entertaining and light. This was a book that made me laugh and think and feel and care, even more than I wanted to at times. I'm ready for the next installment!
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15 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent!, February 25, 2010
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Harry Bloch finds himself far from his dreams, single and living with his mother in a two bedroom apartment in Queens. Lover of books and literature, Harry pens serial novels, sci fi, porn, pulp fiction and vampires, as well as penning an advice column for Raunchy magazine. Barely making ends meet, he is invited to co-write the memoirs of a vicious serial killer on Death Row. The catch is that he must meet and greet in the Biblical fashion some of the Death row groupies who have written to the inmate. As these women wind up murdered in exactly in the same brutal manner as the crimes the inmate was convicted of, Harry becomes the prime suspect. Soon he finds his quiet life turned upside down as he realizes he is more of a pawn than a partner. Aided by a cast of quirky characters and his own writings, he learns the truth about the killings and himself.
This was a great read. The cast of characters, from the precocious teen to the stripper sister of one of the murder victims, are deftly handled. Most of the characters are out of central casting,( the gruff FBI investigator, the chain smoking lawyer, the creepy,handsome convict and the true believer legal intern) would be clownish in less capable hands. Bloch is an engaging voice, wry and cynical. A wistful underachiever, he rises to the challenge when his life and the lives of the ones he loves (and some he barely knows) are threatened.
Ultimately this novel is more about acceptance than finding oneself. The wealthy teen "orphan with parents" drops her pseudo sophistication when the bullets start flying and realizes she is just a kid. The bad girl stripper realizes that she really is a good girl after all. And Harry comes to peace with who he is because the bottom line is people would much rather read the tabloids than the Times and there's nothing wrong with that.
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10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
darkly amusing, cynical, and very readable, March 4, 2010
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It's cliche to talk about a book you just can't put down, but i guess even that's not quite right here. What happened to me with this book was that i picked it up to skim the first few pages and ended up reading the first hundred.
The story itself is well done, with a good dash of suspense, but nothing so riveting that you'd skip a meal intentionally rather than set the book aside for an hour. What gets you is the flow of the story; there are no ebbs, no peaks and troughs, no place where you need to put the book aside to catch your breath, or want to put the book aside because it's gotten temporarily dull. It is, simply, a very well-paced book, which is a staggering achievement for a first-time novelist.
Our narrator is an author of cheap genre novels and porn columns, keenly aware of his own mediocrity and only occasionally mourning the brilliant writing career he once planned. He gets an offer to write the memoirs of a serial killer on death row, and takes it as an opportunity for name recognition and, of course, money. Inevitably, he's roped into a murder-mystery with his motley band of sidekicks.
The big let-down in this novel is that the mystery is solved not through any real detective work but rather a series of genius insights from a man repeatedly demonstrated to be well short of clever. As a reader, i always feel cheated by such turns. But i wasn't able to figure out who the antagonist was before the reveal, so the author gets props for that.
Only for a small chunk near the end of the book does the author engage in the sort of self-absorbed maudlin melodrama to which authors writing about authors are prone. You can see it coming and skim those paragraphs if you want. There are several other patches of introspection and philosophizing throughout the book, but those are actually part of the story and compelling.
Thrown into this book for reasons not entirely clear are chapters from the supposed books the protagonist as written. They're amusing, often downright corny, and i suppose intended to give us a sense of the kind of garbage the character bangs out so he can pay the rent. They do little to advance the plot, but i think the book would be worse off without them.
(A note: for any potential reader worried about this novel being smutty, fear not. The most graphic sexual scenes are brief and tame. There's more allusion to the protagonists porn-writing career than actual sexual content.)
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