25 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The best of Goodis, May 13, 1998
This review is from: Street of No Return (Paperback)
David Goodis is an aquired taste, no question. To appreciate him, it helps to have a sympathetic ear for the downtrodden, the lost and desperate, the tragic and the downright masochistic. If you look for an upbeat mood in your stories, don't come to these mean Philadelphia streets, where Goodis' winos and criminals live. Go elsewhere for your happiness pill, here lies misery and alcohol and lost dreams. Now, if you're still with me, then you can be sure that "Street of No Return" is Goddis' finest work, and well worth the search required to find a copy (I recommend the search services listed in the back of "The Armchair Detective"). The story concerns a down-and-outer who leaves his hobo buddies one night in search of liquor, takes us on a journey through his once-promising life and subsequent fall, his brutalization at the hands of the most god-awful band of scarred, obese, sadistic and cold-hearted criminals you could ever hope not to meet, in the coldest and bleakest of landscapes that ever came out of a downtrodden, brilliant mind. 75 pages later he returns to his buddies, his life as depressing and hopeless as ever, and it's just where he wants to be. Not a care. Not a care in the world. This character, this writer, just doesn't give a damn. David Goodis' writing is instantly recognizable, and that is the mark of genius -- when you write like absolutely no one else. Highly recommended.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Fate pulls no punches., October 21, 2008
Street of No Return by David Goodis is the story of Gene Lindell, once an up and coming crooner with the potential to be another Frank Sinatra. But that was seven long years ago. Now he's a Skid Row derelict known only as Whitey. A pathetic shell of a man who has no hope, no future and only one desire....to find that next drink.
The narrative to this ugly and depressing tale takes place over the course of a single night, a night that starts off no different from any other. But then something out of the ordinary happens. Whitey sees a man. It's someone he recognizes from his previous life. So he starts following the man and it's then the reader finds out how Whitey lost everything.
This book is brilliant in places. It starts off great as we learn how Whitey began life as an orphan, rose to near stardom, met a lovely woman he could not have and rapidly saw his life destroyed. The final chapter is also quite good in that it's unapologetically downbeat, in keeping with the novel's overall tone.
But other parts of the narrative are less compelling. For example, there's a subplot that revolves around a Puerto Rican "race riot". The dialogue written by Goodis for the Puerto Rican characters has the effect of making them all sound exactly like Tonto.
Bottom line: A very uneven effort. Brilliant in places but seriously flawed. Recommended to diehard David Goodis fans only.
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