bang BANG: A Novel [Hardcover]

Lynn Hoffman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 2007

Paula Sherman embarks upon a one-woman quest to change America, ultimately becoming national hero and villain, enforcer and outlaw, lover and leader, in this provocative, darkly exciting tale. When a bungled armed robbery gets Paula's friend killed right in front of her, she finds herself propelled to national attention as her words and image are stolen and used in a pro-handgun election campaign. Mousy little Paula is no longer just an overworked waitress with a beautiful singing voice—she has become a symbol for the violence that she detests. The pro-gun propaganda gives her an idea that will transform her, redeem her name and her image, and change the way an entire country talks about handgun violence.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

*Starred Review* When her close friend is shot in the street, the vehemently antigun Paula Sherman has no idea what she's in store for. Interviewed by a reporter at the scene, Paula later discovers that her grief-stricken words, taken out of context, are being used by a shady senator and the gun industry to promote the pro-firearm agenda. Suddenly finding herself the unwitting--and very public--proponent of a political stance she abhors, Paula embarks on a decidedly offbeat one-woman vigilante crusade to bring the gun trade to its knees, a crusade that involves an air pistol and an awful lot of running around (which is OK, because Paula, a waitress whose singing voice has yet to propel her to stardom, could stand to lose a few pounds). Written in the present tense, to give the story additional power, the book is filled with anger and raw urgency. The characters are tough and believable, and the dialogue positively sings. In many ways, it's the literary equivalent of a Tarantino movie: edgy, streetwise, and a little arrogant (don't expect a balanced look at the subject of gun control), with a strong and determined female protagonist. Brilliant might be too big a word for this novel but not by much. David Pitt
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review

"Thoroughly charming and sure to enrage the NRA."  —Kirkus Reviews

"A stunning accomplishment, a laugh-out-loud, cry-out-loud, terrifying, original and wonderful novel."  —J. R. Lankford, author, The Jesus Thief

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 176 pages
• Publisher: Kunati Inc.; First Edition edition (April 1, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1601640005
• ISBN-13: 978-1601640000
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,869,149 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

32 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Boys and their stupid little bang bangs", July 31, 2007

By 

Dennis Littrell (SoCal) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: bang BANG: A Novel (Hardcover)

This is a novel that may have once been a screenplay. Or it was begun as a screenplay and then finished as a novel. Or perhaps it is a novel that will someday become a screenplay. The film critic Pauline Kael entitled one of her collections, "Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang"; and I am told that in Japan "Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang" or simply "kkbb" refers to an American action film. In fact, Lynn Hoffman told me this.

Hoffman does not narrate so much as report as from a seeing eye. "I Am a Camera" by John Van Druten (by way of Christopher Isherwood's "Goodbye to Berlin") comes to mind. Hoffman actually uses the words "fade to black" or something similar to end some of the scenes. He guides the reader's eyes as a camera would. The scenes are intensely seen, the author describing minute details such as thin french fries shaped into a bird's nest on a diner's plate. In "Mummerland, an Urban Village Theme Park," a dancing woman has "a row of studs implanted above each eyebrow. The studs have little diamonds backed with light emitting diodes and the refractions of their light seem to blink like a pair of eyes as she pauses, swings, pauses." The scenes are often more atmospheric than plot-related. The scene in which Paula is masturbating could have been left out or included as a director might see fit. The story would not be affected. This is a novel, written mostly in the present tense, crying out to be a film.

Hoffman's style is thick with wordplay, so much so that it demands a lot on the part of the reader. At first I found it something close to annoying. I had to get up to speed, so to speak. Here are some examples:

A 16-year-old got roughed up in a fight at a playground. A few minutes later he has a .22 caliber pistol. He demands that a friend drive him back to the playground. When the friend doesn't, he fires a shot, "originally intended for playground use," missing his friend but hitting a little girl in the side and killing her. The mourners are "blinded silent" by the tragedy. (pp. 93-94) And later a man chasing Paula is "blindsided" by her friend Daniel. (p. 101)

Daniel is Paula's first "realreal lover." (p. 96)

A van is "looking for a spot where the iron law of parking says that none can be." (p. 104)

A fruit bowl shaped like an airplane is "a fruited plane." (p. 131)

Dr. Judith Sills has a voice that is "liquid velvet decorated with bugle beads." She has "she-class" and "sounds like sex in high places, like wisdom all dressed up for a party." (p. 157)

Clearly there can be no question of the brilliance of Hoffman's prose. Every sentence is the result of deep consideration or clear inspiration. He makes the words dance as they caress our skin, invade our nostrils or perhaps offend or delight our eyes and ears. We can sense his desire to hook the reader up to a virtual reality machine so that our entire sensual experience can become as immediate as the computer screen in front of my eyes. And he is a sharp social critic, witness "The Nick Blaylock Show" (pp. 90-91) in which he uses a Brit talk show host to make his observations, or the satirical excerpt from the "New York Review of Literature" on page 152.

There are a couple of things however that detract from this novel as a work of art. One, it is relentlessly didactic in the sense that Hoffman has a message, a message that the National Rifle Association will not like. In the novel there is no NRA--were the publishers afraid of being sued? But there is a UGA--United Gun Association. It will do just as well. Paula Sherman, Hoffman's 24-year-old, red-haired heroine, is a waitperson at a Philadelphia restaurant who sees her best friend Tom shot to death before her eyes. It is a particularly traumatic experience for her since she loved him dearly and was roughed up herself, and because something bizarre happens afterward. Paula is quoted out of context so that it appears that she said in an interview, "It wasn't the gun, it was that man." This misstatement is taken up by gun advertisers and used in ads in gun magazines. It even makes the six o'clock news. Paula is horrified that the intent of her words should be so twisted and the death of her friend used to sell more guns and that her name should be associated with the travesty.

Two, the story unfolds as a fantasy of wish fulfillment. The easy way the citizens of these United States rally to the support of Paula's crusade and the lack of effective counterattack by the UGA defies credulity. In the real world, alas, most Americans are too massaged by Big Macs and TV screens to get up and do anything, while the NRA would rally the troops and flood the media and the halls of Congress with enough propaganda to delight the ghost of Goebbels. And the idea that most cops would side with Paula and not the UGA is dubious. Hoffman "explains" this notion by telling us that the UGA favored the legalization of an armor-piercing, cop-killing bullet. I still don't buy it. Cops love their guns, believe me. If you Google the words "police and the NRA" up will come many links that make it clear that the NRA and the police are part of a mutual admiration society. True, the police opposed the NRA's support of the infamous Teflon-coated bullet that could pierce police armor, but that is practically the only major bone of contention between them.

Nevertheless, I hope this book is made into a movie and seen by millions. And I hope Paula Sherman becomes an American heroine, and I hope Lynn Hoffman gets to write the screenplay.

25 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Sharp and fast paced, August 17, 2007

By 

Michael J Edelman (Huntington Woods, MI USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: bang BANG: A Novel (Hardcover)

Here's something you don't see everyday- a polemical novel that's not just readable, but well written. Author Hoffman has penned a snappy little novel that moves along quickly and gets to the point. Stylistically, other reviewers have likened it to a script or perhaps a movie treatment, but to me it more closely resembles the sort of hip style you see in modern novels in the style of a Douglas Coupland, tempered by a bit of the old Mickey Spillane pulp style. Whatever it is, it seems to work for Hoffman.

The story itself is yet another recasting of Aristophanes' Lysistrata, this time with the women banding together to deny their men access to the conjugal bed unless they give up their firearms. Now every novel requires some suspension of disbelief, and how well this story works for you depends in large amount how sympathetic you are to the author's beliefs about guns and violence, and how much you know or don't know about the gun debate- for example, about 18 percent of women in America own guns, too, and that number is growing. I'm not sure that disarming the men alone is what the book's heroine has in mind.

But if you are among those who are sympathetic to Hoffman's anti-gun views, I think you'll enjoy this book. It's a quick read, the pace never drags, and the author does get off a few very witty lines.

20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Lynn Hoffman Adds Another Feather to his Toque, September 20, 2007

By 

Grady Harp (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: bang BANG: A Novel (Hardcover)

Lynn Hoffman, a highly regarded food and drink writer from Philadelphia, tops his 1997 fiction debut of 'The Bachelor's Cat' with a fully mature novel 'bang BANG', a book so well conceived and stylishly written that it places Hoffman in the realm of top American writers. And while many readers may know him form his books on food, beer, and wine (terrific tomes of culinary skill admixed with humor and wit), few will be prepared for the impact of this superb new work.

Paula Sherman is a waitperson in a stylish restaurant Odetta, a wannabe singer simple girl whose best friend Tom is killed as she watches by a foolish gunman with little apparent reason for the deed. On the scene a reporter quotes the distraught Paula's comment 'It wasn't the gun, it's that man', a slogan picked up quickly and twisted by a senator who is backed by the UGA (United Gun Association) to campaign against gun control. Paula's life changes abruptly as she emerges into a woman with a mission: she manages to surface from an ordinary life as a vigilante who targets the cars bearing UGA decals, shattering windshields as her gesture against the wasted death of her friend Tom. In time Paula meets Daniel, a man she can actually love, and with his support she gains courage an influence that rapidly spreads across the country in an anti-gun movement.

One character who adds immensely to the story is constant Odetta gourmet diner Emanuel Cardoso (and his frequent dinner companion, the short of stature Lichtmann), who witnesses Paula's nighttime derring-dos and who eventually is Paula's elected source for political payoff. By introducing Cardoso, Huffman allows space for some wonderful writing about food and the culinary arts as well as some light comedy and compassion: pages from the observing Cardoso's diary are sprinkled through the pages of the novel: they are a pleasure all to themselves!

The story is a very powerful anti-gun statement, but fine as that theme may be it has rarely been accompanied by the extraordinary skill of a writer as creative and gifted as Lynn Hoffman. Hoffman has a way with words that makes the reader pause in this propulsive narrative to simply bask in the pleasure of well-crafted phrases. "Our park bench lets us see past Rodin's fame-slain Thinker, sucking his knuckles at the entrance to the Rodin Museum. In the distance, in the thin, late winter sunshine, we observe a swaying dark blob that widens and narrows without changing height. The blob becomes a group of six skaters, telephotically compressed. The widening is the centrifugal swaying as the saw their way up the street....". Such is only a brief example of how Hoffman paints his scenery for the story that is so keenly and succinctly addressed.

'bang BANG' is one of those little treasures of a book that rewards on every level and it most assuredly confirms the stature of an important American writer. Highly recommended for a very wide reading audience. Grady Harp, September 07