Customer Reviews

bang BANG: A Novel

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

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.

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.

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

I've often suspected that sexual inadequacy or frustration had something to do with all the shooting that we're seeing today. At last, along comes heroine Paula Sherman and author Lynn Hoffman to make the connection and tell us what to do about it. When Paula gets the women of America to swear off having sex with men who have guns, some serious value choices set in.

As a doctor who's seen the cost of uncontrolled gun ownership in the hosptial where I work, I approached this novel with a certain grim intensity. I expected to find a justification for my anger at all the gun sellers and their pet politicians. Instead, what I found was a surprising, funny, outlandish novel with a little dash of sex and food thrown in.

This is a book that I couldn't put down. There's a strong woman as the hero and some unforgettable characters. I could see the scenes as I read-altogether a great read that I'll be suggesting to my book club.

Philadelphia-based food writer Lynn Hoffman is one of our unsung literary treasures. He's an expert at writing clear, concise, snappy prose which will linger in your memory like some excellent sauvignon blanc wine you had at dinner. He's such an expert that I am surprised that he's had to rely upon a small independent press to have his latest novel, "bang Bang" published. It is unquestionably one of the most intriguing works of fiction published this year that I've stumbled upon; a work written by someone who should be regarded as among our finest American writers working now in any genre, period. It is also quite hilarious, a surefooted comic satire aimed right at the heart of NRA and its legion of diehard supporters intent on keeping our country awash in firearms. "bang Bang" offers a vivid literary portrait of modern Philadelphia that could have been written by the likes of Raymond Chandler or Elmore Leonard. Hoffman is a keen observer of human nature, using his prose as much as a film cameraman or photographer might use a camera and lens, carefully recording every important detail in a given scene. He also offers in Paula Sherman, a bright, tenacious heroine for whom the reader will be rooting for as she embarks upon her campaign to bring some sanity to the NRA and its leadership (I will be rooting for Hoffman too once this fine little gem of a novel captures the attention of the major New York City-based publishers; his future books deserve their serious consideration for publication.).

Take Paula, a ordinary waitress in a urban bistro. She has that urban funk coming from just making ends meet in a big city, slogging through the days, directionless. Tom, a best friend, is murdered at her side during a mugging. A politician violates Paula's grief. Thus, the stage is set for Paula's transformation. Customer, neighbor, food critic, voyeur, Manny Cardosa learns her secret, shedding his chrysalis as she emerges from hers.

Hoffman writes in a direct descriptive style that bespeaks an educated man. Listen to Manny Cardosa's introduction: "My name is Emanual Cardosa and I have become, thanks to a set of circumstances and predilections too bizarre to mention, a man whose ruling passions and personal madness have been stripped away." Hoffman's subtle urbane humor permeates the story. No raucous outbursts of laughter while reading this book, but plenty of sly knowing smiles and snickering laughs, as Paula takes on the gun lobby; driving them to desparation while supporting Margaret Mead's observation: "Never believe that a few caring people can't change the world. For, indeed, that's all who ever have."

Why 4 stars not 5? The story, the plot, the concept, the humor all deserve 5 stars. However, the reader, at least this reader, was distracted by some of the passages. From time to time, Hoffman engages in prose that seems self-indulgent; with too frequent and detailed descriptions of scenes and meals that add little to the story.

But don't let that keep you from reading the book, just do as I did and skim those passages! Of course, you may find those same paragraphs delicious and go back for seconds. Its all about personal taste, bang Bang is a delicious entree but the over seasoned over cooked sides occassionally distract from the main course.

In Lynn Hoffman's fabulous Bang BANG, what you see is literally what you get. Hoffman writes in such an immediate, descriptive style, scene after scene comes alive in the theatre of your mind. It's like watching through the lens of some 16 megapixel digital camera as it clicks off four frames a second. The cast of characters is special. I love Paula - who wouldn't - but the rest are wonderfully vivid too. Here's Manny Cardoso introducing himself: "...I have become, thanks to a set of circumstances and predilections too bizarre to mention, a man whose ruling passions and personal madness have been stripped away. With the core of my craziness gone, a great deal else is gone too. I find myself almost completely without lusts and cravings. It would not be too much to say that I barely have preferences. I have a few consistencies, almost enough to give me what may be thought of as a personality, but my most compelling characteristic right now is my almost total emptiness a blankness that's not like the desolation of winter but closer to the expectant vacancy of early spring." Throw in Harvey Lichtman, the "Urban Ranger", assistant counsel to the city council whose hobby is malicious gossip and low stakes blackmail Caterer Connie Battaglia, "...lean and spare, long black hair on skinny shoulders, grace in her spidery arms." and Lawyer Daniel Farber, admiring Paula from a distance, and you have the ingredients for a rather special experience. Which brings us to the food. Three words: off the planet. Hoffman's encyclopedic knowledge and appreciation of food and its accompaniments shines so brightly the rest just had to be extra special too, or be eclipsed. Fortunately for all of us, it is. Bang BANG is a winner. Be sure not to miss it. Art Tirrell, author of 'The Secret Ever Keeps' ISBN 1601640048.

One of the most briliant novels in the last few years. A tragic story interspersed with lots of humor, frizzy copy and nimble dialogs. A must-read.

Everybody talks about guns, the right and the wrong about having them, but nobody does anything about it. (So to speak.) Nobody except this author. His ingenious novel tells how one woman deals with guns. And the way she deals with it carries you through the pages with the greatest of ease. I can imagine novelists saying, "Why didn't I think of that?" Five shots. I mean 5 stars.

I received my copy of bang Bang today and eargerly popped it open. The prologue blew me away. I wanted to scream "Where did this guy learn to write like that?" but can anyone learn that rhythm and poetry that makes truly good prose a treat to read?

Couldn't wait to write this partial review just because the writing was so fine. Without a doubt the story conveyed by this fine writing is as good. Can't wait to dig into the book further. Raymond Chandler is going to have to wait. I'll finish bang Bang first.