Nobody Move: A Novel (Hardcover)

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. National Book Award–winner Johnson (Tree of Smoke) goes lean and mean in this slick noir, originally serialized in Playboy last summer. Jimmy Luntz, a chain-smoking, fast-talking addictive gambler, is in the hole several grand to underworld bad dude Juarez, and he knows his kneecaps have a date with a tire iron when enforcer Gambol nabs him in Bakersfield, Calif. But perennial loser Jimmy gets a lucky break when he escapes, having shot Gambol in the leg and taken off with Gambol's cash-fat wallet. Soon enough, he meets alcoholic vixen Anita Desilvera. She's barreling toward oblivion, having been set up by her prosecutor husband and a corrupt judge in a $2.3 million swindle. As Jimmy and Anita hide out and plan a caper to get the millions, Gambol and Juarez track down Jimmy and learn of the big money at stake. Fates collide in the brutal last act, and, naturally, not everyone makes it out alive. With its crackling dialogue and mercilessly bleak worldview, this stark and darkly funny chronicle of a four-way race to the bottom is a testament to Johnson's sublime sympathy for lowlifes. (May)
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From The New Yorker

So noir it’s almost pitch-black, this follow-up to Johnson’s National Book Award-winning “Tree of Smoke” concerns a lovable loser named Luntz—barbershop-chorus member, Hawaiian-shirt wearer, and inveterate gambler—who is in debt to an underworld bad guy. “My idea of a health trip is switching to menthols and getting a tan,” he tells Anita Desilvera, a beautiful Native American woman whom he beds after a boozy night out, and who has bad guys of her own to escape. Against a desolate Western background of shantytowns and trailer parks, the pair’s story plays out largely according to the genre’s dictates, with wisecrack-laden dialogue and evenly dispersed cliffhangers that are a legacy of the work’s genesis as a serialization in Playboy. But there are also moments of arresting lyrical beauty—a river’s swollen surface under a crescent moon “resembled the unquiet belly of a living thing you could step onto and walk across.”
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Product Details

• Hardcover: 208 pages
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux; First Edition, First Printing edition (April 28, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0374222908
• ISBN-13: 978-0374222901
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (46 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #12,469 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Style, Style, Style, June 5, 2009

By	Mark Stevens (Denver) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Taut and spare, "Nobody Move" is a light year from the depth and complexity of "Tree of Smoke." Hats off to the versatility--one book like Joseph Conrad combined with Charles Dickens, the next out of the shoot like Elmore Leonard mashed up with Dashiell Hammett. On its own, "Nobody Move" is a pleasure if you like deciphering information from oblique dialogue and spare narrative. Your hand will not be held in terms of figuring out who's scamming whom. It's quirky and smart, maybe a bit of "Pulp Fiction" on paper.

"Nobody Move" is a thicket of f-bombs, tangled sheets, motels, bars, cigarettes, lipstick, pay phones, two Cadillacs, .357 Magnums, shotguns, duffel bags and pages and pages of that highly-polished, clipped dialogue that is ready for a screenplay and has precious little to do with the way people really talk. A direct answer is rare.

Recommended for fans of Denis Johnson and this particular hard-boiled genre. Not recommended for those looking for a meaty, rich story. The tension is minimal and the story is over in a minute.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Crime Fiction at it's Very Best, May 18, 2009

By	Ophella Paige (Reno, Nevada) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Nobody Move (Audio CD)

(What's this?)

Jimmy Luntz is sort of an antihero who seems to do everything wrong and have it turn out, well wrong. He sings in a barbershop quartet, is with his group in Bakersfield when he's confronted by a thug named Gambol who works for a bookie named Juarez. Seems like Jimmy has a gamboling problem, seems he has a problem paying on time too and Gambol is about to take Jimmy on that ride nobody wants to go on.

However, Jimmy gets lucky, shoots Gambol in the leg (which only made him mad), steals his Cadillac and heads for the hills, but before he gets there he meets hard drinking, Native American Anita who is an easy lay once she hits the hooch. This is good for mostly unlucky Jimmy, cuz no way would he ever get a babe like Anita in the sack otherwise.

Also, Anita is in big trouble. Seems her hubby stole two point three million dollars and framed Anita for the crime. She wants the money and what's more she wants to get even. She wants hubby and the crooked judge who sentenced her dead.

Meanwhile Gambol teams up with his boss's ex and is starting to fall for her, but that doesn't mean he doesn't still want Jimmy six feet under for shooting him and stealing his car. And there's a whole bunch more in this wacky novel. This is crime fiction at it's very best.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars It's just not that good, July 30, 2009

By	robwi "Rob" (Boston) - See all my reviews

Three stars, not fewer because it's short. If you loved the mumbling ending to "No Country for Old Men", you may appreciate this novel. Very heavily overhyped. Skip it, and read The Tourist by Olen Steinhauer instead.