The Delivery Man: A Novel (Paperback)

~ Joe McGinniss Jr. (Author)
Key Phrases: double down, cell rings, New York, Hard Rock, Green Valley (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Sex, lies, crushed dreams and slot machines are paramount in McGinniss's flashy, fast-moving debut. Chase is a struggling artist who couldn't hack NYU and moves back to Vegas, where he is reunited with his adolescent flame, Michele. After being fired from his teaching job for beating up a student, Chase plans to hook up with his girlfriend, Julia, in California, but instead spends his summer as a chauffeur for Michele's call-girl business. Michele has plans for herself (buying a house, getting an advanced degree in women's studies), but for the time being is running the call-girl service out of a suite in the Versailles Palace Hotel and Casino with her boyfriend, Bailey. Girls too young for the job, readily available cocaine, untrustworthy business partners, memories of a family tragedy and glammed-out Vegas goons make Chase's summer more stressful than he had hoped for as he attempts to finish a few paintings for a group gallery show. The novel is action-packed, though the character development—particularly with the women—is sometimes superficial. McGinniss (son of another Joe McGinnis you may have heard of) successfully gambles with the notion that whatever happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, but what does that mean for Chase and his plans to escape? (Jan.)
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From The Washington Post

Las Vegas seems the perfect setting for Joe McGinniss Jr.'s first novel: a portrait of teens and 20-somethings who value sheen over substance, sell out long-term potential for short-term perks, and gamble with their lives on hopes that are unlikely to materialize.

An art school drop-out, 25-year-old Chase is biding time as a high school teacher until he can meet up in California with girlfriend Julia, who is completing her MBA and already on the fast-track to success. But Chase is also hung-up on his childhood crush, Michele, now a Vegas call girl. When she and another childhood pal, Bailey, organize a teen prostitution ring in a Vegas suite, Chase finds himself the "delivery man," running girls to and from appointments -- some of them the girls he's taught in art class.

Though banally depraved, Chase's world isn't too far from everyday American culture, where sex and youth are major marketing commodities. These girls aspire to the glitz and glamour around them -- Audi convertibles and bigger breasts. If sex sells, why not just sell it? In one scene, teens giving each other manicures discuss how one girl "did it around the holidays so she could buy people really good presents."

But nothing is easy -- and not just because of the bleak amorality of teens selling themselves. Michele is running tricks off the books, courting serious payback. Chase is dodging one hooker's ill-tempered boyfriend and also trying to outrun an anguished past -- "eight years ago, the gray early morning, July, Bailey's bedroom, the body on the lawn." And his girlfriend choices carry high stakes. As a ubiquitous billboard reminds him: "What Kind of Man Are You?"

Remarkably, amid the schoolgirl sex and looming violence, the double-crossing and life-changing decisions, The Delivery Man often feels static. McGinnis, who inherited not just the name but the skill of his father, a bestselling true crime writer, keeps tensions mounting in small ways: Julia and Michele squaring off on first meeting, Michele fumbling through business talk with the MBA crowd, and those heartbreaking flashbacks. But Chase is just going around in circles -- his Mustang ferrying teens back and forth, his mind returning to that painful past and unpromising future -- and it's sometimes hard to separate his inertia from the story's. Still, the novel is, after all, about a group of people destined to go nowhere. And McGinnis charts that aimlessness with insight and dexterity. Dare I say it? The Delivery Man really delivers: grim, convincing and compelling.

Copyright 2008, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 276 pages
• Publisher: Grove/Atlantic, Black Cat (January 15, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802170420
• ISBN-13: 978-0802170422
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #108,445 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Life lesson: you might as well double cross your own posse before they double cross you, March 31, 2008

By	Jessica Lux (Rosamond, CA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Joe McGinnis Jr.'s debut novel follows a trio of childhood friends living fast in metropolitan Las Vegas. Narrator Chase is a young high school art teacher clinging to the last vestiges of respectability while a whirlwind of easy money and fast living lures him from the sidelines. Not surprisingly, in the opening chapters of the novel, Chase loses his day job after a fight with a student. He drifts aimlessly, refusing to officially commit to working for his pals Bailey and Michelle in their hotel suite prostitution operation. Nevertheless, he quickly falls into a role as a delivery man, ferrying around high school drop-out call girls in low-slung skinny jeans.

The world created by McGinnis is full of bright lights, easy money, and the temptation of double crossing your posse before they double cross you. The money available in internet escort prostitution is an irresistible temptation to the young girls in Chase's circle. The young adults in The Delivery Man are an exaggeration of a modern celebrity-obsessed MySpace-centric generation. Suburban kids might not form internet prostitution rings, but they share the same aspirations for a life of luxury and leisure.

This is a book about fallen angels and the pull between childhood habits and the potential for a new life. Chase is frustratingly distant as a narrator, which is representative of his own emotional reservations in life. The story is told as a montage of scenes interspersed with flashbacks to an adolescent tragedy. Author Joe McGinnis Jr. has crafted an unflinchingly gritty tale that captures a slice of modern drug-fueled youth culture.

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Review of The Delivery Man, December 10, 2007

By	Jonathan Parks (New Jersey) - See all my reviews

The Delivery Man, a novel by Joe McGiniss, Jr., is an unflinching, hardcore page-turner, about a twenty-something named Chase, who for a host of reasons, namely his own low self-image, finds himself sabotaging a promising career as an artist, and his relationship with his college sweetheart. Instead, Chase has chosen to align himself with some very questionable characters, as a driver/handler of young women in a call-girl ring.

The backdrop - the superficial glitz and glamour of Las Vegas, plays a major role in the novel , readily lending itself to the drugs, sex, violence, greed, deceit, and hopelessness that are so pervasive in these characters' lives. The reader of this novel will actively want to step in, and yank Chase from the slow freefall he is in until realizing that he has willingly trapped himself in this "unredemptive" underworld, and all anyone, including Chase, can do is to watch it play out.

If McGinniss' intention is to make us pause, and to examine some of society's lack of personal responsibility, and apathy toward fellow human beings, then he more than accomplishes his mission with this book. He puts an exclamation point on it! An extremely compelling, masterfully-written novel. I look forward to more to come from this author.

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Find Yourself Here - Bret Easton Ellis fans will love this book, December 10, 2007

By	book lover - See all my reviews

Wow. Not even sure what to say about this book - was a fast, fun documentary style read and I definitely enjoyed it!

This book is very visual - it reminds me somewhat of "Choke" by Chuck Palahniuk. That book had its share of fun, disgusting scenes - there is one that involves poo and beads, and I'll just leave it at that. Well "The Delivery Man" has scenes like that--kind of disturbing. But I'll admit it, these are the same scenes that while my first response was "eww," I then went right back to re-read them.