Friday's Forgotten Book: Since the Layoffs

I have no idea if anyone is even still doing the whole forgotten book thing, but I want to mention Iain Levinson's 2003 novel Since the Layoffs. I'd heard good things about it, and there's been a copy on the shelf of my neighborhood used bookstore for at least a year, so I brought it home last week.

Levinson's novel may not have had much resonance when it was published because in 2003 homeless people were making down payments on million dollar homes with spare change and everyone was going to be rich, rich, rich forever. A novel about an laid off factory worker in an anonymous Midwestern town who turns to contract killing to fill the void once filled by his job might not have seemed all that relevant when the unemployment rate was four percent. Now that it's nearer to 10 percent (and a little over 10 percent here in Georgia), Levinson's story of blue collar angst hits a little close to home, even for those of us who have it pretty good. I think we're all a little more cognizant of the fragility of our situations.

Levinson's no Westlake. Since the Layoffs is not as good as The Ax, but Layoffs was Levinson's first novel, so it's probably unfair to compare the two books despite their thematic similarity. Levinson does a great job getting into the mind of his unemployed character, though, and portraying the reality and desperation of a man without a job. Everyone has to do something, and a man who doesn't have anything to do starts to feel desperate, more for existential reasons than for financial ones. When the local bookie asks unemployed Jake the chance to kill the bookie's cheating wife, Jake is initially repulsed, but relents, as much for the opportunity to feel useful again as for the money the job will bring. Killing is liberating for Jake, more for psychological reasons then pecuniary ones. And killing people is work. Jake has to deal with incompenent help and unexpected complications, but the lack of glamour doesn't bother him. It is a job after all. It's Jake's work ethic that gets him through, and that's why, even though he's a killer, you'll pull for him.

Brick

Things have been quiet here lately. I've been really, really busy, and that's been paying off, but I haven't had a whole lot of time to read lately. I did, however, get around to watching Brick, the high school film noir from 2005. I had been putting off watching this film because, despite the praise it's received, it seemed like an idea that could easily go wrong. I sat down really wanting to like it, and the good news is I did. Going in I didn't know how putting noir style dialogue in the mouths of high school students would work out, but writer/director Rian Johnson made it work.

The film starts with a note slipped into a locker, which leads to a phone call, where the hero Brendan tells his ex-girlfriend it's been two-months when she opens the conversation by noting that it's been a long time since they'd seen each other. It's a great touch. In high school, two months is an eternity, and it works. The young actors all sell it, and when the movie has its ridiculous moments, like when Brendan and local drug dealer "The Kingpin" sit awkwardly and wait for the Kingpin's mom to leave the room so they can talk, the levity is intentional, and serves to underscore the fact that parents are often either completely oblivious to their teenagers' more adult proclivities or willingly turn a blind eye to them.

Overall this film hit pretty close to home in a lot of respects. I identified a lot with Brendan, a teenage loner who spends his time reading behind the school. I spent the last two years of high school sitting in the hall reading, and occasionally going to class, when I wasn't getting high. Speaking of which, Brick's depiction of a teenage drug underworld, while exaggerated, isn't that far off the mark. Overall, I think that's why the movie worked. It was rooted in reality.

Wednesday Paperback Cover

At least try to look interested, ladies.

Wednesday Paperback Cover

Not the U.K. title, I'm guessing.

More on Tyrus books

The Tyrus Books homepage has Ben LeRoy speaking about his new venture. Here is Alison Janssen sharing her thoughts.

Tyrus Books

It looks like Ben LeRoy and his editor Alison Janssen of Bleak House are striking out on their own to form a new publishing house, Tyrus Books. LeRoy sold Bleak House to Big Earth Publishing in 2005. There's a lot more information at Sarah Weinman's blog. All I have time to say about the news right now is, huh. That's interesting.

Wednesday Paperback Cover

Drop her.

Review of Hard Feelings

You can divide Jason Starr's novels pretty easily into his early work and his later, more commercial work. His earlier novels are noir stories of doomed characters who are painfully oblivious to their own inevitable destruction, while his more recent work has been more slick and commercial, even if he hasn't quite been able to bring himself to write a happy ending yet. Fake I.D. (Hard Case Crime, 2009) is Starr's third novel, coming between Nothing Personal, and the award winning Hard Feelings, the novel that put Starr on the map. It definitely belongs to Starr's early period.

Fake I.D., which has never appeared in the U.S. before, has a lot in common with Hard Feelings, but it's not quite as accomplished. Tommy Russo is a bartender who wants to be an actor and has a gambling problem. When he is approached by an acquaintance about joining a syndicate to purchase a race horse, he jumps at the chance. Only, Tommy doesn't have the ten thousand dollars needed for the buy in. To get it, he will betray everyone who trusts him.

Russo, unlike Richie Segal in Hard Feelings, does not garner any sympathy from the reader. In Hard Feelings, Segal's downward spiral is precipitated by a face to face encounter with an old acquaintence who molested him. Russo, on the other hand, is narcissistic to a frightening extent without any mitigating factors. He is so repellant that he may make some readers uncomfortable, which is not a criticism, so much as it is a recognition of the fact that Starr is really very good at getting inside the heads of abberant individuals. It's not too difficult to see why this novel would have made U.S. publishers squirm.

Wednesday Paperback Cover

After years of study, I have come to the conclusion that crime fiction authors are right about blondes: They're all trouble.

Wednesday Paperback Cover

Yeah, I just snagged this off James Reasoner's blog, because 1. It's cool. 2. I'm lazy, and 3. It gives me a chance to remind you that you really ought to read this book if you haven't already.