I'm starting to feel a little like a curmudgeon. Here's another novel that's been very well-received, is very well-written (with a few exceptions), and ought to be a book that I like a lot. But I'm not sure . . .
To get the quibbles out of the way quickly, yes, there are a few glaring anachronisms, as other readers have pointed out. One that Bill didn't mention is the misuse of the term "dime novel", which refers to a very specific type of publication and not one that would have been likely to be lying around an apartment in 1950. Not impossible, of course, but not likely. However, such mistakes are only apparent to a small percentage of readers, and I'm sure I've unwittingly been responsible for my own share of such errors in my books.
In his comment on my post about James Sallis's DRIVE, Mark Terry mentions forward momentum in fiction. DOPE certainly has plenty of that. In fact, it's one of the most compulsively readable books I've encountered recently. It kept me flipping the pages just like the old Gold Medals it resembles. Gran paints a very vivid picture of New York City's lost souls and the world they inhabit. I liked the characters and the setting (or at least, I liked the way Gran handled them -- likable characters they ain't, for the most part), and the plot, while pretty simple, had just enough twists to remain interesting all the way through. But in the end the whole thing just didn't ring true for me, and I hate to say that because at times I thought this might be the best book I've read so far this year.
1 comment:
It is sad because I am finding more and more books, and films, that can be described perfectly by your last lines of this review. Makes you wonder what, if anything, stopped the editor, director, etc. from taking a step back and giving everything that little bit extra that would have turned it from good to great.
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