The Disappearing Body

Rating:
Summary: gritty but a little too opaque
Review: David Grand's noir mystery, set in the period between the two world wars, has a complexity of plot and character that makes James Ellroy's novels look like "Dick and Jane" stories. The trouble is that there's no real pay-off at the conclusion to justify the effort the reader needs to make to keep straight the various subplots. Indeed, the argument could be made that the book lacks a plot at all and consists merely of a complex system of subplots. Perhaps this is what readers and reviewers mean when they refer to the work as somehow "postmodern." It lacks a center.

Rating:
Summary: An Heir to Hammet & Ellroy?
Review: I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It's drenched in dark Dashiell Hammett atmosphere but written with the fearless storytelling vigor of James Ellroy and, perhaps most appropriately, the clever joy of the likes of Jonathan Lethem (who has a great quote on the back of the book). The combination of all these things actually reminded me most of Nathanael West, of Miss Lonelyhearts and the Day of the Locust, but this is a much bigger book than either of those, much more elaborately plotted (a la Ellroy). I was worried that it was going to get too long, feel too thick and heavy, but there's a constant humor that keeps it lively and its filled with many different characters and plot twists, which gets pretty complicated but not actually confusing, mostly because none of the characters and storylines feel interchangeable --- they're all distinct and suspenseful in their own way.

The book is set in an unnamed city (that's a lot like New York) in the 1930s, just after Prohibtion. The Mob is just beginning to explore heroin trafficking as a way to replace their illegal liquor profits, and all of the politicians are more obsessed with Communism or anti-Communism. The three main characters are Freddy Stillman, who witnesses a murder but the body disappears before the police show up; Victor Ribe, who served in World War I with Freddy and at the beginning of the book is mysteriously released from prison; and Harry Shortz, who runs the Narotics Bureau but wants to be in politics and is set up for a fall. All their stories intertwine in a way that reminded me of the movie Traffic --- they're both about politics and drugrunning, and they're assembled in similar ways --- but Traffic if Quentin Tarantino had worked on the screenplay and Weegee had been cinematographer... that's not really fair, because if it feels like a movie, it feels more like classic '40s film noir.

It does sort of feel like a period piece, which I don't usually like, but it works here, probably because the city is never named so it doesn't feel like a history lesson. It's fun and serious at the same time. I highly recommend to anyone interested in contemporary writing who still likes a book to have a plot, especially a suspenseful plot.

Rating:
Summary: What a Masterpiece
Review: Like Luc Sante, Leonard Gardner (Fat City) and James Ellroy, David Grand knows what makes us so weak and fallible. His ability to stare into our core, while weaving an amazing story is what makes him such a force in contemporary fiction. That, and his fierce, funny imagination solidify him as my favorite writer writing today. The Disappearing Body has everything a perfect noir should have and more. I don't think I've had this much fun with a book in years.