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Summary: The Language and the Plot Sing
Review: This book is a rare combination of genres, both literary and mystery, not unlike books by Raymond Chandler or Dashiell Hammett. The story centers around novelist Paul Dogolov, 48, who is stuck in his own existential hell. His wife recently left him with their two kids, he cannot write anymore, and memories of Vietnam haunt him. He decides to teach a writing class to prisoners at the local maximum-security prison on the edge of the Mojave Desert in California. The prisoners "must have interesting stories to tell, I reasoned. I wanted to get to know them and learn what it's like to have your freedom bounded by real walls instead of the walls inside your head."There, Dogolov falls for a female prison guard as well as for a story of innocence by one of the members of his prison writers group. The young man, Travis Wells, was convicted of murdering his grandfather, as well as his half-brother and -sister, with a baseball bat. Compelled to look into it in much in the same way he's drawn to the prison guard who soon spends the night, Dogolov finds himself in real trouble. He's investigating in Joshua Crest, a small desert town where the police, judges, and others don't want him nosing. Once Dogolov is caught up in the intrigue, the book is utterly brilliant. The tone reminds me of Dashiell Hammett's "Red Harvest," perhaps because the portrait of Joshua Crest is as bleak and compelling as Hammett's Poisonville, and the narrator is a kind of modern Continental Op, dark-humored, self-effacing, and in need of the truth--which is to say why I'm in awe. Each chapter ends with a dramatic punch, and the action is constantly engaging and just wonderfully odd and bold. For instance, when Travis's ex-girlfriend Millie decides to not only tell him of a motel but go there with him, I was on the edge. Who did she call? Was he going to get a slug from a .45? Then she strips because her costume chaffs. I love the sentence, "I ached for her, not only in a sexual way, but in the way you ache to come near to astounding art." Other lines spoke deeply to me, too, perhaps because of the way life's come at me. For instance: "I thought how rare it was even for the bravest not to be crushed and broken by the force of life...in jobs, marriages, relationships with children and friends; dreams; ideals." And the line: "There are small things in this life that are can openers to the soul." I teach English at Santa Monica College, and I'm going to assign this book next semester to help in my never-ending quest to have students discover that novels can be both engaging and enlightening.
Rating:
Summary: The Fat Lady Sang!
Review: This book was great! From the moment I started it I couldn't put it down. Paul Dogolov is a man who has many ghosts haunting him in his brain. He feels locked inside of a prison from many things that happened in his past. When he decides to teach a writing class in a maximum security prison to convicted killers he is swept up into a search for some meaning in both his life and theirs. Feeling that one of them may be innocent he takes it upon himself to try and solve the murder. From this point on hold on cause you are in for a non-stop ride till the very end. Full of twists and turns and non-stop edge of your seat suspense, this novel has it all. I laughed out loud, I held my breath and I felt much of Paul's pain as he tries to find both himself and a killer. Can't wait for more from the author!
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