Number 25 - Beasts of 42nd Street - Preston Fassel

 

The final book of my "New authors to me" theme i used for last month was this pretty looking offering from Cemetery Dance. I actually finished this on Tuesday, but life has gotten in the way and I've not had time to do the write up.

This is an intense and drug raddled, almost stream of consciousness, descent into the underworld of New York's 42nd Street. Andy Lew is a projectionist in a seedy cinema with a taste for extreme filmmaking.  He's a burnout with no soul any more. How much of that is the drugs, and how much is the film he watches obsessively every chance he gets featuring unspeakable acts of violence.

The book follows him over a few weeks in 1977 (and 65 in a flashback sequence) in which his life takes a nosedive from the depths it was already in. A crooked cop, small time thieves threatening his ownership of "Her" - the girl in his precious film - and the mysterious figure who gave him the film, all combine to drag him, and New York, into a maelstrom of violence and depravity. 

It's difficult to say much more about the plot without giving spoilers. The seedy underside of New York life is unflinchingly depicted in graphic detail. I've not read a book that dives this deep into this type of depravity since Stations of Shadow by J Daniel Stone.

There's not a single likeable character in this book, but that doesn't matter. Preston Fassel drags us through the dirty streets, shining his spotlight on the darkest corners of existence and we can't look away.  It's intense and unputdownable. He builds tension consistently and the third act is a suitably blood soaked and satisfying release.

I will certainly be tracking down more of his books.  Apparently Andy Lew is a minor character in his other works, given his own full novel here. I like when writers do worldbuilding of this type, and I want to learn more about this world in all its grime and violence.

Fassel is a hell of a writer. Rarely do I feel as repulsed and fascinated by the characters as I did in this book.

It's available through the Cemetery Dance website. Beasts of 42nd Street, by Preston Fassel: Cemetery Dance Publications

Number 56 - Money - Martin Amis

 

Back to books.

Normally, I only read horror novels in October, but this was my book group read, and I did start it in September. I finished it in the early hours of Saturday morning just gone so it took a while to read.

This book really stretches the limits of the boundaries between what's good writing and what's a fun read. If you're one of those readers who insists on having a likeable protagonist, don't even bother with this. 

The book follows John Self, a misogynistic, alcoholic. drug addicted asshole. He's been tasked with directing a film in Hollywood off the back of some controversial adverts he made in Britain. He spends the book flying back and forth between London and New York, spending more and more money, drinking, jerking off, reading porn and mistreating women.

He's quite simply one of the most repulsive narrators of any book I've ever read. 

The brilliance of the book is in the act of literary ventriloquism that puts us so firmly in his headspace. That headspace isn't somewhere that any sane person wants to be, but it's kind of addictive after a while. One of his few saving graces is that he's entirely self-aware of his faults is too weak to do anything about them without some outside agency. His weakness is also something he is keenly aware of.

The subtitle of the book is "A Suicide Note" so we know it's not going to go to a happy place at the end. Initially the situation seems quite unbelievable- why would anyone give this disaster of a man the responsibility, he's been given? And then the pieces start to slip into place as to what is actually happening. From that point on, I fhought it was compulsive reading, waiting for the fall that was looming ever closer.

The gradual reveal of the plot, told in a very close up first person through the eyes of someone who can't actually see it for himself is quite brilliant in my humble opinion.  

It's a difficult read.  I won't deny that.  I was the only member of the book group that finished it. his narrative voice was too much for the rest of the group and I understand completely why they didn't finish. I found it very funny though. The humour is as black as it's possible to get before it turns into something entirely different, so my love of dark fiction probably helped me get through it. 

There are bon mots galore in here if you go looking for them. One of my favorites was where he describes a body builder he sees in the street as "some track suited miracle of push-ups and alfalfa".

Frequently we're given his version of events and left to work out for ourselves how it looked to the rest of the world around him. The disconnect between his view and reality is both jarring and hilarious in equal measures.

Your mileage may vary on whether the inclusion of a writer with a very familiar name as a central character in the story is amusing or pretentious twaddle. 

It's broad satire on a particular subset of society in the 80s and I would like to hope they're consigned to history. But I look at modern day reports that the Bullingdon club still exists and is still up to its old tricks and I realise that these people might well be running the country at the moment... Please excuse the political digression.

It's a difficult book to love but an easy one to admire. I think it repays the effort required to read it in absolute spades. If you like a challenging read, go for it.  I don't blame you if you fail, but please, push through with it.  You might even find yourself feeling sorry for him by the end of the book as Amis manages to somewhat humanise this monster of a narrator.