Review: The Quitter

The Quitter

By Harvey Pekar

Published November 2005

Vertigo Press

104 pp.

ISBN 1-401-20399-3

Date reviewed: November 4, 2005

Originally reviewed in: The Daily Cardinal

He may not be a superhero, but in the field of independent comics Harvey Pekar is as much of an icon as Spiderman or the Fantastic Four. For close to 30 years Pekar’s chronicled life’s ups and downs in the autobiographical comic “American Splendor,” picking up on the odd behaviors of everyone around him and bemoaning everyday problems like car trouble.

Now, with the release of the graphic novel “The Quitter,” Pekar finally answers the question of what made him the comic hero he is today by chronicling his youth on the streets of Cleveland. Illustrated by “American Splendor” contributor Dean Haspiel, “The Quitter” proves it’s a strange trip to being a file clerk/comic book writer and there’s always something new to pick up on along the way.

As the title indicates, Pekar’s youth was filled with quitting – leaving the football team when he wasn’t made a starter, dropping out of college after a C+ on a geography test and leaving a mailman job over a crippling fear that he couldn’t tie a bundle of mail right. His self-doubt also pushes him back in life, with an inability to wash clothes leading to a massive panic attack and a discharge from the Navy.

Pekar heaps a bit of blame on himself as an “incorrigible screw-up,” but what is really clear in this book is outside origins of his problems. The fact that it’s a graphic novel as opposed to “American Splendor’s” loose stories means Pekar creates a strong sense of narration, pointing out how his intensely insecure mother and failure to handle mechanical tasks create his obstacles for years.

The narrative also makes the revelation that Pekar, who made his physical trials with chemotherapy and hip replacement a key point of “American Splendor,” was actually a feared street fighter in his youth. After watching Pekar get beat down by daily life for so long it’s comforting to see him take the advantage, and the moment where he takes his fighting a step too far is one of the most gripping panels in the whole book.

And there is a fair share of gripping panels, as Haspiel’s style of solid lines and shades of gray gives “The Quitter” a film noir atmosphere with plenty of shadows to hide doubt and self-loathing. Out of all the “American Splendor” artists Haspiel’s art is some of the cleanest and most flattering to Pekar, and is perfect for capturing Pekar’s bipolar youth – sardonic in one panel and sullen in the next.

But “The Quitter” isn’t solely about Pekar’s shifting moods and giving in to adversity. His lifelong love of jazz shines through in the book, and it’s clear as he recalls his record collecting and musical analysis he’s still just as interested in them 45 years later. What makes this interest so impressive in “The Quitter” is seeing that he had just as much reason to abandon it – critique from employers and disapproval from his parents – but he continued to write reviews, proving even a quitter can stay with something.

Concise and vivid, “The Quitter” is a worthy addition to Pekar’s canon, perfect for anyone who’s read an “American Splendor” comic or seen the film adaptation and wants to find out what shaped this working class hero. There may not be a happy ending to the story but the book still ends with a semi-uplifting message: no matter how bad things get, there’s always something down the road you may not screw up on.

Book Review: No Country for Old Men

No Country for Old Men

By Cormac McCarthy

Published July 2005

Knopf Publishers

320 pp.

ISBN 0-375-40677-5

Date reviewed: September 22, 2005

Originally appeared in: The Daily Cardinal

At first glance, there are a lot of reasons why the directing team of Joel and Ethan Coen have decided to direct an adaptation of “No Country for Old Men”, the first novel in seven years from author Cormac McCarthy. It has a distinctive cast of Vietnam veteran, Mexican hitman and straightforward sheriff; dialogue that’s instantly quotable and a setting that begs for expansive camera angles.

More than that, “No Country for Old Men” follows one key theme the Coens touched on in “Fargo”: a lot can happen in the middle of nowhere. In McCarthy’s case, nowhere is his stomping ground of southern Texas and what happens is a drug deal gone bad with $2.4 million recovered among the corpses by Vietnam vet Llewelyn Moss.

After seven years McCarthy’s returned to the landscape he visited in “All the Pretty Horses”, but this time his tight and natural prose is aimed at achieving pure suspense. McCarthy doesn’t waste time with rambling speeches and run-on sentences, putting the whole story in a present tense where there’s no time to think before the next thing happens. The only extra details are what a person would see at first glance before they move on to something else.

The vividness of McCarthy’s style contributes a lot to his three main characters, who in the hands of a lesser writer could be reduced to stereotypes of running man and psychopath. Moss moves across the state like a drifter, noticing nothing beyond what he needs to survive, while pursuing hitman Chigurh can spend pages examining details such as the smell of milk and dust near the airvent.

Although Sheriff Bell comes in as after Moss and Chigurh and spends the whole book trying to catch up with their body count, his presence somehow bears more weight than either one. Every section of the book is opened with his reflections on topics such as World War II, law enforcement technology and death row, evoking the image of an old man with his pipe on the front porch explaining a long-lost tale to his grandchildren.

While he goes off on a tangent at the beginning of sections Bell wastes no time getting information out of his officers, a drive McCarthy applies to every conversation in the book. Dialogue can go on for pages and pages with barely any details of the outside world, and while readers may have to count lines to figure out who said what it feels so much like movie dialogue the Coens may not even need a rewrite.

Unfortunately, by the end of the book it’s clear that the speed of bloodshed and heartache has drained Bell of his spirit, and once again McCarthy seems to share his protagonist’s viewpoint. There’s no great shoot-out confrontation between main characters described in action and a lot of questions are left unresolved at the very end. McCarthy may be saving up for a sequel, but his sudden tired attitude throws a wrench in the book’s close.

The weak ending can’t offset the sense of satisfaction this book provides, however, as McCarthy has brought life and death into focus better than most writers in years. He’s written a story readers can’t help but finish – and with a sharp cast and natural language, a story the Coens can’t help but have a field day with on film.

(Editor’s note: I was beyond pleased to see that my precognition was successful for this one – I caught the fact that the Coens had optioned the film early on and used it as the hook for my ‘Big Lebowski’ and ‘Fargo’-viewing audience of college students, convinced it was going to be an excellent film. Of course I didn’t see the Oscar coming, but everything I said here – two and a half years later – was dead-on in my humble estimation.)

Book Review: Cast of Shadows

Cast of Shadows

By Kevin Guilfoile

Published March 2005

Knopf Publishers

336 pp.

ISBN 1-400-04308-5

Date reviewed: April 6, 2005

Originally appeared in: The Daily Cardinal

In his debut novel “Cast of Shadows,” Kevin Guifoile has passed the test for detail but failed the test for consistency. Embarking on a surreal story of cloning and murder, he comes close to brilliance several times but forces too many scenarios on his audience, distracting them from what is important.

Davis Moore is a Chicago fertility doctor who embarks on a twisted experiment when his daughter is brutally raped and murdered. Consumed by grief he takes the killer’s DNA and impregnates one of his patients to create Justin Finn, a young boy who will one day give him the clue he desperately needs.

True to form Justin becomes a teenager with staggering intelligence, smart enough to track down his predecessor – but also showing obsessions with fire and animals that betray a darker undercurrent. As he grows up he leads Moore down roads he did not anticipate, forcing his “father” to ask questions and reach conclusions he never wanted.

The plot sounds like something out of the latest Robert DeNiro movie – complete with the obligatory creepy child – but unlike these films “Cast of Shadows” has a surprising level of detail. Guilfoile has clearly done his homework on medical research, making Moore’s cloning techniques and supporting speeches sound real. Justin displays all the right behaviors for a killer-in-training, studying behaviors and murder scenes like a forensics expert.

Unfortunately, this level of detail is not balanced with the plot, as Guilfoile goes off on so many different directions you have a hard time figuring out which ideas are more important. He seems so caught up in making a complex thriller that he brings in every angle – conflicted cops and detectives, small-town athletes and kinky sex – trying to make every paragraph an adventure.

The large amount plots and characters feels more like excess than adventure however, making the story feel unbalanced. A terrorist known as Mickey the Gerund is an excellent villain – pious and professional – but only makes guest appearances every ten or so chapters. Conversely, a virtual reality game known as Shadow World dominates the second half of the story, making fake lives more important than finding a real killer.

The confusion of the main plots is only made worse by the fact that every character in the book has their own subplot of misery. Moore becomes bitter and quiet as time goes on, and his pill-popping wife has more mental problems than the killers. A private eye called Sally Barwick has borderline pedophiliac dreams about Justin, and Justin’s mother Martha drives away everyone around her.

The book manages to command the reader’s attention but it sometimes feels like an obligation – you have invested so much time and effort into it that you need to know how it closes. In this case Guilfoile has certainly made the bad horror movie mistake, creating an ending that tries to be a dramatic turn but makes nine-tenths of the book – subplots and all – seem like a waste.

Past the halfway point in the book Moore reads a mystery novel he calls “terrible and exciting”, a phrase that comes close to summarizing “Cast of Shadows”. Its descriptions and scenarios are done well but done too much, leaving anyone who reads it confused about their final reaction.

Book Review: Puff

Puff: A Novel

By Bob Flaherty

Published February 2005

Harper Perennial

288 pp.

ISBN 0-060-75152-5

Date reviewed: March 10, 2005

Originally reviewed in: The Daily Cardinal

Two brothers in 1970’s Boston learned the location of high-quality pot only one town away. The catch? It’s the middle of a fierce winter blizzard and no cars are allowed on the highway. The solution? Disguise their ancient van as a Red Cross truck. The next catch? People think they really are the Red Cross—and want their help.

This crisis sets the stage for Bob Flaherty’s “Puff,” a hilarious and gripping story about two young men approaching the turning point. John and his brother Gully have been drifting through life for years, unable to focus on jobs or family for more than five minutes. Driving through the snow in pursuit of an ounce of Dominican Sin they uncover childhood friends and memories, thrown on a road that pushes them to adulthood by the end.

The focus of the story is on John and Gully, and Flaherty portrays it with startling familiarity. The conversations the two have are some of the funniest moments in the story and any set of brothers will be able to identify with their dynamic; mostly jokes and insults, with an occasional serious comment neither wants to think about for too long.

Flaherty infuses the story with amazing character development. He scatters key figures from the brothers’ childhood across the snow; including John’s childhood crush Dally, the ominous priest at the local church and their homicidal family cat, Puff.

John’s artistic mind picks up the best parts—he describes the priest’s “cold, penetrating, silver-blue bloodshot eyes” and Puff’s (assumed) goal to dice apart the family and drag them behind the couch. Every character seems like a person or pet that could be right next door.

Flaherty draws heavily on his background as a cartoonist and comedian, sprinkling the whole book with keen jokes and observations. Both John and Gully spend the book laughing at everything—even while their mother suffers from cancer—and most readers will be in the same hysterical state when Gully ruins an Army interview or John blows a backseat encounter by discussing comic books.

Some of the best memories stand out free from the narrative, such as when the boys’ mother has an illustrated story rejected by the publishers and when the brothers tear apart their father’s shop with their mentally disabled friend Ward. These chapters can all be read as independent short stories without the story’s narrative tying them together, making “Puff” an excellent book to pick up when reading time is short.

“Puff” is an excellent novel of young adulthood and family, a collection of short stories tied together by the hunt for a promised high. Flaherty pulls in hundreds of little details and anecdotes, blending skeletons with racism and religion with moles to write one of the smoothest books in years.

Book Review: The Godfather Returns

The Godfather Returns

By Mark Winegardner

Published November 2005

Random House

448 pp.

ISBN 1-400-06101-6

Date Reviewed: December 1, 2005

Originally reviewed in : The Daily Cardinal

It’s impossible to overexaggerate the effect “The Godfather” has had on popular culture. Mario Puzo’s tale of Vito Corleone and his son Michael perfectly balanced the Mafia’s violence with the virtues of family, inspired two Oscar-winning films and made phrases such as “An offer he can’t refuse” part of the American dictionary.

When Puzo’s estate announced they were contracting Mark Winegardner to write a sequel, fans were understandably nervous. The original was considered so innovative that any sequel could, by comparison be as bad as the infamous “Godfather III”. Those fears prove only half true: while Winegardner’s “The Godfather Returns” does not equal its predecessor’s greatness, it is a well-written and suspenseful tale of mob intrigue.

The book fills in the gaps between the three movies, following Michael’s efforts to bring the Corleone family into the legitimate businesses of Las Vegas. To do so, he needs to maneuver his enemies into destroying themselves, but creates a more dangerous enemy in Nick Geraci, an ambitious Corleone capo with reasons to resent Michael. The unspoken battle between the two triggers a series of events that will reach all the way to Cuba and the presidential office.

Winegardner displays these events seamlessly, evolving each character with an attention to detail and dialogue strikingly similar to Puzo’s. Geraci’s introduction in the first chapter – culminating with the never before seen execution of the traitor Tessio – shows that a dangerous new character equaling Michael’s strength is on the rise. Well-known characters are given room to expand as well: Michael’s adopted brother and consigliere Tom Hagen moves into a Senate career, while the weak-willed Fredo Corleone has his treason in “Godfather II” fully explained by Geraci’s manipulations.

The book revolves around Michael however, and every inch of his ruthless brilliance is pushed to the forefront. None of his plans are made without harming at least three of his enemies, and any threats to his power – such as Geraci being related to the Cleveland boss – are handled with remarkable foresight. Michael’s early childhood and war career are examined for the first time, his conflicts with Vito are dramatic, chronicling his futile attempt to escape the family business.

The problem in the book is that between Michael’s professional and personal families, there are so many subplots that before the halfway point it all meshes together. Winegardner has a challenge keeping all the marriages and alliances straight, making a cast of characters at the beginning of the book invaluable. A plot where Michael’s niece Francesca deals with a cheating husband isn’t developed fully, while Chicago don Louie Russo is pushed off to the side despite being mentioned as the biggest professional threat to Michael.

Part of the excess comes from Winegardner’s attempt to weave the Corleone family into American history by having them associate with mob-connected figures from the fifties. Caricatures of the Kennedys and Frank Sinatra manifest themselves as ex-bootlegger Mickey Shea and Vegas singer Johnny Fontane. Their insertion seems awkward when placed against the likes of Michael and Geraci.

Despite these missteps however, the sheer mythos of the Godfather saga manages to permeate the novel and instill it with the story’s famous tension. In the book’s most dynamic chapter, at an induction ceremony for new members of the Family, Michael walks down the line expressing the principles that have governed the Corleone family since its inception: loyalty, family, and honor. As Michael inherited the ideals from his father, Winegardner inherits them from Puzo to create a surprisingly impressive addition to the Godfather saga.

Book Review: The Warlord’s Son

The Warlord’s Son

By Dan Fesperman

Published Sepember 2004

Knopf Publishers

336 pp.

ISBN 0-3754-1473-2

Date reviewed: November 5, 2004

Originally reviewed in: The Daily Cardinal

When Sept. 11 happened, the spotlight of the world was suddenly thrown on the Mideast nation of Afghanistan. The Taliban ruling class was suddenly our sworn enemies, and a declaration of war threw the entire nation into chaos. Dan Fesperman manages to capture that chaos in his novel “The Warlord’s Son,” painting the turmoil and squalor of a war-torn nation – and two men caught in its tempest – with startling imagery and sympathy.

The novel opens only weeks after the attacks of September 11, attacks that have taken burned-out reporter Stan Kelly (“Skelly”) back into the field of war journalism he thought he’d left behind. Dropped into the slums of Peshawar, a Pakistan town serving as a launch pad for journalists and militants, he makes the acquaintance of Najeeb Azem, an American-educated guide who has been exiled by his chieftain father.

Seeing an opportunity, Skelly and Najeeb join up with the army of Mahmood Razaq, an aspiring warlord looking to reclaim parts of Afghanistan from the Taliban. But this journey is filled with peril for both men, with the eyes of a shadowy intelligence agency and American corporate representatives turned on the results. Rival chieftains and conspiracies soon take control, leading both men on a path through Afghanistan’s winding mountain ranges and to a final destination that can spell either salvation or death.

Fespersman worked as a correspondent in Afghanistan during the war, and his familiarity with the land comes out very clearly. His focus on the minute details of the villages and slums, noticing the ever-present dust clouds, hundreds of people clogging the alleys and the smoke of burning tires from brick kilns. Fesperman shows off the horrors of war as well, with beggars crawling on leg stumps due to landmines and men with AK-47s on virtually every corner.

Familiarity with the land is vital for a book like this, but the real force of the book comes with Fesperman’s descriptive language. From the first paragraph, where sunrise in Peshawar is described as “an egg-white smear that brightens the eastern horizon behind a veil of smoke, exhaust and dust” there is a poetic aspect to the book that only adds to the foreign air of the Middle East.

Molotov cocktails release “an orange genie of heat and flame,” rocky hills have a “molten copper glow” and Skelly’s troubled stomach is a “thermal spring of bubbling mud.” The poeticism of these statements adds a polish to the bleakness of Pakistan and Afghanistan, while at the same time preserving the image of a discordant world.

The country may seem like an additional character at times, but the real art in this book is the characters of Najeeb and Skelly. Fesperman takes a personal look into the minds of both these men, studying their personal conflicts and the strides they make to overcome them. Skelly’s reporter gradually awakens as the journey continues, risks taking a backseat to his hunt for the story of a lifetime.

Najeeb struggles valiantly with his demons, going above feelings of isolation from his homeland to build bridges between Skelly and the world he himself is no longer part of. By bringing these men together, Fesperman puts together a portrait of war and chaos that is startlingly real, giving a glimpse of a conflict few have the tenacity to approach.